crown CU Home > Libraries Home
[x] Close window

Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Use your browser's Print function to print these pages.

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 55, no. 1414: April 20, 1895

Real Estate Record page image for page ldpd_7031148_015_00000669

Text version:

Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view About OCR text.
ApHl 20, 1895 Record and Guide. 635 'WM\ ESTABUSHED'^i^CHZm'^1868. Dt^Td) 10 ftEA,LEstate.BuiLDiffc AR,ci^n'ECTUR,E>(ousEHoiDOEa(npat Bifsn&ss Alto Themes of GEjfeR^ Ifhwpi. PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. Telbphonb, - . . - , Cortlandt 1370 Uummunloatlons should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, J. 1. LINDSEY. Business Manager. Brookltn Office, 276-282 Washington Street, Opp. Post Offich. "Entered at the Post-office at Neio York, N. I., as secffnd-dass matter." Vol. LV. APRIL 20, 1895. No. 1,414 For Brooklyn matter, see Brooklyn Department immediateli following New Jersey records [page 667). "^OTHINGt puts heart into people so much ar.au ailvauce ■*^ in the pricee o'. fhe great staples, autl it wheat would only show as much activity as cottou and oil, the situatiou would be¬ come much more satisfactory. The fact that wheat has not joined the upward movement, excc]it iu a moderate way, aud as a matter of sympathy ivith other thiugrs, is drawiug attention to that cereal and cieatiug bullish views for its immediate future. The buying lately seen iu the Stoek Market is undoubtedly the result of an outcrop of public confidence ; professiocal operafcurs never yet maintained aud never could maintain snch a market as we have had since the beginning of last mouth. Buyers are acting under uo delusions as to the nature of the proiieifies they arc de.iling in. Thelast two years have tested everything so thoroughly that they cauuot make any mistake as to whicb are good aud which are bad. Their actions must be based on a firm belief that the bad features of the situation are either things of the past or about to become so, aud that better ones are just ahead. But for'his fact the purchases of the ftraogers -rzith their contiuued bad showings of earnings aud of the Coalers with the questions of percentages and productions uudeter- miued would be utterly unaccountable. Iu the last thirty days there have been large casii purchases of both stocks aud bonds in fhe speculative classes, and these would only be made under more than an expectation that a period of improvemeut iu the material condition of th:*, commuuity has been begun. Uuder these eircnmstauces thero is uo doubt that the advance will go somewhi^t further with, of course, the inevitable occa.sioual set-backs in the form of reactions, and g;;i,!cd by the news that comes from the different centres of commercial activitv. A CTIVITY on the European Exchanges has beeu followed -^^ by the absorption of some mouey in trade, but the deraand from this source is so slight that it is feared that a 2 per cent rate will prevail in London for a good while to come, %yith cor¬ respondingly low rates onthe Coutiuent, excepting at Vienna, where, however, rafies have never been as low as at other great financial centres. It is to be regretted that the activity of the several business communities of the world should bein so large a proportioQ in the security markets where speculation is more rife than elsewhere. If we could hear that Clyde ship buildiug was booming, or of more activity among makers of silk at Lyons, or among the iron-workers of Rheuish-Westphalia, or in any other great industrial centre, the thing would have a better sound. Movements on the Exchanges are so largely speculative that tliey aro not satisfactory testimony of the world's prosperity, and, indeed, unless followed by something better, aro no testimony at all. More substantial evidence, however, is always preceded by them, and it is presumed aud hoped that it is so iu this instance. Great Britain has uo budget difticulty this year, there being a surplus of $3,850,000 in the year closing, with a pros¬ pect that tho new legacy duties will yield from $5,000,000 to $6,000,001) more in the coraiug year thau they did in this; other additions will remove the necessity for much, if any, new taxation. New capital applicitions are growing enormously. Vhe several amounts for the first quarter of the following years IJoba'ol evoVJ^aescripti'oS^^' $142,000,000; 1894, $60,500,000; aay w .^!2l Z"''^ i>erfeo£i^i)5, $155,000,000. Analysis makes the - most taviirable inasmuch as they F^^^fy'whhK'fco Bros ^ *** commercial ventures. The French THILLMANM X. uirw^^ ^"''"'"^ ^^'^ *'''^'^® ^'"^ Madagascar J^v^^^,,lit"''^'-^VOv^^"^ ^or^ign trade; probably AflyiPIQiy^l^ ^jethnigtofightfovin fhat islaud. The For Churches, Public Bulldl?"*^*^"'''^^^'^ popular measures so much Columna, etc. omce,-M u'ith the w.irkersiu the State moiiop- f "iTT.v^ i.