August 4, 18S3
The Record and Guide.
563
THE RECORD AND GUIDE.
191 Broadway, N. Y.
TERMS:
OIVE ¥EAR. in advance, SIX DOLLARS.
Communications should be addressed to
C. IF. SWEET, 191 Broadway.
J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.
AUGUST 4, 1883.
The labor strikes in different parts of the country aeem to be
without reasonable justification. The profits of our manufactur¬
ing establishments have been reduced to a minimum within the
past few years, aud the returns do not justify even tbe old rate of
wages, Tlien food and clothing have not been so cheap since the
hard times of 1873 and 1878. The necessaries of life were never so
plentiful or so easily procurable as now, hence there is reaUy no
grounds upon which to base a demand for higher wages. About
a year ago pork sold in the Cbicago market for $33 per barrel,
with the wages of a Western Union operator the same as they ate
to-day. Lard sold for 13 cents per pound, a bushel of wheat
brought $1.18, corn sold for 70 cents, and other necessary articles
at proportionately high rates. In this market raw cotton brought
12)^ to 13 cents per pound, standard sheetings sold for S^ cents,
duck at 13 cents. To-day the same pork is $13.50 per barrel ; lard,
8y^ cents ; wheat, $1.00 ; corn, 50 cents ; raw cotton, 10 cents ;
standard sheetings, 7 cents ; duck, 9^ cents. Now take the aver¬
age of $60 per month for a Western Union operator, and let us see
what it would have bought a year ago and what it will buy now ;
]S82. 1883.
te9 hought of Pork......... ,.............bbla. 3 14-33 4 12-27
â– ' 'â– "Lard...........................lbs. 4614-13 705 15-17
" " " Wheat.....................bush. 50 50-59 00
" " " Corn....................... 'â– 85 5-7 130
"Cotton........................Iba. 4617-13 BOO
" " " Sheetings............. ........yds. 705 15-17 857 1-7
" " " Duck......................... " 500 ai5 5-13
It will thus be seen that it ia the manufacturers and the farmers
rather than the consumers who have been affected by the shrink¬
age in pricea, and that on the whole a salary of $60 per month at
present is quite equal to $70 per month at the same time last year.
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Happy Hindoos 1 They have the cheapest railway traveling in
the world. If we paid the same rate that ia charged on the East
Indian lines we could go to Philadelphia for 57J^ cents, to Albany
for 93 cents, to Chicago for $6.14, aud to San Francisco for $11.95.
Yet this East India Company brings its coal and principal materials
from Great Britain. Its greatest economy U in labor, which is very
cheap, while its running expenses vary from 31 to 37 per cent, of
its earnings. Thia brings about the old question, why is it passen¬
gers are charged so much more than dead weight? A man or
woman get on or off the car themselves, yet grain, iron, stone and
other inert substances require a great deal of handling in addition
to the transportation, yet the man weighing less than 200 pounds
pays a sum for his ticket that would transport several tons of
weight. When governments have more to say about transporta¬
tion this injustice will be rectified.
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And now it is proposed to establish a tea and sugar exchange.
These two commodities represent world-wide interests and the
time has come when they are to be dealt in under the same con¬
ditions and rules as control stocks, cotton, grain, petroleum and
other great interests. Real eatate lags behind, and will probably
be the last to have an exchange of its own, but some time or
other the dealers must organize or they will get left.
The financial journals are wondering why there is so little inter-
eat in the Stock Exchange, One journal thinks it is because the
public ha-s e been so badly bitten during the past few years.
Another surmises that the Goulds and Vanderbilts have bad so
much to do with the market that the average operator has been
frightened away. Then it is said that more securities have been cre¬
ated than the market can absorb. It is quite manifest, however,
that speculation is as active as ever it was, but it is outside the walls
of the Stock Exchange, From time to time we have tried to give
what seemed to be a solution of the great activity of the stock
market in 1879 and 1880, compared with the dulness, by which it
haa since been characterized. All speculative eras mn through
certain phases. The excitement first shows itself in the apprecia¬
tion of stock values. The share market is the pulae of the financial
body. The inflation then shows itself in commercial and manuf ao
turing circles, and finally ends in a great advance in the price of
laud. The interest of the public in stocks ceased during the sum¬
mer of 1881. Speculation since has been rampant in grain, provis¬
ions, cotton and petroleum. The recent heavy failures in Chicago,
and the low price of cotton would seem to indicate that the
abnormal activity in natural products was nearing an end, in which
caae, real estate may have ita turn. This was the course of prices
during the paper money inflation extending from 1863 to 1873.
