Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: no. 56, no. 1441: October 26, 1895

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/ r 26, 1895 Record and Guide, ll ^ ESTABDSHE3)^AWCH2Ui^l86^ ^5)E^Td> p ReaJ-Estaje-Builoij/g ^cKrrEeTut^XousEtfOiDp£«^*^ .BKsDfcss Aifo Themes of GtifeRpl jlftE^pg,; PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS S Published every Saturday. Tblephonb,......Cortlandt i37o Oommunicatlons ahould be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street. /, 1. LINDSET. Businfiss Manaqer. Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Washingtok Street, Opp, Post Offiob. " Enl^ed at the Post-ojffiee at New York.N, F., as second-class matter." Vol. LVI. OCTOBER 26, 1895. No. 1,441 The Record and Guide wiil furnish you with daily detailed reports of all building opei-ations, eompiled to snii your business specifically, for 14 cents a day. Yon are thus Icept informed of the entire mat'ket for your goods. No guess work. Every fact verified. Ahundant capital and the thirty years' experience of Thv. Ei':cord a.vd Go iTi'e guarantee tlie com¬ pleteness and authenticity of this service. Send to 14 and 16 Vesey street for informal4,on. PEEVALENT oouditions ou the stock market are still apa,- tlietic. It there is an iutiica^ioii of value for future guid¬ ance it willbe fouud in the boud list, where there are some signs, in the hardenina' of prices, of uew buying. All tlie Northei-o Pacitic bouds for mstauce, have been quite strong this week, from whicb it may be surmised that the prospects for the reor¬ ganization of the Northero Pacific Compauy are brighter and nearer. In this connection it is proper to soy that Mr. Brayton Ives and his friends deserve a great deal of credit for the work they have done, not ouly from the Northeuu Pacific security holders, but from security holders in this country in g-eneral. It has always been asserted that wheu onee auy paitieular party hadgot bold of a railroad property, it was impossible to get it away from ttem. We have always held the contrary, and that it only needed staying fighting powers to get the courts to do tbe right thing. The success of Ihe Ives party h;is in'oved that we were right aud we are sure, further, that if tbe cases agaiust the people who were responsible for the downfall of theproperty and who milked it for so many years are pushed iu the courts with the same pertinacity, they can be compelled to make restitution. The courts attord remedies, if they can ouly be reached, and obstruction to the application of such remedies has become what it is simply because in¬ jured parties would not insist upon their rights. A few fights to a finish, with the wrong-doers inevitably ihe losers, would do mucb to impi'ove tbe moral condilioii of the proniotor of enterprises. The securilies of Southwestern properties which are being beared ou the cotton-crop shortage ongbt to receive the attention of buyer,i. There is no logic in bearing these securities because of a falling off in tlie amount of cotton pro¬ duced at tbis particular time, when the lessened production in¬ creases prices. When there is a crop failure, "bat tbe lailroads have to fear most is a lessened buying power of tbe farmer, be¬ cause not only do they sntt'ei- the direct loss of crop freights but iiL^o indirect and:ljiaJirer wtv-j tluough tbe I ability of the farmer fo buy liahiinibiiiblf'- thi-Mi:s whicb make up the bulk of BiisceUaiiooii&.fi^eiKi't. 'i!]i .-^nuthweslern roads have done well in the IfiHt tT^'uyfciU'H Willi,Mi.f ciiiton low and iu small demaud, andtiifty'shohild IH t.-doi^^ilMO in tbe year comiug with cotton high aud Jtvirood di-nKuid, although one crop bas sbow"n a seri- ■-•upfalliiiy iijT. IH'tlie .stock market as a whole it may be .said 'hfit while too narrow foi mucb confidence to be placed in auy if^nion that may be formed, Ihe signs slightly favor bctterprices \'n- the immediate future. "ITT'AE. fear is again upou the European nations. This attack "• has afteeted prople aud journals that have hitherto re¬ sisted contagion aud is tbeiefore all tbe more serious. It is not that there is any necessary occasion for quarrel between auy tft^o powers, but the circumstances of the times are such that they offer opportunity for difference amoug all of them. It is made a matter of remark that responsible ministers are all at their gosts wheu nsually at this lime of the year Ihey are spread abroad taking their holidays. The Euglish and Freiicb presses stre engaged in a recriminative encounter, spurred ou by au abiused mob on either side of the channel, and Ihiukiug pco])le know tbat tbat may lead to the participation ot: he mob iuthe quarrel with something heavier than nords, aud with tbe editors changing places and becoming the abettoi'S of a bloody conflict instead of the participants of a battle in whieh tlie Tvounds are all in the feelings and the stains all of ink. The Sultan of Turkey has eonseuted to the introduction of reforms uiainly to relieve the di-sabilities nnder wluch his Christian sub¬ jects live. Now the question will arise has he power to enforce