575
THE ESTATES GAZETTE
April 8, 1899.
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Unfortunately the names of several members of the profession appear in the lists of those missing from among the passengers by the Channel steamer “Stella,” which was wrecked on the Oasquet rocks on! Thursday afternoon last week. Mr. J. T. Buston, of 3, Bockhall-terrace, Orieklewood, N.W., was the estate agent of the Midland Railway Company, at St. Pancras, a position which he had filled for considerably over 20 years. He was in his 55th year, and leaves a widow and son to mourn his loss. The body arrived at Southampton on Thursday. Mr. Townsend, of Wimbledon, was a member of the well-known firm of Parsons and Townsend, and was, with Mr. Green, the manager of the estate department in the office of that firm, going across to the Channel Islands for a short holiday. Mr. F. W. Hatch, of Catfsrd, was also upon an errand of pleasure. Mr. Hatch, who was 25 years of age, had not long been in business as an auctioneer at Catford, and was for some time engaged as manager in the auction department of the firm of Thomas Dixon and Sons, 47, Lower Belgrave-street, S.W. Colonel Dixon, who, with Mrs. Dixon, was among the fortunate number who were saved, is the esteemed head of the firm of G. W. Dixon and Co., of Sutton, Surrey.
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The land stewardship of the Eastern District of the Duchy of Cornwall, rendered vacant by the retirement of Mr. Geo. Herriot, has been filled by the appointment of Mr. Wm. Proudfoot, of Dolforgan Estate, Kerry, Montgomeryshire. Like Mr. Herriot, Mr. Proudfoot comes from north of the Tweed, and he has been managing an estate in Montgomeryshire adjoining the one formerly in charge of Mr. Alex. Webster, who is now steward of the Western District of the Duchy. Mr. Proudfoot, who is the youngest son of Mr. R. Proudfoot, of Blythe Bridle, Kirkurd, Peeblesshire, will take up his residence at Shepton Mallett, and will commence his new duties at Midsummer. He is a man of wide experience, and well known as a lecturer on scientific and agricultural subjects. In North Wales he has displayed a helpful interest ill educational matters, particularly in subjects appertaining to the agricultural industry, and has also interested himself actively in the work of the Parish Councils.
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We understand that, in consequence of the dissolution of partnership between Mr. David Burnett and Mr. Herbert Eldridge (Bean, Burnett and Eldridge), Mr. William H. Home has left Mr. David Burnett and associated himself with Mr. Herbert Eldridge, of the firm of Godwin, Basley and Eldridge, of 28, Martin’s-lane, E.C., and 28, Cadogan-place, S.W. Mr. Horne is the son of the late Mr. Home, of Messrs. Wilkinson and Horne, 7, Poultry, E.C., with which firm he served his articles.
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Mr. Charles Chapman (Messrs. Howgate and Chapman, auctioneers, etc., Wakefield) has taken into partnership Mr. W. N. King, whose professional experience has been gained in London, the Midlands, ,South Wales, and the eastern counties. The title of the firm will be Howgate, Chapman and King.
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Mr. Edward Doudney, jun., and Mr. Edward Colville Agnew, both of Southsea, have opened offices at No. 1, Goldsmith-avenue, Southsea, where they intend to carry on the business of auctioneers, surveyors, valuers, house, land and estate agents. The style of the firm is Doudney and Agnew.
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In consequence of the premises occupied by Messrs. J. M. Leeder and Son, in Goat-street, Swansea, for the past 12 years, being let for rebuilding purposes, they have taken other equally convenient offices at No. 46, Waterloo-street, in the same town.
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Messrs. H. W. Dunphy and F. B. Johnson, carrying on business as auctioneers, etc., at Hastings and St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, under the style of Dunphy’s, have dissolved partnershiD.
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Mr. J. L. Crouch	(Messrs. Willis and Crouch,
29, BasinghaU-street, and Uxbridge) has been re-elected a member of the Uxbridge District-Council.
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Mr. Edward T. Parker, auctioneer, of Bristol, has taken his son into partnership. The style of the firm will be Edward T. Parker and Son.