|;/T-''obacco makers were on strike, now ' t. The proposed purchase of the Austrian railways by the government of that country is not raeeting much opposition, although it will increase the State's responsibilities considerably, but as the matter can be arranged by the negotiation of bonds, ouly few seem to mind that, aud the objectors confine themselves to hoping that this undertaking w ill notimperil the arrangements for currency reform. Apart from the moralitivs involved tlie announcemeut of peace between China and Japan will occasion general satisfaction, best expressed by the last annual report of the Dresden Bank, which stated in expectation of the event, that it will probably lead to large orders for war and railway material and consequently foster business. The inclusion ot au offensive and defensive alliance betivecn the two countries in the terms of peace is the line which Japan puts around the neck of China in order the easier to lead her whithersoever she ■will. Sociology Becomes Teachable. MOST sciences come iuto existence before the need of them is geuerally appreciated. They are fonnulated by a few .^ advanced thinkers aud have to prove Iheir usefulness before *^ they are welcomed. But for fully fifty years there has been a general demand for a well reasoned and useful science of soci¬ ology, as intense as that tor a uew anti-tojiine for some deadly disease and much more intense than that which some i ears ago demanded the application of electricity to the purpose of light¬ ing. This demand for a usable and teachable science of soci¬ ology has even been impatient and petulant. Large numbers of large books have been written, not only to prove that we need it, but Ihat it is absurd that we do uot have it; that we ought to be heartily ashamed of our-selves for mit haviug evolved it. But wheu these impatient authors tried to supply the demand which they declared should be promptly met—that is, when they tried to formulate the science which was wanted—fhe results of their work were conspicuously unhappy. Herbert Spencer haa scolded people for lack of sense iu economic and political affairs as constantly, thoujih not iu the same manner as Carlyle, and yet hi? sociology is based upon biological as.sumptions which are crumbling from beneath it, aud his theory of the State upon an " ethical assumption " which all but the auarchists, ixom Huxley down, consider false. He is a voice crying in the wilderness, and if he is as wise as he thinks hiraself, then other people are indeed so foolish that it is uot worth while even to waste breath iu scolding them. They can rationally be looked upon only as belonging to the class of the persistently and itiveterately unfit, aid a prompt failure to survive is the best that cau be hoped for them. The Social Science Associations of England and the United States also constituted themselves the prophets of much-needed science. They devoted a good part of their energies to i)roving that a science of society would be useful if we had it, and most of the remainder to the problems of crime, pauperism and the siUii:':- This led people to think that social science was concerned only with social wreckage, and the broad term social science which these associations had iucoipi^a^ed i.u thoir iitles was degraded to a narrow meaning. It was this perversion of the earlier name that compelled the adoption of the newer and less satisfactory term of Sociology, This iu turu has been seized upon by certain periodicals aud associations aud misapplied in the same way until mauy have a feeliug that sociology is con¬ cerned only with social diseases. The attempts to teach fhe "science" in colleges and univer¬ sities were not much more happy iu their results than the attempts to fonuulate the science. Courses nominally in soci¬ ology might be lu almost anything from sanitation to finance, or from criminology to theology. One economist aud student of social problems who v,'as called in 1889 to a professorship in an institution where a course in " sociology" was scheduled, promptly threw it out, because he eaid he did not know what sociology was and had grave suspicious that as yet nobody else did—at any rate he felt sure it was not yet a science that was in teachable shape. He preferred to offer courses iu the subsidiary sciences of economics, politics aud so forth, in whieh he could feel more confident that he knew what he was talking about. But notwithstanding the slowness of the scieuce in getting itself boru, the scolds are wrong. Sociology could not be foi'- mulated before the other social sciences upon which it rests. Development has been more rapid iu getting together the material which sociology must use thau was the progress in bringing together the material which mado the formulation of biology possible. Disease was studied before physiology, ther¬ apeutics before anatomy, botany and zoology before biology. So it was necessary that the subsidiary social sciences should be studied first. That economics and politics and criminology auf'-" even the uaraelcss science which is uow cuMe