The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1885-06-28

Disputing the Point that n. II. Lands mr.
Worth Three Times as Much as Adj
joining Lands.

OASputAh& tne EOAmG tnAt N. N. LANDS mr.
Worth Three Times as Much as Adj
joining Lands.
81 have read the articles published from
time to time in the SUNDAY TATTLER de-
failing the methods of the experts in fixing
the taxable value of the property of the
railroads in the State with vast deal of in
terest," said well known railroad man
yesterday, "and I think they have made
some remarkable appraisements. The tes-
timony given by Mr.. Harrison, at the close
OF his direct examination. outlines a specially
fallacious-or what appears to me to be
specially faliacious-basis of valuation.
Take the matter of the land appraisements.
His system was first to take the valuation
of the land as determined by the value of
adjoining property and then multiply it by
three or five. The dividend is the value of
the land in the main stem of the road
Now why is this multiple of three or five
employed? Because the value of the rail-
road bed, as land, is actually three or five
times as great as that of surrounding prop
erty? No! But because the owners of
property lying on the line of the road,
when they learn that their particular strips
are needed for its continuance and must
70 Aoo az my ptAccy put tuoiI pIic0 aL eA-
toftionate figures, and compel the road to
pay it. The price paid for land under such
circumstances is no criterion of lis actual
value. You might as well say that because
man dying for peanut is willing to pay
| five dollars for single one, that his pur-
chase fixes the value of peanuts at a thous-
and dollars quart. The value of land is
not the extortionate price which owners
succeed in forcing from one man in the
community who needs it for a particular
purpose, but the price it would bring in
open market to ordinary buyers. Suppose
man anxious and determined to annoy
another by creating nuisance in the i'm
mediate vicinity of his neighbours prem
ises, were to offer for a lot next to his
enemv's house fifty times what any one
else would pay for it would his tax bill be any
higher for that strip than any one else's
would be-if some one else owned it?
'sMr. Harrison says that the depreciation
of adjoining land by the presence of rail
road-in cities especially -makes the ad-
| joining land an untrustworthy basis of
value. Doesn't the value Of the land in
the roadbed suffer like depreciation? If
not, why not? l know of an abandoned
road where the road-bed land is of less
value than contiguous property, because of
| the expense of removing the rails and Sleep
| ers to prepare it for other uses. In coun-
try districts the railroad, so far from de-
preciating land values, adds to them. It
| opens up new regions, brings population,
makes towns and villages This is an i'm
portant factor in determining the value of
contiguous property for the purposes of
| comparison, but Mr. Harrison makes no
| allowance for it."
"Then take the item of entertainments
| Mr.. Harrison says that the company gets
only ten yards of earth in an embankment
| out of every eleven yards of earth carried
| to it, but he makes the eleven yards deliv-
| cry the basis of valuation instead of the ten
| yard residuum. That is taxing him for
what he loses and not for what no
keeps. If his embankment goes to naught
| by sinking into the meadow it is no en-
bankment. Suppose he were to abandon
the idea of making the embankment, after
it had sunk into the mud, would it be taxed
| for an embankment then?
| The points here suggested are some of
the mooted points between the State and
the Central Railroad in the matter of the
valuation Of its property for the purposes
of taxation. It should DO stated in justice
| to Mr.. Harrison. that he was not reported
| with exact correctness in last Sundays
issue concerning the multiple. It was
stated that he had decided that the road
bed of the Central was three times
as valuable as adjoining land, and that of
the Newark and New York five times as
valuable. He had but one multiple for
both, and that was three. The cross-ex-
animation of Mr.. Harrison will begin to-
morrow The sittings will, for the rest of
the summer, be at Long Branch. Ex-
Chancellor Williamson, the Counsel of the
Railroad, will be assisted in conducting it
by r. W. DeForest and Mr.. Kaercher. Ex-
| Judge Hoffman will be on hand for the
| State. The Central Railroad engineers are
taking up the disputed parts of Mr.. Harri-
sons estimates, making new measurements,
and going item by item over his figures.
The cross examination will probably be
long.