Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: no. 56, no. 1449: December 21, 1895

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Deoember 21,1896 Record and Guide, S86 _________ . . HpB£l«i^l868, Bifsn/Ess wto Themes of GEifeRiL iKrn^si. PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. TBLBPHONB,......OOBTLAHDT 1370 Oonmuuiloatlons should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street. J. 1. LINDSET. Busineaa Manager. "Entered al ike Post-offlce at Ifew Yorle, JT, Y., as second-class matter." Vol. LVI. DECEMBER 21, 1895. No. 1,449 The Record and Guide ivill furnish you with daily detailed reports of all building operations, compiled to suit tour business specifi.cally, for 14 cents a day. Tou are thm kept informed of the entire market for your goods. No guess-ivorlc. Every fact verified. Abundant capital and the thirty yeaa-s' experience of The Record and Gujdb guarantee the com¬ pleteness and authenticity of tliis'_service. Send to 14 and IG Vesey street for information. THE act of Mr. CleTelafid of laat Tueetlay and the joy witli which, it has beeu approved by so many haa checked bnsi¬ nesa in all lines aud provoked a panic in Wall street, the end of which it is impossible to foresee. Prices canuot go on tumb¬ ling at the rate of tive to ten points a day,with the market closed to many good securities because bttyers have disappeared, for very long, but still such is the seriousness of the sitnation that, despite the decline, uo one would advise buying with any confi¬ dence. Ordiuarily when sitch a sharp break has beeu esperi¬ enced, securities are a buy for a good rally, but this is not an ordinary occasion, and consequently the rule may uot work. Without reference at all to the rights of the matter iu dispute between this country and G-reat Britain, and looking at it purely from the commercial point of view and its influence ou trade and on the quoted valnes of securities, it must be admitted that the outlook is a very gloomy one. With tho Commission, whicb is to say whether we have a good cause for takiug the position we have already taken, appointed, there will be an anxious wait of some monthe for its decision, during which no one will want to take any busineas risks for fear that the conditious may be worse at the end of the Commission'e deliberations than before. It may be that the opinion that is growiug among business men, that the matter has gone too far, and the influence they may be able to exert will do something to relieve the situation ; but, so long as it remains what it is the results to busiuess are too clearly iudi¬ cated by the events of the past few days to need detailed description, PRIOR to the President's message, which has electrified all Christendom, European markets were quiet in almost every direction as if they were waiting some change in the general con¬ ditions before deciding on the next movement. The outlook for spring was not a discouraging one, provided, of course, there was no infraction of the world's peace. A few days bave seen a con ditjon of great disturbance, paiticularly in financial circles, take the place of the calm. Recent advices bring some interest¬ ing items of news. One that will particularly iuterest the wheat growers of this country is that reports for fifty European govern¬ ments of Russia show a wheat crop for 1895, though about equal to the average for 1883-92, 120,000,000 bushels, below either tbatof 189-4 or that of 1893. The enormous Russian surplus has kept wheat prices down for two years, and, if now there is to bo a falling off in thecootributious of wheat from Russia to the Liverpool supplies, as there h^s been already a falling off io tbe contributions from Argentina, prices will havo a chauce to revive. There is alao a falling off in the rye, oats and barley produced in Russia, and a deHcieney of rye also in Austro-Hungary and Prussia. Statistics relating to the payment o£ succession duties in Prance of late years confirm the opinion e.^pressed by many economists, that the expansion of priv.tte fortuues in that country has ceased from the diminution iu the revenue and the increased taxation. The correctiou of the lower Danube is tobe completed in six mouths. Hungary haa decided to spend 54,000,000 florins onthecentral portiou of tbe river and Austria 24,000,000 florina'on that portion flowing tlirough her provinces. For some time there has beeu an idea current that Great Britain's trade with her Au.stralian colonies was being encroached upon by other nations. Statistics just published do not bear otit that view. The ten years from 1883 to 1893 saw the imports from G-reat Britain fall from 50 per cent to 41 per cent of the whole, and exports to G-reat Britain from 49 to 46 per cent of tbe whole, but these diffeiences were uot accounted for by increased trade with rival nations, but by an enlarged exchange of com¬ modities between the colonies themselves. TT7"HEN the thermometer was threatening to go to zero last ' • week and the mind called up the vision of New York carpeted with half