OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 79, 1 April 1908, Page 6

OUR AMERICAN LETTER.

■ '-- jQur -Special -Correspondent.) NEW YORK, February 8, 1903. .WINTER AND ITS PROBLEMS. Tt is ah. old adage in. this -part oi the -..worhLthat "as thedays begin to lengthen the cold begins to strengthen." It is , \__ft t__> \A_t«.' _he shortest day. comes pa December 21, _ ...when the sun sets shortly after 4 p.m. In the early evenings of December and January the great office buildings make a briUia-nt spectacle as the lights shine forth from numerous windows and pre- - sent,-from the. river -fronts especially, as the crowds begin to scurry homewards -by bridges and ferries, a night scene unequalled in any-other city of the world. At the end of January the sun does not leave the city in darkness until 5 o'clock, and the evening illumination of the city loses some of its brilliance as many offices are closed at five. Some heavy gales of wind were experienced through December and January this winter, but very little bard frost until "the advent of the present month, since which time New York has been much more arctic in temperature. There is another weather tradition invariably observed here, known as "ground hog uav." This is the 2nd of February, and the saying is that if the ground hog, the custom of which is ■ to hibernate all winter, sees his shadow when he annually comes out for a stroll on this date, he at once gets scared and goes to sleep again for another six weeks. ; "Ground hog day" this year proved bright enough to throw a shadow from a skeleton, although a bitterly cold gale "raged all day, so the weather prophets predict at least six weeks more of winter. . -It has shown its severity the-past few days in the icing up of the harbour. The rivers which serve to form the harbour of New York never freeze solidly, except the Hudson, a considerable distance above the city, but small shore ice forms and drifts about with the tides, piling up and accumulating in docks and slips so long as ice-making weather continues. This has resulted just now in the annihilation of most of the ferry services, -, and it is very fortunate that the tunnel -- : .- Is in good working order, as 1 welL as. the bridges. So crowded is the tunnel in the evening rush hoursj however, that although eight-car trains are run on three-minute headway, it is often impossible to'get near enough to, the trains to get aboi rd from the down-town - -station platforms until three or four trains .have passed after one gets inside " "the station. And-then the congestion of passengers at the tunnel exits in Brooklyn, where transfers to surface cars are necessary, is terrible. A man reaches home at an hour or so after - ]eavihg~his "Office, :withhis evening paper in his hand, and someone else begins to .read.it for. him, thinking the one who brought the paper knows it all. He says: "No; I was so closely squeezed up in the tunnel train, I didn't-get a . — chance to open the paper, and. had to hang .-on—to-a.-step-of a--trolley car in — -Rrookiya,- so- that-1 -couldn't -see anything." The immigration appears to enlarge the city- so that the transportation "problem does not'decrease. Facilities for distributing the crowds to their homes in -ihe- rush.hours .appear to fail to keep pace with the demands, and although new subways are planned it will require years to build them. In summer a great ' many walk, and thus relieve the cars of pressure' for walking distance transit, "hut'in. ndd-winter,, as;at present, one has ;toltake chances and suffer all sorts of inconveniences in travel between home and' business. Skating is always indulged in by crowds when there is an opportunity, but excepting two days this week the - park's -lakes have not- been • open with a • sufficient thickness of ice, and now they are covered, with. snow again. SLACKNESS TN BUSINESS. Business is "fairly good, all things considered," but It is regarded as "an offyear" in business generally, being presidential year, and the financial panic ~- ; ~ "still'shows' it_*"'e_ects, a Targe ' volume "of".funds being tied iip'in the suspended .'. -banks' and. several ..additional financial 'I', concerns having recently closed "their doors. Much .anxiety has been caused 7. in certain circles this week by the djs- — .appearance of Mr. Charles W. Morse. who, more than any other man, was blamed for precipitating the financial ," panic,, as it Tyas his' banks that were the ~" "first to go. 3f£...Mor.se has.turned up in .",' England, whither he travelled under an assumed name, but his creditors have * attached all the property they could find here, and whether' he will return is regarded by some as very doubtful. ~ Mr. Morse's financial methods were some- ;: thing of this order. Seeing- a business that paid seven or eight per cent diyi- -; dends by careful and economical management on a capital easily represented by visible assets, he would buy it out and ~ combine "with another business almost as -• good, organise a new company to hold and operate bothj and issue bonds at, say, four per cent, for double the old --capital-df-both, besides an issue of stock ; for a similar amount, which would have to take its chances -for dividends on a further development' of business. The bonds and stock he would deposit with banks and obtain extended credit, or use -them to buy some other business with a surplus of cash in bank, which surplus cash would speedily disappear and be substituted by stock certificates after Mr. Morse got in control. How people trusted him so extensively, and how he came to have such great credit, is now the mystery,, but 25,000,000 dollars was his rating easily a. short time before the crash. Of course there was a woman in the case, the present Mrs.. Morse being the divorced wife of another man. It is expected that the business of the country will survive, however, and next year at least will see a fairly normal resumption of affairs. THE HOME OF THE SKYSCRAPER. - ,City has 538-buildings. ten storeys—and higher. A census by the Building Department recently as_to the _ high buildings on Manhattan.lsland, in--eluding the unfinished tower of the Metropolitan Life Building, revealed, the following: Forty-eight storey building. 1; forty-one storey buildings, 2; twentysix storey" buildings, 2; twenty-five storey buildings, 3; twenty-three storey buildings, 2; twenty-two storey buildings, 4: twenty storey buildings. 9; nineteen storey buildings, 2; eighteen storey buildings, ff; seventeen storey buildings, 2; sixteen storey. buildings, 19; fifteen -storey buildings; 19; -fourteen storey buildings, IS; .thirteen storey buddings, i 3; twelve "storey-buildings,'l69; eleven storey'buildings, 101; ten storey buildt0^ alr 53S ' W hen the tower of ■the Metropplitan..Life BuUding in Madi-son-square is completed, New York will -ave- w hat undoubtedly will be the laV e^e lock ,n the world. That distinction h_s belonged for many years to "Bio is£m& tf s_.d one-

half feet in diameter, while .that of the Metropolitan Building clock will be twenty-five. It will be a clock suitable in every way to be a part of the-tallest permanent structure in the world, as the new tower will be. tower will be forty-eight stories, 658 feet above the street, and the clock will occupy part of the twenty-fifth,, twenty-sixth, and twenty-seventh floors. The middle of \ the dial will be 346 feet above the street. ) Notwithstanding the fact that the dial / wi_ be a little more than half way be- ■ \\,\\ce_ W_a ___ ttvft oi \i\_s' / tower, it will be far above all surroundling buildings. It will be fifty feet higher than the fiat-iron building. The immense size of the clock will make it easy to tell the time from a great distance. The letters on the dial will be four feet high, and the hands ivilZ be twelve feet Jong. No clock has been ordered for the building yet, and it is not known just how it will be run. Some of the largest clocks are run by electricity, while some of the newer ones use compressed air. EXTENSIVE CRIMINAL RECORDS. That more persons were arrested in the first division of the city of New York, the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, in 1907, than live in Denver, Allegheny, Fall River, Memphis, New Haven, Scranton, Syracuse, Toledo, or Worcester, is one of the statements in the thirty-fourth annual report of the Board of City Magistrates of that division, prepared by Charles G. T. White, which was made public yesterday. The number of arrests was 1 £1,494/ an increase of 5202, or 5.S per cent over the year 1906. Of these prisoners 126,627 were males and 22,867 f'-.. oles, an increase of 11,175 in men arraigned. Briefly stated, the figures show that the number of arrests in the first division was 5.8 of the total population of 2,541,084. The first division has made the record during the last year of having a greater percentage of arrests than were made in the metropolitan police district of London, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, Washington, Cleveland, Pittsburg, or Liverpool. In Chicago the total number of arrests was 91,592, or 3.8 per cent of the total population. The total arraigned for felonies in the first division in 1907 was 13,913. which was 2360 more than in 1906 and 5880 more than in 1897. The number of women arraigned in 1907 was 1530, a decrease of 191 as compared with 1906. The magistrates' statistics reveal an increase of 4.4 per cent in 1907 over those arraigned for grand larceny, for burglary IS per cent, and robbery 31.9 per cent. There was an increase in fines collected in 1907 over 1906 of 18,836.36 dollars. THE WORRIES OF THE THAWS. The second trial of Harry Thaw for the murder of Stanford White resulted, as all the world now knows, in his acquittal on the ground of insanity. ■ This was not declared by the jury to be "temporary insanity," but a species of mental condition which was liable to develop dangerously at any time. The judge's charge in this respect was peculiar and very different from that at the first trial. Thaw is now in the State Criminal Insane Asylum, and efforts are being made to secure his liberty, but how long may elapse before they are successful remains to be seen. His future is not enviable under any circumstances, and his family has been branded as dangerous. The little chorus girl for whom he sacrificed everything is the only "chipper" one of the lot.. Even his - sister, the