Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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56 The Record and Guide. January 28,1886 people, like the railroads, always cut one another under when there is little business to do. Strikes and demands for better wages are annoyances for employers, for they show the times are better. Apart from the Irish question there are two topics touched upon in the Queen's speech which are of special interest just now to Americrns. Says the Queen : " I regret to say that no material improvement can be noted in the condition of trade or agriculture. I feel the deepest sympathy for the great number of persons in many avocations of life who are suffering under a pressure which, I trust, will prove transient." England, as well as Germany and the other gold mono-metallic countries, is suffering from the demonetization of silver. The addition to the purchasing power of gold shows itself in the reduced price of all commodities ; hence the distress to which the Queen alludes. England has no silver coinage law as we have to help maintain prices; hence all her industries suffer, except such as are helped by the better times on this side of the Atlantic. The higher price for steel and iron established here has had its effect in England, while the only profitable employment of foreign capital is in dealing in American bonds and stocks. Of course this depression in prices is a good thing for the very rich, the purchasing power of whose money has greatly increased; but what insensate folly it would be for the business people of the United States to abolish silver coinage and sacrifice themselves and the working classes for the sole profit of the small percentage of bankers and capitalists who own the money of the country. .----------«---------- The other topic mentioned in this speech is the promise that the Tory administration will bring in a bill to cheapen and facilitate the transfer of land. The English colonies of New Zealand and Australia have the most perfect system of land conveyance in the world. It is as certain and as cheap as the sale of stocks and bonds in Wall street. All parties have agreed in England to reform the land laws in this particular. We will undoubtedly lag far in the rear of Great Britain in this respect. The officials who profit by the present state of affairs, as well as the legal profession, are united in keeping in existence existing abuses which is profitable to them, however onerous they may be to the owners and purchasers of realty, ----------«---------- Public Opinion in the East Changing. When some years ago The Record and Gums undertook to present the bi-metallic side of the gold unit controversy, it was almost alone in the position it took in the press of New York. There was not a daily or weekly paper, the Mining Record excepted, that was not practically on tbe side of gold mono-metallism. Indeed, so strong was the feeling that an advocate of silver coinage was looked upon as a fool or a knave. But a change has occurred within the past year. The Sun and Star now favor silver coinage. The publication of,the speeches of Senators Brown, Teller and others, have opened the eyes of the public here East. When Senator Beck made his famous speech, not a New York paper would publish a line of it. The Evening Post.called it a "bray," but since then the editor of that paper, Mr. Horace White, has published a pamphlet refuting the "bray. At a meeting of the Constitution Club, the other evening, the silver side of the controversy had almost the unani¬ mous indorsement of the audience. P. B. Thurber's {illusion to silver in the Nineteenth Century Club showed there were many sympathizers with bi-metaUism among the rich and fashionable people of New York. The recent "attempt of the bears to depress values by sending gold abroad and trying to get up a scare about silver has made the business community indignant, and many of the money-writers for the press have shown how senseless and unfounded is the fear of our getting on a sUver basis. The Stockholder, which heretofore maintained the gold side of the controversy, were induced last Thursday to publish the following extract from the circular of Green & Bateman. Our readers will note that it seems like a repetition of what we have been saying for three yeare past. Says this circular: The silver question has had a tendency to unsettle values in our stock market. It seems to.be more of a scare thau otherwise, for the legal tender silver circulation in France is $14 per head, allied with $23 of gold per head. In the United States the legal tender silver circulation is $3.75 per head, allied with $9 per head of gold. The silver iu France is valued at a rate which would make our standard silver dollar worth about $1.03. In other words, in France they value their silver more than we do. With this silver circulation of $14 per head it is still one of the soundest countries financially in the world. After paying one thousand Bullion dollars war indemnity to Germany in three years it is highly prosperous, and duriag the last ten years has gained vastly more gold by importation, nearly six times more, than England and Germany with their mono-metallic system and policy: This firm represents Western feeling to be sure, bufc it is nofc alone in Wall sfcreet; the discussion now"going on is discrediting the banks and the Eastern press. In Congress the gold mono-metaUisfcs have no show at alL Were any member fco repeat the preposterous italicized paragraphs on the editor¬ ial page of the Herald, he would be overwhelmed at once with facts and arguments which would show the absurdity of his statements. The Record and Gxtedb has naturally a large circulation amongst bankers and money-lenders, but ifcs patrons have never objected to the views we have presented on the silver question. On the contrary, our readers have acknowledged that the arguments we presented were sound. The following communication from the head of one of the largest business concerns in New York is a fair expression of the feeling of our patrons. Wo caanQ^ T^^ WfU give the muqe ^eciosf |^ anight ore^te ^ prejudiQe ut certain quarters against a firm which' does an Immense business in all parts of the country. Editor Record and Guide : I am very much interested iu the discussion of what may be the best measure of