Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 34, no. 872: November 29, 1884

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November 20, 1884 1 he Kecord and Uuide. 1195 THE RECORD AND GUIDE. Published every Saturday. 191 Broadway, N. Y. TEKMS: 0»E ¥E.\R, m advance, SIX DOLLARS. Communicatioua should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. NOVEMBER 29, 1884. We have been expecting a belter feeling in the stock market just ."3 sooQ as tlie corn crop would commence to move, and in spite of railway wars aud tlio cutting cf passenger fares stocks have advanced duriug the past week, and, with occasional reactions, will, we think, continue to advance. We expect also to see better prices for wheat and cotton and a more active demand and better prices for staple goods. But the liquidation that commenced in 18S1 has not yet run its courae, 1885 will see a great deal of distress among manufacturers and the working classes. Failures in general business will be very common, but we believe that our railway system has seen the worst, and western farmers who have not become involved in land speculation will be far better off at the end of this crop year than they were at the beginniug. Last week we ventured to predict that the football contest between Yale and Princeton, on Tlianksgiving Day, would turn out to be r more dangerous and debasing exhibition than any "slugging" match ever held in New York city; and so it proved. More botlily hai'm was done than it would be possible to accomplish in a score of boxing exhibitions at Madison Square Grarden. Aside from the cruel and unnecessary wounds inflicted, the bad blood and squabbling on tho ground was disgraceful in the extreme. If the Grand Jury had reason to indict the backers of the slugging exhibitions, in which no one was seriously injured, why do they not bring in true bills against Presidents Porter and McCosb, of Yale and Princeton Colleges? Ic does not help tbe matter tbat the patrons of Sullivan ard his competitors are generally a disrepu¬ table lot, and that the enormous crowd on tbe Polo grounds whs composed of the very clilc of our fashionable aud educated classes. Indeed it makes the matter all tbe woree. Brutality is a far more serious offense in the latter class thsn in tbe formsr. If these football matches are to continue the polico have no business to interfere with the far more harmless contests of the professional pugilists. ----------•---------- Mayor Edson it not ending his official career with credit to him¬ self. His straining of a legal point to deprive the incoming Maj^or of important appointments cannot be .iustified on any p'.ea of the public good, while his discourtesy to Mayor-elect Grace is manifest. The persons be has appointed for Police Commissioners are not fit for their positions "End seem to have been chosen in the interest of Johnny " O'Brien. We have tried to do justice to Mayor Edson during bis official career, but we can find no justification for his recent action in appointing French and McClave as Police Commis¬ sioners. He has the undisputed right to appoint a Commissioner of Public Works and a Corporation Attorney, and no one could blame him if be chose for those positions two of his own political and personal friends, provided they were honest and competent, but be should not have meddled with the Police Commissioners. But how strangely things come about: Governor Cleveland vetoed the tenure of office bill, the only reform measure be failed to approve, to save his most influential backer at Chicago, Hubert O. Thompson, but the latter will after all lose liis position, when, had the tenure of office bill been approved, he might possibly have been re-appointed by the incoming Mayor. The President-elect will be forced to provide for Mr. Thompson, a tbing which will not look very well among the first acts of a reform President. Pending the local election we wondered why it was that "Johnny " O'Brien deliberately handed over the city government to the political opponents of the Kepublican party. As the Demo¬ cratic vote of 133,000 was almost evenly divided between Tammany and the County Democracy, it was clear that the Republicans, who had polled 90,000 for Blaine, could have elected their entire county and judiciary ticket. That party could have bad the Mayor, Comptroller, president of the Board of Aldermen, and all :he judges chosen. They would also have had control for the com- ng two years of the Commission of Estimates and Apportionment, 1 lut O'Brien for private reasons of his own deliberately threw the city I ilection into tbe bands of the Democrats, although a strong local , ;icket would have helped the Blaine vote. It seems tbat the '] Republican party of this city exist for the benefit of the machine of which Mr. O'Brien is tbe bead. There must be tens of thou¬ eands of Republicans who are incensed at this treachery of their leader, but in all the multiplicity of daily papers, tbere is uot one ihat bas voiced their indignation. Is not this Theodore Roosevelt's