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September 26, 1885 The Record and Guide. 1047 in aU probahiUty a better price for his property and have saved his attorney's fee. Ko-Ko. Title Insurance. New York, September 23, 1885. Editor Record and Guide: In your editorial columns of last Satm'day's issue you say, very prop¬ erly, in referring to the improvements that are needed to facUitate reaj estate transfers, that "dealers must come with guaranteed titles so that transactions raay be closed immediately," and add that " it would be weU if some title guarantee company were in the position to insure the property that may be offered in the Exchange." You could have gone further and said that the Title Guai'antee and Ti'ust Company is already in a position to insure the titles offered, and has done so again and again, both in the new Exchange and in the old, and always with the same result—a saving in annoyance, time and ultimate cost to the pur¬ chasers, and a decided enhancement in price to the sellers. The sale of the Fox estate last October, the sale of the executors of John McConvUl last May, the sales of the receiver of the Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company in Brooklyn last AprU and May, and many others have made complete demonstration of the proposition advanced by your editorial that to enable the new Exchange to effectually accomplish its objects the property offered should be sold with title insured. The same principle has been applied wifch the same results to improved property both on the floor of the Exchange and at private sale. A notable recent example is the rapid sale of the fiffceen houses on Seventy-fifth street, now being offered by Mi\ W. J. Merritt, who tenders with his deed at his expense a title policy of this company, guaranteeing the pm'chaser fco the amount of the pui'chase price. A single examination by an independent authority "carries the whole fifteen houses into the hands of the respective owners, and they save at least 6150 each m expenses at the outset. It costs the owner a little raore, but it sells the houses, and he saves the additional expense twice over in interest. The additional remark in your editorial above referred to, that a title insurance company like this is an enemy to legislation reforming the registi'y laws, entirely misconceives the true relation of the various interests. Nothing can be of greater value to this company thau the simpUfication of the wretched land laws now existing, so as to get rid of the complicated liens that make insurance of title so fuU of risk and yet so necessary for the safety of owners or lenders. The simpler the record the safer wiU be the business of title insurance. But, however simple the record, insurance wiU still be necessary, and if every reform proposed by the Land Transfer Reform Commission were accompUshed to-day, or were the new indexes which this company is endeavoring—against the determined opposition of the official searchers^to make completed, dealers on the fioor of the Exchange would stUl be met wifch fche question, '' Does the chain of title, now so easUy ascertained, raake a good title in law ?' Until some professional authority is set up to put its seal on the answer to this question, and make the title pass current, there wiU still be the same delays, confusion and duplication of expenses. This is the province of title insurance and a proper aud legitUuate field for corporate enterprise. It simply offers to the real estate interest an oppor¬ tunity to abandon here, as they have elsewhere, a system that requires a property to pay again as often as it Ls dealt in for work which it has already paid for perhaps fifty times before, for a system that makes thafc examina¬ tion once for aU, if anything with greater care, and guarantees the result wifch a paid-up insurance fund. Title Guarantee and Trust Co., 55 Liberty street, New York, New Book on Real Estate.* conveyances. This is the title or topic of the ninth volume of that exceUent encyclo¬ pedia of practical use, the " Federal Decisions," edited by Mr. WUUam G. Myer, and pubUshed by the Gilbert Book Company, of St. Louis, Mo. This volume is full of the raost valuable information for the daily use of business meu, and especially of all who deal in real estate. It contains tho cases argued and determined hi the Supreme, Cu-cuit and District Courts of the United States, comprising the opinions of those courts from the time of their organization to the present date, together with exti'acts from the opin¬ ions of the Court of Claims and the Attorney-General, and the opinions of general importance of the territorial courts on the whole subject of convey¬ ances, comprising deeds, their form and execution, delivery and acceptance, registration and notice, validity, operation and construction, and proof of deeds. Then all about mortgages and foreclosures and deficiency judg- mer^t; also trust deeds, which are equitable mortgages; and especially the whole subject of raUroad mortgages, and bonds and coupons, receivers' debts and certificates. The volume concludes with a full statement of the decisions of the aforesaid courts on the law of chattel mortgages. This particular volume of the " Federal Decisions " is edited by Leonard A. Jones, Esq., of Bosfcon, the weU-known author of several treatises on mortgages. It is a handsomely printed and bound royal octavo of 900 pages, and worth its weight in gold; but it cau be obtained by maU of the publishers for only $8. * Federal Decisions, Vol. IX., Coaveyances. The GUbert Book Company, pub¬ lishers, St. Louis, Mo. The residents of New RocheUe and the surroimding neighborhood are about to receive additional accommodation in the way of street travel. A company has been organized, of which Major W. R. Bergholz is the pres¬ ident, to run a horee-car Une from Pelham to New RocheUe, running to