thcm^ The Mabommedan priests, nobles and their followers have tobe considered in ihis matter. The late Sultan Abdul Aziz was something of a refornu'r under foreign dictation and liis opera bontt'c parliament only lived long enough to exnose the absurdity of its creation, while the Sultan himself, with a subtile distinction appreciable to the Semitic mind, became compulsorily a suicide, but in the coarser functions of the Cancausian brain a victim of political murder. If the Sultan cannot enforce the reforms forced on him by the outside powers, who will? Then there is China, a debauched and irreclaimable reprobate, who bas lost all nervous force and is consequently witbout ability to reform. A ne'er-do-weel, who prefers tbe gutter of his owu ignorance to the curtains and cushions of someone tdse's enlightenment. Wbat is to become of China^ Tbe Salvation Army of foreign politicians will not leave him alone, their consciences are too active for that, or, in other words, there is too mucb in the reforming business for them to let the Chinaman work out his own salvation. But like the good folk iu Now York City each of the Gtveat Powers has a very great opinion of its owu regenerating abilities, and there may come reform wars as there have beeu religious wars. The powers may find it uecessary to resort to artillery andironclads to find out on which has fallen tbe divine decree to carry gi'ace totbe Chinese. All tbis time tbe instruments of war are in sucb posi¬ tions andiu sucb hands that there is no telling what hour the indiscretion of a. subordinate may not plunge two countries into war aud in the end drag the others aloug with them. These are the thoughts that are making people serious to-day. Still war lias been more threatening thau it is now and yet the hand was restrained, Teu years ,igo Russia aud England bad their hands on their swords' hilts and were induced to withdraw them, as it is to be hoped they aud the other nations who think they have occasion f(n' quarrelling may be led again to tind peace more aitractive than war. ■---------- A WITTY explanation of the Kafiir fever, made by Mr. J. Selwin Tait, in a letter to tbe _Et'eiunf/ Posi, is tbat Lon¬ don can never take gold mines soberly, and that the recovering appetite for speculation, following a crisis and subsequent period of depression, is always whetted by a dose of these issues. When for gold mines low price issues are substituted, tbat probably esi>lains the opening phases of speculation every¬ where. The love of gambling is deep seated in the race ; many risks that are thought to be quite legitimate business are little else than taking chances, and wben the feeling is more pro¬ nounced the risks assumed are greater in proportion, running from a "flyer" in a dividend-paying stock to laying down hard cash for a sixty thousandth chance of winning a big prize in a lottery. The recorded transactions of auy exchange will show that actual investments are but a small fraction of the total business, the bulk beiug made up of dealings in cats and dogs, aud tbe poorest specimens of those despised animals at that. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this mat¬ ter of speculation is the unbounded faith in the fairness of the play and the belief that drawing a prize or a blank de¬ pends simply upon the niOTement of the wheel and the accidental shuffling of the tokens caused thereby. The public are not unaware of the fact that if everything tbat is worthless were takeu from the eschange lists they would sink into the smallest possible pioportious, so that the periodical attempts to take advantage of the movements of prices is a proof that wheu they come into the market it is in the conscious indulgence of their gambling instincts. Of course they always expect to win, and when the confcrjiry is the case, as it most often is, the outci'y is one rather of bopes disappointed, than against deliberate injury done them by the proprietors of the wheel, wbo walk away with tbe stakes. The trouble is one tbat caunot be cured, as the whole history of speculation shows, in any measurable length of time, and whenever the little disturb¬ ances caused by too mucb fervor in any particular direction has been gotten over by the removal of the dead and wounded, the remainiug forces of the outsiders begin again the conflict with tbeir slings aud arrows agaiust the arms of precision of the in¬ siders, l-^r this reason it is predicted that when the shaking up in the Kaffirs bas been accomplished, specidation will begin again in au expanded form by taking in other kinds and classes of securities as well. For tbis rea,sou it is said that the slump in Kaffirs is "salutary." THE letter of E. M. Shepard on consolidation is one of the best considered and most discriminating declarations on that involved and vexed question which has been given out by any public man. It is usually assumed that a categoiical yes or no is all thnt is needed as an opinion about the unifica¬ tion of New York and ISrooklyn, but in poiut of fact, the whole matter is so complex and requires to be considered with an eye