chance? Why should he not do in New York what Mayor Low bas dono in Brooklyn, that is, bead the young men and honest men of all parties for an attack upon the corrupt political machines now under the control of our local politicians, the most utterly consciencelsss and despicable of which is tho one engineered by "Johnny" O'Brien. The Philadelphia Water Department, under tbe advico of Prof Albert R. L'?eds, the chemist of the Stevens lastitute, is trying an e.xperiment wbich wo commend to the attention of our Aqueduct Commission. The Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, upon which the Quaker City depends for ils drinking water, have become fouled by the sewerage and waste of the cities and factories on their banks. To bring purer wt'ter from a distance would be a work of lime and great expense, bo a process koown as aeriation is being tested. This is simply tho forcing of air into the water. The oxygen thus sup¬ plied converts the pollutions into harmless oxidized products and the wholesomeness of water is thus restored. It ia hy this procesa that water is naturally purified. A running stream rids itself of impurities by contact with changing air. Tbe Thames, for instance, which is foul because of the sewerage of Loudon, purifies itself by aeriation so thoroughly that in ten miles below that city ii; is suffi ciently oxygenized for drinking purposes. Why should not tbis hint be taken by our Aqueduct Conimission Why go to enormous expense to exclude the health-giving oxygen and confine the water in its passage all the way from Croton Lake to the city of New York ? True, tbe water is exposed to the air in tbe reservoirs, but standing water stagnates; it should bo kept in motion to become pure. Of course, the plans for tbe aqueducts already made involve tbe exclusion of light and air from the water but in view of recent knowledge on this subject it is a stupid and a costly blunder to enclose the water the entire distance. The Cattle Ranch Speculation. We are rarely without an active speculation m some specialty in this country. Now the fever breaks out in stocks, then in grain or cotton, and further along iu mining or petroleum ; but the specu¬ lative fever of the immediate future promises to be in the shares of ranch companies owning pasture and stock in the Far West. As this new development of speculative enterprise affects land, hith¬ erto almost unsalable, it is a matter which should be seriously con¬ sidered by tbe real estate interests of this city, and especially by the promoteis of the Eeal Estate Exchange, which is to be opened early in 1885, It has been well known that cattle raising iu the extreme West has been a lucrative business for many years past. As tbe pasture on government land has cost little or nothing, a four-year old steer could be raised in Texas for less tban iJ4. At the railway station it would sell for from §18 to '$20. If driven north from Texas through the Indian Territory, aud fed for a season in the pastures of tho middle and upper zones of the West, the cattle would almost double in value, and would get rid of the fever whicli is almost universal iu the Texas herds. This profitable business has created a class of cattle kings who are uow consolidating their power by organizing into great corporations, owning multitudes of herds and controlling vast quantities of pasture land from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canada borders. But the cattle interests just now find themselves embarrassed. The country has been settled to a certain extent. Farmers and railroads have encroached upon their free pastures. The settlers in Kansas object to having droves of cattle sent through their private property. The demand is made that the cattle be transported by rail, but this is objected to because the Texas fever clings to the animal unless it is driven gradually north, and its condition naturally improved by the change of climate, food and water, Po tbe cattle kings have been holding great conventions iu Chi¬ cago and St. Louis. Tbey are not at all modest. They ask tlio government to befriend them—to assign them lands.free ol cost— to give (hem lakes and rivers for watering their stock; b^jt tho boldest deniand of all is for a great free cattle trail len miles wide and extending from Central Texas to the Canada frontier. There is to be a powerful lobby iu Wasbiugton this winter to urge upon Congress legislative patronage for thi^ great catlio interest: but these great rjuich corporations have a grievance agamst the rail¬ ways and a just one. The latter have discjiminated against the eastern-bound dressed beef sent in refrigerator cars. The trans¬ portation of live cattle is most protitable to railroad companies, and one of the perquisites of their managers is their personal interests in stock yards and abattoirs on the ALlauLic coast. The cattlemen declare that they must have justice in rates on dressed beef. If they should win it would be a great ailvautage to tbe Eastern people, who will be thus enabled to use the comparatively i