The reference in the “Notes by the Way” m our last issue to׳ the site at Leeds, lately acquired by the Standard Insurance Company, should have recorded the purchase at £75 per yard, and not per foot, as appeared.
affairs which has just been issued. It is true that the income from their estates has been stationary, but that is due ti the farther fall in the value of the tithe rent-charge. The position has been saved by ground rents and mineral royalties. What would be the position of a great trust like the Ecclesiastical Commissioners if a dirt ct tax were placed upon ground rents, or if those securities were otherwise interfered with ? Yet a huge proportion of the entire number of ground rents is owned by trustees, public or private. It is quite clear that, were it not for this stable form of property, much of the excellent work that is being done by the Commissioners would have to be curtailed.
comprising a farm at Standon, in Hertfordshire, which realised nearly £17 per acre. Together the returns for the two days amounted to £37,711, which is below the corresponding holiday week of last year. Appended will be found the total summary for the past month, also that for 1898, the vast difference being accounted for by the short supply.
March, 1898. March, 1899
At the Mart ...........£817,000 ... £581,828
Country and Suburban ... 587,438 ... 368,104 Private Contract Sales ...	53,510 ... 127,335
£1,457,948 £1,077,267
(©aasifltml &oU%.
“ The decline of the Dairymaid ” is a head-line which seems to open the door to all manner of disastrous possibilities. It appears that in the dairy districts of Cheshire there is a scarcity of dairymaids. These over-particular damsels object to milking the cows, and it has been suggested that somebody should find a way out of the difficulty by inventing a newmilkingmachine. It would be a pity if milking should become a lost art. Probably the real solution will be found in the training of the farmers’ own daughters to the work, although that, of course, presupposes either a somewhat different class of farmers or a considerable all-round sinking of prejudices. We cannot, however, suppose that the scarcity of dairymaids, is, as yet, serious. Indeed, as the dairy industry increases a much larger number of those rosy-cheeked damsels will be needed.
Country Cottages.—We have received a copy of “ English Country Cottages : their condition, cost and requirements,” by •J. L. Green, F.S.I. (the Rural World Publishing Company, Limited, 110, Strand, W.C.). It is the author’s aim to call attention to the state of the cottages of the agricultural labouring population in England ; and to give an idea of the sort of accommodation experience shows is desirable in connection with labourers’ dwellings. The first two chapters of the work are devoted to an enquiry into the present state cf cottage property throughout the country. The author also deals, in succeeding chapters, with such important subjects as rent, rates, and tenure; drainage, water supply, etc. The book is enriched with carefully drawn plans of model cottages as well as of cottages made to “pay.” After a careful examination of the subject* in all its aspects, the author arrives at the conclusion “ that the state of country cottages is, excepting in the case of the owners of the larger agricultural estates, mostly very inferior, and in numerous cases so deplorable as to make desirable the interference of the local authorities or, in their default, the Government.” The work contains many valuable suggestions, and it is written throughout with remarkable dearness and even elegance of style.
umntarg af
BEYOND THE GREATER METROPOLIS (p. 664).-Sutton, Carshalton and1 Wallington, illustrated.
BRIC-A-BRAC (p. 581).
CITY TOPICS (p. 582).
COMMISSION CASES (p. 569).—An action in which Messrs. Brackstone and Co., house agents, oi Col-wyn Bay, sought to recover from Messrs. John Jones and Son, Limited, butchers, of Llandudno, commission amounting to £19 5s., alleged to be due on the sale of certain premises belonging to the defendants, is reported'.
DUDDING HILL ESTATE, WILLESDEN (p. 568).
FARM AND FIELD (p. 576).
FORESTRY (p. 562).—Planting—pleasure grounds— nursery work—oak sales.
FURNITURE OLD AND NEW (p. 565).—The Empire
GREAT PAINTERS, THE (p. 583).—A further instalment of the series of articles under this head, dealing with the life and- work of William Hogarth is given.
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS (p. 568).—Several important cases are reported.
LEGAL TOPICS (p. 563).
LICENSED PROPERTY NOTES (p. 580).
LIVERPOOL PROPERTY OWNERS' ASSOCIATION
MAR^TS (p. 583).
MEMS. FROM THE MART (p. 579)
NOTES BY THE WAY (p. 576).
PRIVATE TREATY SALES (p. 582).
PROVINCIAL PROPERTY SALES (p. 578).
RATES AND RATING (p. 580).—Cases involving the rating of licensed! properties in Bradford and Fal-mouth.
SAYINGS AND DOINGS (p. 568).
SURVEYORS' INSTITUTION (p. 581).-Official announcements.