the depot, and thence to Starin's Island. Should the local board grant the necessary permission, Major Bergholz states that the road wiU be in opera¬ tion December 1. This line wiU bring a large section of ground uito the mar¬ ket, hitherto but sUghtly improved, including the fine high ground known OS Huguenot Park. The reasons given for the Treasury Department declining to issue silver certificates in return for deposits of gold are, according to the Mining Record, inadequate or misleading. One of these reasons is that the expense to the government for sending silver certificates from New York to Western and Southwestern points is $1.65 per thousand doUars, or $16.50 for every mUliou dollars thus put into circulation. There must be some mistake here, for there is a largejsurplus of silver dollars iu New Orleans, as is shown by the fact that naval vessels, the Swatara and the Yantic, are transporting ten miUions of silver doUars from New Orleans to Washington. Hence there is nothing to prevent the government issuing the silver certificates at New Orleans upon the deposit of the gold for the face value in New York. Then, again, at the present price of silver bullion the government makes $150 on every thousand it coins; paying out $1.65 aud receiving $150 cannot be caUed a loosing business for the Treasury—quite the contrary. Then, again, it is qiut« preposterous to say that after receiving the gold for the sUver certificates the former is finaUy drained out of the Treasury again by the use of the certificates for the payment of customs' duties. It is notorious that the bulk of the sUver certificates paid out iu the West and South remain there aa a porraaneut paper currency, taking the place of the bank notes. The clamor the national banks and their organs are making is because of this substitution of sUver certificates for bank issues. The pro¬ ducers of the South and West are uo longer forced to pay heavy rates of interest for the use of currency in the spring and faU where the crops are being moved. Hence the outcries of the press representing the banks. The Commercial Bulletin quotes The Record and Guide's paragraph on the race between the Puritan and Genesta, in which occurs the following sentences: " We may beat the EngUsh in our model of a sailing craft, but the fact remains that the steam vessels of Gretit Britain are seen on eveiy sea and in all the ports of the world, whUe the fiag of the United States is conspicu¬ ous by its absence outside the shore Umits of our owu land. It is this victory of Great Britain over the United States which our people should take to heart." The Bulletin makes the following comment: " But the writer might have added the ' victory' is one which England has won nofc so much by her superior genius as by our own folly. The tune is come when a true * national feeUng' should demand that we [depart from that foUy. Remove the artificial fetters which at present paralyze Amer¬ ican enterprise, American skill and American capital on the ocean, and these wUl speedily restore the old fiag to its f;>rmer prestige aud once more divide the world's carrying trade with the ' mistress of the seas.'" The Philadelphia Ledger also points out the moral in the following paragraph: ' 'Quite soothing to the superficial currents of national pride was the victory of the fleet Uttle saUer, the Puritan, over the almost equally fast English Genesta, and comforting likewise to the same emotion is fche victorj' of our gentlemen cricket players over the gentlemen players of England; but the thing that should fire American ambition and the successful rivalry needed, is in the restoration of our commercial mariue fco the rank it formerly held in comparison with that of England and the world. There would be some substance in a hurrah for that." If tho Democratic party in Congress has the wit to change om- tariff laws and give government help to re-establishing our merchant mariue, we may yet gain a victory over Grert Britain ou the seas that wiU be a real credit to us. But it is pitiable to see the same journals which are magnifying this trival yacht-racing business into a great national event, doing all they can to discourage steamship buUding and ship owning on the pai-t of Americans. The World of Business. Canadian Opposition to Reciprocity. The Week, which is a strong supporter of commercial union with the United States, asks why complete reciprocity should destroy the tie with Britain suice partial reciprocity, such as existed from 1854 until 1866, did not weaken it. The reason is this. The treaty of 1854 provided for the free exchange of natural products only. The Canada of that day, i. e., Upper aud Lower Canada, repealed the duties on those articles as against the mother country, and the Americans made no objection, for the simple reason that Britiain did not export animals, lumber, coal, breadstuffs, etc.. to Canada; hence their free admission to this country could not in any way prejudice American interests, for as they were not imported here they could not be re-exported into the States under the treaty. But if commercial union means complete reciprocity, the free interchange not only of aU natural products but of all manufactured articles, then the Americans would, unquestionably, make it a condition sine qua non of the treaty thafc we should rigidly maintain our duties against the manufactures of Britain. Why so ? Simply because they would not permit us, while enjoying com¬ plete reciprocity wifch them, to give free admission to British goods which might be sent fj'om hero into the States as Canadian goods. Commercial union with the States would therefore involve discrimination against Britain, and that would mean the sundering of tho connection, or we are much mis¬ taken. But the Weekn\a.y say that Mr. Brown proposed the free interchange of certain mauufactured articles in the projecte