a foot of snow, itwas pleasant to find that the Department of Street Cleaning waa already preparing to cope with such an eveut. Hitherto it has been the official cus¬ tom to await until the traEBc was impeded and the city one huge home of discomfort before takiug any steps whatever to remove the snow. Such steps as were taken were always inadequate, if indeed they amounted to more than fervent prayers offered up daily in the responsible department for a thaw and succeeding rain storm. The arrangements that h.ive beeu made have more the character of business than of sentiment. They iuclude tbe purchase of snow-plows and the organization oE the street clean¬ ing force to deal with the light suow f-tUs, aud in addition a con¬ tract to supplement the exertions of the regular force, which tbe public is given to understand will put five thousand meu and twenty-five huudred carts at work in clearing the streets within three hours of a heavy fall. If these arraugemeuts can be carried out they will make New York City as comfortable a place of winter residence as can be found in these latitudes. Of course, a doubt of this possibilily arises to mitigate tbe beauty of the prospect. It is not, however, a question as to whether these provisions to meet wbat is always a serious emergency can be carried ont in the ordiuary course of things. It is whether the extraordinary provisions of law, relaling to the pay for labor for street cleaning work, will uot bo invoked to prevent the exe- ctition of the contract previously mentioned. It is not probable that the contractor's bidwas based on the rates the city pays for such work, but rather upon the rates in the open market. A doubt as to whether the law fixing tbe wages of employes iu the Department of Street Cleaning does uot apply to wages paid for work done by contract with thafc^Department, has prevented bids being made for the disposal of garbage and may account for the fact that there was ouly one bid for tbe removal of the snow. Sbould labor agitators raise this question when the snow is on the ground and thereby prevent its removal, the citizens will be reiuiudcd in a very unpleasant but wholesome way, that there is on the .statute-book a law thafc is coutrary to all business principles aud they may be incited by the iucouveuieuce they will suffer to seriously seek its repeal. "\rlAGARA PALLS, which have been tbe wonder of the -^ world siuee their discovery by civilized man, are, we are told, in dauger of contraction through tbe drawing oft of the waters .ibove them for comraercial purposes. While the State of New York is anxious for its industrial development, it is not likely that it will care to sacrifice this majestic natural phenom¬ enon to seettre it, especiaUy as it can be obtained without such a piece ol: generosity. Everyone has admired the enterprise which has put the waters of the Niagara River iuto harness for the benefit of iudustry, but ifc ia doubtful if anyone supposed for a moment that this would contract the Falls themselves, and consequently lessen their majesty and beauty. But the State Commissicn whieh has the Niagara Part and FaUs in its care sounds a uote of warning which ought to be heeded. Ita president, Mr. Andrew H, G-reen, in his annual report, just issued, says: " The great iucrease of projects to take water from the Niagara River that have already received legislative sanction, added to the enterprise to utilize the more distant waters of tbe hikes, whicb waters are essential to the Palls, has become tbe occasion of a general apprehension that the spec¬ tacle of (he Palis is likely to be impaired." If this is so, and, coming from sucb an authority as the State Commissiou it may be accepted as fact, steps ought to be taken without delay to prevent it. Any injury to the Falls is to be condemned on practical as well as sentimental grounds. About half a million of people visit the Falls annually, and of that nimiber seventy per cent, travel through the State of New York to do so. The failure of the Falls to attract would therefore cut oft" a very large sum of money annually paid to carriers, hotel keepers and others. Ten dollars a. head would be a small sum at which to estimate the expenditure within the State of these three hun¬ dred and fifty thousand people ou a visit to.the Falls alone, and yet on that inadequate basis the direct loss to the trade of the State would be 1^3,500,000 a year. There is even a weightier consideration, and that is whether this State wants to earn the odium of allowing oue of the wonders of the world to be des¬ troyed for merely mercenary reasons. ------------■------------- FEELING agaiust the erection of more high buildings in St. Louis has taken shape by tbe iutroduetiou of a bill into the City Council which proposes that no structure ahall he erected within the corporate limits which shall be of a height exceeding two aud oue-balf times the width of the widest street upou which the buildiug is to stand. Au exception is made in the case of church spires. Thia bill is also intended to compel