7(50
 

The   Record  and  Guide.
 

May 28, 188^
 

mixed. We have had a good deal of dry weather, but there has
been more or less rain lately. A break in the price of wheat would
seem to be in order even if it should advance later.
 

Our Prophetic Department.

Operator—The recent rise in the price of grain niust have been
due to some general cause. You attributed it to a dry season, and
quote Benner as having predicted what has since occurred—a rise
in grain due to apprehension of scant crops this summer. But the
newspapers seem to think that the advance of lO cents a bushel or
more is due to the operations of a clique of great dealers in
Chicago.

Sir Oracle—The statements of the press, more particularly
those published by the commercial reporters of the wheat trade in
Chicago, are to me incomprehensible, for there is only one of two
explanations of what has appeared in the news columns of the
Evening Post, Sun, Times and some other papers. Either the
press reporters are fools or they have been paid for deliberately
deceiving the public.

O.—That is rather strong language. May it not be that these
writers, knowing nothing except what transpires within the walls
of the exchanges, naturally attribute the quotations up or down
to the leaders of the market whom they see buying or selling.

Sir O.—There may be something in that view, but there has
evidently been a systematic attempt to fool the public as to the
condition of the growing crops. The government report is always
to be relied on, but that is always late and its summaries are a t least
three weeks after time. I think I have noticed a deliberate purpose
to lie about the weather. We are hearing all the time of refreshing
and copious rains here and there, but somehow the price of grain
continues to go up. This steady rise in price is attributed at one
time to a Chicago clique, at another to a Cincinnati syndicate or to
Califomian millionaires. The fact is our telegraph system should
be in the hands of the government, and then the press ought to
have some machinery for obtaining accurate records of rain falls
and the state of the crops. Let anyone, for instance, read the
Chicago dispatches about the grain market in the Ei^ening Post for
the last two months, and see how presistent the writer has been
in attributing the price of wheat to manipulation instead of the
weather.   It looks as if it was done with a purpose.

O.—Oh, well; perhaps it will come out all right. A good drench¬
ing rain storm would change the whole aspect of affairs. With so
many news agencies it is singular the public are so often deceived.
Sir O.—A case in point is the recent lockout in the building
trade of Chicago. The press reporters have taken the side of the
employers in all these labor troubles, and they send misleading
reports in every direction. There was, it seems, a strike
on the part of a few work people, whereupon the associated
employers of the building trade decreed a lockout so as to bring the
men to terms in all departments of the business. The time, how¬
ever, was noc well chosen. There is a building boom all over the
country, and the Chicago workingmen when asked to give up their
trade organization and leave the Knights of Labor, refused and
went to work elsewhere, but the true state of the case was never
told by telegraph, yet the employing builders here, at the East,
wanted to be given facts not fiction.
O.—What have you to say as to the general situation ?
Sir O.—The trade of the country is all right. I see no setback
in sight for a couple of years, at least. I begin to think that there
is money in buying grain or pi'ovisions as well as dealing in stocks.
But for a permanent investment give me real estate.

O.—What kind of real estate—improved property or vacant lots ?
I see in The Record and Guide that an eminent builder is of
opinion that too many houses are being built—in New York at
any rate ?

Sir O.—It is undeniable that buying of new houses is rather slow
just now; but I think New York will see an active movement in
the fall. People are making money in business all over the
country, and a certain proportion of the lucky ones always come
to New York to buy residencss and make it their permanent home.
Then I feel very sure that there will be an advance in the value of
vacant property. No one can miss it who buys within the limits
of New York city, in improving locations.
O.—How about stocks?

Sir O.—There are a number of reorganizations and deals under
way, and I expect to see special jgroups moved up. But the public
are not buying stocks; other fields of enterprise look more tempt¬
ing. Still I am not a bear, for the market cannot go off very
decidedly when trade is generally prosperous. The excellent rail¬
road returns will keep up the price of all good stocks, and may
advance them provided there is no money stringency.
 

elves particularly obnoxious by their failure to act upon the
Governor's nominations. The next Constitutional Convention must
take away the confirming power of the Senate. It ia abused by
both parties when they have the majority. The Democrats
can claim no credit, for the majority of them supported every
corrupt measure proposed either in the House or Senate. Speaker
Husted now, as always, worked in the interest of the great
moneyed corporations. How a man of his antecedents could be
made the chief of any legislative body is one of the marvels of the
time. The growing indifference of legislators to public opinion is
to be noted in passing. It shows that our machinery for selecting
representatives needs radical overhauling. It is absurd to suppose
that the low tone of our Assemblymen and State Senators repre¬
sents the average honesty of the community. The immediate
effect will be to strip Legislatures of their present power and
transfer more authority to Mayors, Governors and other
executives.
 