Countess of, Yarmouth, has secured an annulment of her marriage to the Earl, and resigns her position in the British peerage. RESTBICTION ON UNSIGHTLY ADVERTISEMENTS. An interesting decision in the Supreme Court here the other day was that condemning advertising signs on Fifth Avenue stage coaches. These signs have recently become as hideous and as multifarious as those on the London buses, but the decision is against them on the ground that the stage coach company only received its franchise for transportation purposes, not for advertising, and the signs mar the natural beauty of the route. Many of the advertising signs relate to tobacco and 'cigarettes. The Court said the colours used—green, dark blue, white, light blue, yellow, drab and various brilliant shades of red—are contrasted so as to attract attention, and are not blended so as to produce a harmonious or an artistic effect, and the resulting painting constitutes a disfigurement rather than an ornament. After describing the beauty of Fifth Avenue with its churches, residences, clubs and hotels, the Court added: "It is amid such scenes as this that the plaintiff's advertising panorama of brilliant signs moves. It is along this avenue of churches that on Sundays these glaring billboards are driven. It is the scheme of beauty which is sacrificed to the demands of modern commercialism. It is along this entrance to parks and along the parks themselves, preserved to attract lovers of nature and of the beautiful, that these unnatural and inartistic moving picture signs are displayed. The plaintiff was incorporated to use the public streets for a specific purpose. ' The leasing of the exterior of its vehicles for advertising is an.unauthorised use of the streets for a pri.vate purpose. Such a special and peculiar use has been condemned after it has received the stamp of municipal approval. The use of the exterior of stages is not a stage use; it is not necessary to the performance of any corporate, duty." CANADIAN TOPICS. A Canadian Parliamentary return shows that up to November 30 the construction of the Ottawa mint cost 256,535d01, the site cost 22,150d01, and the equipment 94,966d01, making the total cost 404,552d01. To complete it, it is estimated 94,500d0l will be required. From IS9S to 1907 Canada's profit on coinage of copper amounted to 194,067, dol, and on silver the seignorage was 2,813,987d01, a total seignorage profit in ten years of 3,007,972d01. No gold coinage will be undertaken until a refinery is established, but for the coinage of cents it is estimated that this year 50,000d0l worth of copper will be purchased, and for the other coins 700,000d0l worth of silver. It is rumoured that the Canadian troops in garrison at Halifax, may be again replaced by a regiment from England in April. The Canadian Government will pay all the expenses, as at present, but the men will come from the British Islands, the War Department sendfng out a complete corps. Canada, it is said, finds it too difficult to enlist the men, and they cost more than the troops from England. British official emigration returns show Canada's unquestioned supremacy among the countries receiving British emigrants. In 1906 Canada received 5300 more Britishers than the United States received, and in 1907 she received 16,969 more. The rest pf the British Empire is nowhere'as compared to Canada. De--pitejfche assisted, passages Australasia

received, only 14,369, as against Canada's 117,586. Of course, a large proportion of these arei adults. It is probably true to say that 'i Britain presented to Canada ilast year la'population'hardly less than that of tile Province of Saskatchewan. The Newfoundland Legislature is about to consider a Government Bill to 1 establish a system of old age pensions. JOTTINGS. ) Governor Hughes, of New York, is deSnitely now a, candidate for the presi- I . _s_sy, »,__ _■£_>___„ 'B_,o_&v«iYtl ) still "favours Mr. Taft, it is doubtful if he will secure the nomination. It is yet too soon to make any special predictions. , , A special review of the trade disputes I |of the year occ_riing in Canada shows that altogether 149 trade disputes, affecting 34,694 workman, causing a loss of |613,956 working days, occurred in 1907, I compared with 13-0 disputes affecting 26,014 work people;, and causing a loss of 489,775 working _ays in 1906. Exports of gold from Demerara during 1907 were 70,675 oifcces, valued at | 1,254,985d01, compared - with 92,037 ounces valued at 1,641,032d0l in 10QS. I Diamond exnorts in 1907 were valued lat 17,500d01,~ compared with 29,691d0l in ] 1906. An optimist club has been organised in [ New York which has among its mottoes: \ "The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist sees the hole." A wag adds that the chap who seizes the doughnut gets the hole also. I measured a fashionable hat in front of mc in church on a recent Sunday. It was IS inches across and 10 inches high, with a great bunch of feathers on top of that. Tan shoes for girls and women as well as men are much in evidence. this winter, and the girls who go to business with tan shoes generally like,to show them, ankle length skirts being, considered all right, regardless of the age of the wearer.