Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 42, no. 1062: July 21, 1888

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July 21. 1888 Record and Guide. 915 <^,_____________________., ^ - "^ '^ established'-^''wvrs;h2I'-^ De/oTEO jo fHL E^SIME . BuiLOIf/c ApcrilTECTJI^E .HoUSElfOLD DEGCify.noS. B^J5l^/Ess aiJdThemes of Ge^JeiviI- I;Jtei\e5t the passions and prejudices of the voters will not be unduly atim- ulated. PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. TELEPHONE, - . - JOHN 370. Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. Vol. XLII. JULY 21, 1888. No. 1,062 Now Ready—The Index to the Conveyances and Projected Buildings published in The Record and Guide during the first six months of the ewrrent year. The Index is printed on extra heavy paper, and, as usual, inchides New York and Kings Counties, and is the most exhaustive ever published. The labor and expense connected with the work has become so formidable that a charge of fifty cents is made for this issue, as announced in these columns on January 2\st last. Subscribers requiring copies should send in their orders at once. 1 All tlie tendencies of modern commerce are in the direction of minimizing the profits of the merchant and the middlemen. Tele¬ graph communication with distant countries has put an end to the great profits reaped by the merchants in the pre-telegraphic age. Time was, for instance, ■when tea wa~s a very profitable commodity for merchants {o deal in; but there are no more gi-eat fortunes to be made in that herb, since the Chinese dealers have kno^wn the price by telegraph in all tlie tea consuming marts of the ■world. The papers recently told of the destruction of immense quantities of Southern fruit and vegetables. The New York commission men refused to take them because the freight charges were too high, and so thousands of tons of good food were thrown into the ocean. Cali¬ fornia growers of fr\iit have organized a union by whicli they send ten car loads at a time to CMcago. They employ their o^wn agents and sell their fiTiit directly to the jobbers and small dealers with¬ out the intervention of the middlemen. The very excellent crop prospects of the West have given a firm¬ ness to Wall street securities this week to which it has long been a stranger. Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, all of wliich are great corn producing States, have a better present outlook than any time since the great corn year of 1880, and should the indications be reahzed we may expect once more tu sec Wall street full of speculative boomers and scliemers. Lately it has not been fashionable to do anything in tliis locality, but just as bustles, hoop-skirts and poke- bonnets come aud go, so return and go tlie fashions for speculating in different commodities. General business is picking up, with crders calling for deliveries of goods for fall consumption, and here again everything is dependent largely upon the harvesting of a big crop, as many orders now given would be cancelled should the out¬ look of the corn crop become less satisfactory. With nearly 7,000,000 bales of cotton wanted by the world, with a strong prob- abiUty of 3,000,000,000 busliels of coru, and a wheat crop more than enough, there is httle danger of anybody becoming much poorer the coming year, no matter wlio shall be elected to the Presidency. The fishermen of Jlonmouth Beach formerly sold their catch to the middlemen for four or five cents a pound; but the same fish cost the New York consumer anywhere from twelve to twenty cents a pound. Now, however, the fishermen have their own organization and agents in the larger markets of New York, who sell the fish at fair prices. The dairymen in New York liave tried to act together to get a better price for theii- milk, but so far they have been beaten by a well-organized trust. The milkmen get only two or two-and-a-half cents a quart for milk, while the consumer pays eight or ten cents a quart. Tlie tendency everywhere is to get rid of competition and the middleman. There are mysterious intimations giv'en out in Wall street as to gigantic combinations now under consideration in raih-oad circles. If the programmes suggested are carried out practical consolida¬ tions will result which will affect over a thousand million of secur¬ ities. The gigantic "trusts," such as the Standard Oil Company, will be dwarfed by the magnitude of the proposed railroad combina¬ tions. Our people have not woke up to the fact that the pm-chase by the Canadian Pacific of the South Shore, Duluth & Atlantic, otherwise the " Soo " road, and the other roads they will soon have wiU give that foreign corporation a larger mileage in our country than that of the New York Central and Lake Shore combined. It is on the cards that the same enterprising and wealthy co'ncern will have an outlet here in New York city. The Canadian Pacific is backed up by the Dominion of Canada as well as by the greatest money power in the world which has its