Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 32, no. 802: July 28, 1883

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July 28, 188S The Record and Guide. 541 THE RECORD AND GUIDE. 191 Broadway, N. Y. TERMS: ONE TEAR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS. Communications should be adiiresaed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. JULY 28, 1883. The business of the country is undoubtedly improving. All the centres of trade send encouraging reports to this money centre. The dry-goods business looks better than it has done for some time. Standard goods liave, it is believed, as demonstrated by the recent large sale at auction, seen their lowest figurea for the sea¬ son, and there will be a heavy demand for them this fall from all parts of the country. We have now had two full harvests, and the growing cotton and corn crcps promise to yield abundantly. Our agricultural classes are fairly well to do, although the prices they obtain for their products are not as large as in former years. We have passed through a spring and summer of dull trade, which reducec? the stock of goods in stores. These must be replenished during the coming fall. What may he called the animal crop will be enormous tliis year, because of tlie abundant food and the stim¬ ulus given by high prices during the last few years. Indeed, veg- itable and animal food, aa well as woolen and cotton clothing, will be cheaper this year than at any time for the last ten years. This will increase consumption and later on stimulate production. The outlook is excellent and ought to be as beneficial to real estate as other departments of business. A new bankruptcy law was pending ia the last Congress when it adjourned. Its consideration will probably be resumed in the Congress which meets next December. Tlie British Parliament is at present at work upon a new bankruptcy act for the United Kingdom. It was put in shape hy Mr. Goschen, and is being pressed by a member of the Cabinet, Mr, Chamberlain, Eoglaud's experience iu bankruptcy acts is similar to that of our own, for the Pall Mall Gazette declares that so far the bankrupt's estates have been squandered by the legal harpies who get it into their posses¬ sion. It is discreditable to the business men of both Great Britain and America, that they have allowed themselves to be plundered by the courts, lawyers and receivers; but it is evident that both nations will make one more effort to see if it is not possible to force dishonest and unfortunate traders into liquidation without hand¬ ing over all the assets to legal plunderers. The boom in real estate in :;he new Northwest has heen checked, if indeed it is not over for the present. Winnipeg, which in a very few years attained a population of 85,000, had three hundred real estate offices in active operation last March. Tbeir occupation, all save two or three of the oldest, is now gone. Carpenters and bricklayers, who had all the work they could do at $4 per day a few months ago, are now glad to take steady work at half that sum. The only openings are for farm laborers, Of course the incoming of immigrants still continues, but the fever is at an end. The termination of the boom will probably soon be felt in the mar¬ ket price of those stock bubbles. Northern Pacific and Canada Pacific. Manitoba has been on the down track for some time. There is one fact about the Red River Valley, which people who think of settling there would do well to bear in mind. It is subjest to destructive floods. In 1836 all the settlements in that valley were destroyed. Then came another avalanche of water in 1853, and again a somewhat less destructive one in 1861. This year the floods have come without doing very much damage, but the possi¬ bilities of their recurrence will always render that great and fertile valley insecure to prudent people who wish to build themselves homes. ----------«—,-----_ The daily press has already begun to agitate for a new building law. Our own columns have shown that most even of recent ten¬ ement houses are planned and built in disregard of what all experts agree to be essential sanitary requirements in the matters of light and ventilation. The opposition to an amendment of the building law enforcing a higher standard of construction comes principally from the building trade, we are sorry to say. It is not unnatural Aor especially discreditable. In good times the builders, like all other men, are disposed to let well enough; alone. In bad times, again like all other men, they do not believe ju givipg additional discouragement to building enterprises. This is probably the explanation of the opposition, so far ^s it does nofe proceed from fijere jnert.ioij, But lys do not bplieyp thg buijdipg teade 'syould suffer from the enforcement of sanitary regulations in building, provided these were drawn by a man who knew what he was about, and enforced with justice and good sense. In fact, if the adoption of the