The misconduct of the Legislature gives Governor Hill a chance
to pose as a public-spirited executive. He is undoubtedly an able
man, and all his public documents show good sense and tact.
The publications bearing his name are a great improvement on
those of his predecessor, Grover Cleveland. Yet the latter
inspired public confidence, which Governor Hill has, so far, failed
to secure. The impression prevails that he is a self-seeking poli-
tici&,n, but the late Legislature has given him a chance to achieve
popularity by vetoing a great many measures which should never
become laws.
 

The New York State Legislature which has just adjourned has
no eulogists. Both parties discredited themselves. The Republi¬
cans were, perhaps, the most to blame, as they had a majority in
both Houses.    Then the representatives in the Senate made them-
 

Concerning Men and Things.

***

Whatever people may think as to the value of Edward Atkinson's studies
in political economy and the views which he expresses, the truth which
law-makers ought to take home to themselves in a conclusion which ha
draws in his last article in the North American Review. He says, " The
wasteful taxation of cities is a prime cause of city pauperism." For
exactly the same reasons, the unfair and excessive taxation of cities through
State legislation must have the same effect.

*  ' 4

Horseback riding is extolled as a tonic and invigorating exercise for
worn-out people and invalids, and so it really is; but there.are a great many
such who do not understand the necessity of care in commencing it, and
they are, in consequence, seriously injured by it. For one who has never
formed the habit or has not kept it up, the exercise is a violent one, likely
to be exhausting to anyone who is already weak, and especially so if he
worries himself by attempting to control a spirited and showy horse instead
of the gentle and easy-gaited animal which he ought to make it his first
object to secure. Then, again, there are some persons whom it does not
and never will benefit, as is the case with sea-bathing.

** *

It is no wonder that the British are beginning to wonder whether the
cowboys' style of riding, as illustrated in the Wild West show, is not
practically better than their own. Any New Yorker who saw the show
or happened to notice one of its horsemen riding in the streets, as they
sometimes did, the pony moving in easy leaps and the rider sitting almost
as motionless, with reference to the brute, as if he were a part of hitu,
could not have failed to see that the movement was very much easier than
the English fashion, which prevailed in Central Park, of riding at a trot
and rising in the stirrups. The Mexican saddle also comes in for favorable
mention in the London papars. It gives a very easy and secure seat, but is
so heavy and cumbrous that it is hardly desirable for our ordinary rides
for pleasure on gentle and civilized horses. The Mexican bit is regarded
as cruel, but, like the spur, it is so only when used by a cruel rider. The
horse that carries it in his mouth is under beautiful control, usually turn¬
ing at the mere touch of the rein on one or tha other side of his head, and ^
never venturing, as an American horse sometimes will, even to suggest, by
his action, any difference of opinion with his rider as to the way it is desira¬
ble to go.

* ' *

The pulmonary invalids collected in Los Angeles, Cal., are much inter¬
ested in watching the effects of a new treatment for consumption which
has been developed, after five years' experiments, by Dr. Bourgeou of
Paris, bas been favorably reported upon by prominent physicians of tbat
city and other European cities, and has been tried with promising results by
Dr. Bruen in the Philadelphia hospital. It has lately been made use of
in the cases of some ver> weU-known people in Los Angeles with so much
benefit that it is attracting much attention there. The object aimed at,
from the first, has been to destroy the pulmonary bacillus or microscopic
parasite which was discovered by Koch four years ago, and this is now
accomplished by the injection into the system of a gas compounded of
sulphide of hydrogen and carbonic acid. A medical professor, in address¬
ing the Los Angeles County Medical Society, which embraces many highly-
educated and experienced physicians, lately said that he thought it not
unlikely, judging from what he had seen of the effects of the new remedy,
that the name of the discoverer might be placed above those of the most
honored physicians aud scientists of modern times.

***

One of the last sections of the country to report a '• building boom "
the Pennsylvania oil region. For yeai-s building operations there have
been stagnant, caused principally by the low prices which have been ruling
in the oil market. A barr.il of oil is still selling under seventy cents, a
figure which producers consider ruinous, but nevertheless a large nimiber
of uew houses are being put up iu all the cities.    In Titusville three