At the time of writing the results of the elections to the Irish County Councils are known very imperfectly. There can, however, be very little doubt that the Nationalists have pretty well swept the board. This was, of course, to be expected at the first election, and it is likely enough that in the course of a term or two the landowning class will obtain, if not perhaps its fair share of representation, atleast a much more adequate one than it has obtained this time. And even as it is the landlords are not left, as is sometimes supposed, at the mercy of the majority. The fear was that they would be heavily burdened by the local rates to be imposed by the new Councils; but the Act safeguards them in that respect by giving them one-half of the agricultural grant in aid of rates, the ocher half going to the occupiers. The agrarian position of Ireland is changed so much for the better that for our own part, we are by no means sure that any dead set will be made at the landowning class.
Workmen’s and labourers’ dwellings and the promotion of industries and agriculture are among the subjects which will have to be taken seriously in hand by the new Councils. The former is an exceptionally important subject in Ireland, where so large a proportion of the agricultural class is housed in little better fashion than “ the pig that pays the rint ” ; and certainly there is a very wide field for activity in the fostering of agriculture and other industries. We fancy, however, that it would be unduly sanguine to expect much in any of these directions for some little time to come. The men upon whose initiative these matters to a great extent depend, are the men who, as rate-payers, will have to find much of the money for them, and we believe those observers who think that the Irish County Councillor will be parsimonious rather than extravagant are not far wrong.
We do a service to our readers in calling attention onee more to the very charming series of articles upon “ A Farmer’s Year,” which Mr. Eider Haggard is contributing to “Longman’s Magazine.” The April instalment is quite as attractive as any that have gone before, and a great pleasure is in store for those who will be fortunate enough to obtain the complete series when it is published in book form. A diary like this does more to op an the eyes of the world to the real facts, the hopes, the anxieties and pleasures of the life of a farmer and land-owner than almost anything else. Such a book ought to have a real educative influence upon public opinion by showing, without bias and without exaggeration, exactly where the shoe pinches for all who are connected with the land.
The Ecclesiastical Commissioners have done very fairly during the past year, a ccording to the statement of their fiaan cial
improvements undertaken by a local authority—are usually more or less inadequate.
How inadequate these arrangements sometimes are is demonstrated by some details which have been published this week of what the London County Council has done in this regard in the matter of the Blackwall Tunnel. Let us make it perfectly clear that we attribute no blame to the Council in this connection. It has made a mistake through inexperience ; and where the whole world is in doubt as to the best thing to be done, we can hardly wonder that one particular body, however, rich and influential, should have gone wrong. It had a difficult problem to solve, and, unluckily, it solved it badly. Something like 160 houses were pulled down to make the approach to the Blackwall Tunnel, and the serious mistake was made of demolishing them before anything was ready to take their place. The result was an immediate rise in rents. Cottages which had been letting from 4s. 6d. to 6s. 6d. a week advanced to 8s. 6d. and 10s., at which they still stand. Owners of small property have thus had a relatively considerable sum put into their pockets in a very undesirable way. To make money by the legitimate increase in the value of property is one thing ; to make it by grinding the faces of the poor, which is what it comes to in this case, is something very different. When the Council did build, some 250 of the dispossessed population were left unprovided for, while the rents it asks and the restrictions it imposes make their buildings unwelcome and unsuitable to those for whom they were intended. The high rents are one of the unfortunate results of the extravagance and incapacity of the Works Committee.
As we have said, we can hardly blan.e the Council for all this,since, like everybody else, it has been groping in the dark. But we do regard it as most unfortunate that its action should have had the effect of so seriously increasing rents in a poor quarter. It is of very great importance that the house-owning class should not, for the misdeeds of the more unworthy of its members, obtain a bad name for oppressing the poor. And at present we fear there is some likelihood of this. Every man who appreciates the duties which he undertakes when he becomes the owner of house-property would gladly see unscrupulous possessors of poor property restrained from squeezing their unlucky tenants in the fashion which takes place only too often at present. But, short of some such interference as that, which would no doubt sat a dangerous precedent, we can see only two ways in which amelioration is possible. The new buildings oughtto arise as far as may be coincidently with the destruction of the old ones and whenever it is at all possible they ought to be erected in the suburbs. It is very undesirable that great blocks of artisans’ dwellings should be erected in the centre of London. Light and air are insufficient, and provision for recreation is exceedingly difficult. But when it is essential that they should be placed in crowded districts there is, as a rule, no reason to ask exorbitant rents. The Peabody and Guiness trustees do not ask such rents, and there is no justification for other people demanding them.
THE ESTATE MAEKET.
The business at Tokenhouse-yard this week, although confined to two days only, was fairly brisk, a large number of properties of the smaller class being disposed of. There was a good demand for reversions and policies, whilst the only landed property placed upon the market was sold, this