proposed improvements were made compulsory in all tene¬ ment houses, old and new, as it clearly should be if it be made com¬ pulsory upon any, the alterations required to old buildings would amount to a " boom " in building. What curious importance is given to the shooting of a few rifle¬ men at Wimbledon. Nearly every newspaper deduces therefrom the moral that our militia men should all be kept iu practice "at the butts." But suppose we had half a million of men who could hit a bulls-eye at 1,000 yards off, what good would it do them, as individuals, or their use as a people? They could not prevent a fleet entering our harbor or protect the Atlantic or Pacific coast lines. Our only and our greatest peril ia the absolutely defenceless condition of our great cities. We have neither guns nor ships, and there is no possibility of improvising them in the event of a foreign war. Fancy rifle shooting is a mere amusement, nothing more. Exit Palaver. The modern world is beginning to tire of too much talk. The signs are multiplying in every nation that Parliaments and Con¬ gresses are daily becoming more unpopular as the sole means of administering governments. There was a time when there was no limit to debate in the House of Representatives, while a compara¬ tively insigniflcant minority could put a stop to all legislation; but now the previous question limits debate, while talk is confined to one hour and some times even to flve minutes. During the next session an effort will be made to check the flow of senatorial eloquence by the adoption of the previous question in the upper chamber. The Congressional Globe containing the speeches of the members of both Houses has now a very limited circulation. The work of the nation is really done by the committees of the two Houses. This has long been the case in France, where the various groups of the Corps Legistatif carefully mature all legislative acts before they are submitted to the Assembly or Senate. The proceedings in the German, Italian and Spanish national legisla¬ tures are even more summary than in France or the United States. The British Parliament was the last to yield to the modern impa¬ tience of mere talk, but Parnell and his Irish fellow members, by using the forms and ancient privileges of tbe House to put a stop to all legislation, forced that body into the adoption of what is sub¬ stantially our " previous question," and now the main work of the House of Commons is done hy what is called the grand committees. The fact is, tbe exigencies of the modern world demand an econ¬ omizing of time. This is an age of telegraphs, steamand electricity, and action must promptly follow conception. There is no time for useless palaver. Tbe telegraph gives the news of the world in a condensed form, and the paragraph in the newspapers has taken the place of the elaborate editorial leader. So far our courts are unaffected by the spirit of the age. Legal decisions are as wordy and verbose as ever. Courts consume time without limit. Litigation drags its slow length along, while lawyers' biUs are more outrageous than ever. Procrastination and expensiveness are the distinguishing features of our so-called halls of justice. The British government in Ireland tried and hung the murderers of Mr. Burke and Lord Cavendish within two months after they were apprehended, but it took us a year to dispose of Guiteau. And then look at that preposterous Star Route trial. It cost nearly a million dollars and two years time, and then resulted in a defeat of justice. One wordy lawyer actually occupied nine days in his address to the jury. As General Sherman very well remarked, all his points could have been better presented in one hour. The time has come when tho press and public should insist upon a reform of our legal methods. This monstrous avalanche of words ought to stop. Legal documents should be emptied of their verbiage. The lawyer must put a check on his tongue, and judges have some other business to do than grant delays for the sake of running up lawyers' bills. In short, litigants when they go to court must have some assurance that they will get justice, and will not be plundered by the harpies of the law. In brief, the bench and the bar must realize that they exist for the benefit of the public, and that their own convenience and profit is quite a secondary consid¬ eration. -------------a------------- Some impecunious scribbler in one of the city journals com- pUins that there are no apartment houses in the fashionable iweiiues and streets where suites of rooms can be rented for !g30 and $40 a month. Refined but poverty stricken heads of families are forced, he says, to go east of Third avenue, or west of Seventh avenue, to find the accommodation they require. This is about as sensible as to consider it a grievance that cultivated but impover¬ ished music loving people are not admitted to the choicest boxes of tbe opera at gallery prip^e, T^^w is » matter ■??J»icli regulates jtself,