values; and I endorse your views on every point.' Silver being better distributed over the world, ifc would be a befcter single standard than gold, but bi-metallism at this time seems to be most practicable, and the greatest diflBculty in the way of convincing the public mind of this fact is the sentimentalism regarding the " intrinsic " value of gold. Should part' of the usefulness of gold be taken away (coinage), and the usefulness of silver increased, the two metals would gradually approach each other in commercial value, and the constantly widening difference in the compara¬ tive values of gold (the present standard) and commodities all over the world would cease. Many persons believe that thedecline in price of mer¬ chandise is entirely due to over-production (whatever that may mean)— that is, so-called over-production is in a great measure stimulated by the efforts of producers to overcome their lessening receipts by a larger out- tiuTi of product. K. Concerning Men and Things. *** It seems a trivial matter, but there is scai'cely a person iu New York, whether a resident or visitor, who has not been driven to the verge of des¬ peration in the endeavor to find the number of a house at night. The amount of profanity that has been expended in this way it would be difficult to estimate. You reach the street where the house you are in search of is situated. You know the number, but have no idea how many houses there are in a block. You pass along in the hope of seeing a number that will enable you to calculate, but all is dark. Then you go on until you see a figure with a light behind it, only to find thafc you have overshofc the mark; then you go back again, and if by any chance you lose count you may have, to run up aud down two or three strange stoops, pull one of the outer doors to in the hope of catching a glimpse of the figures by a dim religious light, until you get to the right house. This is nofc a pleasant occupation on a cold, frosty or rainy night. Some person had the temerity to induce the Board of Aldermen to legislate on the subject; but they declined to do so, probably because nobody felt disposed to " see" them on the subject. Why not have on every lamp-post the number of the house opposite to which it stands. It would be a boon to the night wanderers in up-town streets. * * * Although the word dude has rather a " chesfcnufcfcy" flavor, yefc fchere is no ofcher word that so well conveys the idea of the daintily dressed young men who are to be found at balls, receptions and other entertainments. They were never so numerous as at present. Since the world has been in existence there have always been fops, dandies, swells or something akin to them, but the New York dude is a genus peculiar to this city. He is not muscular, he is not handsome, he is not good-looking, and he is painfully young. He wears good clothes. He is stupid, inclined to be a snob, affects a nondescript accent in his speech which somebody has told him is the aristocratic English way of talking. He was largely on hand at the Charity Ball—which, by the way, was an unusually successful entertainment—as floor manager, wifch nothing to do but wear a big broad red ribbon. If the men of thirty and forty won't dance the young women have no alternative but fco take boys of eighteen and twenty for partners, but as young women have always more sense than these youngsters they should do their b«6t to induce them not to make themselves ridiculous by feebly imitating fche mosfc objecfcionable characfcerisfcics of Englishmen. * '* There have of late years been so many wonderful inventions a«inecfced with electricity that a new one attracts but little attention. A young inventor, however, unknown to fame has applied for a patent in Washing¬ ton which, if granted, may solve the problem of electricity as a motive power. He claims to have discovered a method by which electricity can be produced 75 per cent, cheaper than the means afc present employed. A company has been formed to exploit his invention, pf which great things ai'e naturally expected. He obtaiiis a good electric current in a battery without the aid of acids or metals. The cost of zinc and acids has always prevented the use of electricity as a motive power .^even on a small scale, and on a larger scale for electric light and other purposes it has been necessary to obtain the electricity by mechanical, means, such as sfceam power, thus having to use coal to get sfceam and wifch ifcs aid. the electricity from the dynamo, which involves great waste andtheuse of another power to obtain a second. If there is anything in this new invention the use of electricity will become as comnion as water. The inventor is still engaged in making experiBients xmder the superintendence of a well-known scientific expert. ** * The recent chess contest attracted more attention thau it deserved. There was nothing brilliant in the play on either side, and Steinitz lost three of his games by blunders which would have been mortifying to an amateur. He fell into traps which are incomprehensible in a chess player of his stand¬ ing. Nor was there anything brilliant in Zukerfcorfc's play. He persisted in opening his games with the Queen's gambit, which generally leads to a common-place contest. In interviews with the reporters, the contestants agreed in disparaging Morphy, and both expressed the opinion thafc were that phenomenal player alive now his reputation would suffer in compari¬ son vrith living experts, meaning of course themselves. The writer, how¬ ever, who remembers Morphy's games iu this city very well, is of the opinion that he could give either Steinitz or Zukertort a knight and then beat either of them easily. It has been almost impossible to follow the games as they have'^been reported by our daily newspapers, because of the errors in the score. If the Associated Press undertakes to telegraph the games yet to be played from St. Louis and New Orleans they will, in all probability, make a mess of ifc. *** • This will probably be a bad fruit year. The fcerrible January blizzard has injured the peach trees all over the country, while the orange crop of Florida has been almost entirely, cufc off. The nursery trees have all been killed. A very intelligent letter writer from Florida states that the old trees have beeii so injured, that it will be t^ee ^ew« before they