The next two years will tell whether real estate is to become as
active as it was just previous to the collapse of 1873,
The end of the gas war in Brooklyn but repeats a very old story.
A special monopoly makes so much money that rivals enter the
field to share the gains, A short war follows, and for a time the
citizens get cheaper service. Then the companies make up and the
community ia taxed to pay all the expense of the confiict, as well
as to yield large dividends on the doubled stocks. When will the
press and public learn that transportation, telegraphic communi¬
cation and the supplying of gas and water are natural monopoliea,
and that free consumption is never possible iu these services ? The
lesson to be kept in mind is that the telegraph should be in the
hands of the government, the railroads be under ita control, and
gas and water should be supplied by the municipalities. New York
is one of the few cities in the world where water has been cheap
and abundant. In London, Paris, and other large cities, it is sup¬
plied by companies, and, as a consequence, the water ia bad and
the service inefficient. Philadelphia manufactures itsown gas, and
New York should do likewise, inasmuch as it has done so well with
ita water supply. Why not get rid of the tremendous tax paid
yearly to our local gas companies? This will be more practicable,
however, when we have local civil service reform and responsible
city government.
Out-of-the-way Architecture.
We are in the habit of looking to the new quarter now rapidly
filling up on the east side of the Park, or else to the new elevator
buildings down town, to see what our architects are doing. But
we occasionally find in the side streets and interpolated between
commonplace and conventional buildings, works which tell either
of architectural training or else, and oftener, of architectural
ambition.
An architect has a better chance when he is called upon to do a
piece of work in one oC these old streets than when he has a build¬
ing to design in the " arcbitecturesque" quarters. A little archi¬
tecture in the former case goes a great way. A very low degree of
refinement will look exquisite when it ia seen between the bloated
mouldings and gross cornices of a brown stone block. Very mod¬
erate evidence of ingenuity in the disposition of parts will content
us when it is contrasted with the stereotyped arrangement of
three openings equally spaced in each story. Nay, even a thing
that ia as bad in a new way aa the old brick and brown atone
fronts in the old way, if such a thing be possible, we should hail
with a certain pleasure when it appears among them, It has not
yet become so tiresome.
For example, there is a house in West Fifteenth street {or is it
Sixteenth), west of Sixth avenue on the south side, of which Mr.
Stratton 18 the architect, a "School of Industry," or some such
name, as a sign over the door tells the wayfarer. Nobody who
looked at these things critically could pronounce it, strictly speak¬
ing, good; and yet everybody who has occasion to pass it must
feel under an obligation to its architect for giving him something
to look at. It is an unusually wide street front, 30 or 35, possibly
40 feet, with five feet or so at one end withdrawn from the plane
of the front, and here there ia an alley to the rear. Except this,
the front is a flat wall with a level top in red brick, divided into
two parts, one on each side of the doorway. The doorway itaelf is
nearly in the centre. The left diviaion is a large hanging oriel of
wood running through the two stories of which the building con¬
sists, perhaps fifteen feet wide, and composed in the lower story
of three mock arches, and above of a heavy sash frame. The right
band division conaists of three round arches in the first floor and of
a triple window in tbe second, tbe central opening covered with a
round arch, and the lower side openings with flat arches. This
window opens upon a shallow balcony or rather a jardiniere. The
doorway is an elliptical arch, and over it are two panels filled
with Moorish patterns of geometrical tracery. All the arches are
of a deeper red, apparently painted, than that of the wall-field.
The left division is signalized by a solid brick parapet rising
above the cornice line, aud the wall is pierced at either end with a
small arched opening, from which a leader emanates. The effect
of the whole is that of quaintness, and of a very conscious and
studied quaintness. As the value of quaintness in art is that it fa
naive and unconscious, the consciousness destroys it altogether.
Moreover, it does not appear why the architect should have pie-
ferred a fiat top when his building does not seem to have a flat top
in reality. The leader aeema to betoken a hipped roof, or, at any
rate a pitch roof. Why should he have built a superfluous brick
parapet in order to screen this perfectly reputable fact from the
public gaze. There is nothing whatever to be ashamed of in it.
He must have built his parapet because he preferred the flat top on