headquarters in London. This foreign coi-poration promises to be one of the most important factors in our Amei-ican railroad system. Should these pending schemes be carried out they will create a furore in WaU street such as that famous locality has not seen in its past history. It seema as if food products were getting dearer the world over. Wheat aud corn command better prices than they have for three years' past; and now comes tlie unwelcome news that next winter will see a decided advance in the price of beef. According to Mr. de Surrel, the French consul at Chicago, the losses of the cattle raisers in the winter of 1886 and the summer of 1887 amounted to about 1,500,000 head. During 1887 there was a falling off in the annual production of calves equal to 50 per cent. The difficulty of procur¬ ing sale for the cattle has kept the price down so far ; but when the three aud fom--year-old cattle are due next year aud the year after, it will be found that meat will be very source. Tliis will be unfortunate in many ways. South America has been a formidable competitor of tliia country in the wholesale meat markets of Europe, and an advance in tlie price of our cattle would for a time give a monopoly of the business to the Argentine Republic, and the other South American States which grow such vast herds of cattle. The present wiil probably be the tamest political contest for the Presidency this country has seen since the election of Monroe. There is not much antagonism to either of the candidates and they evoke no personal enthusiasm. Had Blaine been in the field there would have been a warm canvass, but there is no personal element now likely to excite any feeling up to the close of the poll m Novem¬ ber. Nor is there really any principle at stake. The Mills biU is not a free tx-ade measure and the amendments to the tafiff the Republican Senate wiU propose will necessarily look to a reduction of the impost duties. The Mills bill will pass the House by a small majority and the counter proposition by the Senate will pass that body before the end of August. The Republicans will propose the abolition of the tobacco internal revenue tax, but so far as any prin¬ ciple ia concerned there will be about as much difference as between " tweedledum and tweedledee." The Protectionists-will probably make their fight on the Congressional candidates, and whether Mr. Cleveland is elected or not we do not believe the next Congress will contain any more free traders tJi^n does the present one. Wbat a comfort it i? tO be able to antipipp.t6 3, PresideptJsl flection in wJuclj ' Apropos of the Argentine Repubhc, it is worttiy of note that the gigantic system of public improvement, which the Republic under¬ took, has resulted in a way that entirely justifiies the apparently reckless outlay. The railroads built under the auspices of the government have rendered available the countless flocks and herds of that country. Its domestic industry and its foreign commerce have been wliolesomely stimulated. Indeed, the Argentine Republic can now claim to be among the most prosperous and enterprising countries on earth. But its policy has been entirely different from that of the United States. True, we encourage home manufactures by a burdensome tariff, and then we have favored railroad building by grants of pubhc lands, but our government will do nothing for commerce or for improving our harbors and waterways. The vast trade of South America is monopolized by European nations. Even when South American countries offered to share in the expense of a steamship line between New York and the South American ports our Congress and administration declined, not¬ withstanding its ob^vioua advantages. The total value of the trade of the South American States is about $700,000,000. Of this Fi-ance has 23 per cent., England 28 per cent., Belgium 14 per cent.. Ger¬ many 9 per cent., and tbe United States 6 per cent. Of the one thousand steamships which arrived at the ports of Uruquay in 1883 only one was American. This summer has been characterized by an unusual development of the mosquito plague m the neighborhood of New York. Com¬ plaints reach us from the entire coast from Cape May to the eastern end of Long Island; even inland places not usually ti-oubled are rendered almost T,mendurable by the swarms of mosquitoes. " What can't be cured, must be endured," but it would be really worth while for the rich people interested to form syndicates to drain the salt marshes which are the main.brfeeding gi-ounds of these insect peats. We publiahed some time since the plan of Mr. Chas. Kim¬ ball for reclaiming the marshes in the neighborhood of Bamegat Bay. This gentleman's idea was to cut dykes through the marsh, which would bring in the pure salt water of the ocean, and between these streams to fiU in with good earth upon which houses could be b\iilt and gardens laid out; in other wgrilB. replace the mosquito breeding marsh by pure salt water an|j dry land, thus cyeatijig a I