Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-13
IRON STILL BOOMING.
The Mills So Rushed They Refuse
Orders for Quick Delivery.
A PITTSBURGER GOES ABROAD,
And Brings Back Some Impressions Of
Philadelphia and Chicago.
ACTIVITY IN RURAL REAL ESTATE

The iron market continues strong and
active. Metal is very firm, partly on &C
count of the advance in coke, and partly
from the heavy demand for all descriptions
of manufactured iron, the mills being so
crowded with orders that immediate de-
livery is simply out of the question. This
activity touches every branch of the trade.
A broker remarked yesterday: Business is
more active than for several years. There
has been no additional advance in metal
but it is held with extreme tirmness. Fur
nacemen are watching the movement in
coke very closely. If it goes up iron will
follow.
CAN the mills are rushed with orders. I
tried to get 800 tons of bridge plates yester-
day, but was informed that 1 couldn't get
shipments under two months. The plate
mills are refusing orders right and left on
account of inability to fill them within the
required time. 1t is the same with the
sheet and pipe mills The outlook is very en-
couraging for a continuance of activity
throughout the fall and winter
An Eastern manufacturer says: "Southern
makers have advanced prices to cover an ad-
vance of freights of 25 cents to Northeastern
markets, and an advance of 80 cents per ton to
Western markets. All furnaces are well sold
up, and there is less iron offering in view of the
probability of higher prices later in the season..
An optimistic stock broker said yesterday:
81 think something will break loose one of
these days. The signs are favorable for it.
We have been the under dog so long it is about
time we were getting on top. Orders are COM
ing in. General good ones for Electric, Phila-
delphia Gas and few other properties have
been booked within day or two. So soon as
buyers make up their minds that values have
touched bottom, as they undoubtedly have,
business will begin. The speculative element
is as large as ever, and money is abundant
"A1l that is needed is leader to give things
a start; the rest will follow. We offer some of
the best securities in the world at figures far
below their value. 1t is astonishing to me that
investors pass them by and risk their money in
Eastern stuff, about which they know nothing.
Home stocks offer the advantage of full and
easy investigation. This is matter of great
Importance, and should give local trading the
boom it deserves. 1 think 1 can see a change
of opinion in favor of home stocks"
A Fourth avenue real estate broker, who has
just returned from his summer vacation, dur
ing which he visited some of the principal
cities of the country thinks Pittsburg is ahead
of them all in everything except appearance.
Some of them have finer streets and more
splendid buildings than Pittsburg, but they do
not approach her in the solid concerns of busi-
ness nor in the energetic, pushing habits of the
people
OF Chicago he says; 'tIt is large, handsome
city, but very dusty and intensely hot in sum-
mer, and was told very cold in winter A
calm day there is rarity. A large business is
done in specialties: beef, pork, grain and lum-
ber, but in other lines of trade Pittsburg would
not suffer in comparison. There are many fine
buildings there, but it seemed to me there was
too much money in them 1t compels dealers
to ask high prices for everything they sell. All
kinds of provisions are higher there than here.
Rent is very high, except in the suburbs, and
these are often at such distances from the busi-
ness center of the city as to be inconvenient to
working-people."
He thought well of Philadelphia as a sum-
mer resort, or retreat for retired business men.
He said: philadelphia is a fine city, and got
more rest there than at any other stopping
place my trip. man in a hurry there
would attract attention. frequently saw busi-
ness men walk half a block or more to get to a
street crossing. The idea of taking short cut
seemed never to occur to them. Philadelphia
is maintaining her reputation as city of
homes. Buildings are going up by the thous-
ands, it seemed to me, in all parts of the CITY,
and was informed that very large proper
ton of them belonged to working people. The
streets are very fne and are kept in good con-
dItion, being in the latter respect quite unlike
those of Pittsburg, which are nearly always
torn up One thing that struck me was the
poor cable car service the cars being smaller
and dirtier than those here, and the time much
slower"
The Oakland district is holding its own and
more in the estimation of investors in real
estate Considerable property out there has
changed hands in the past week or two. Quite
a number of houses have just been finished,
and others are in course of construction. They
cost from S., 900 to $1,000. Ground sells at from
$50 to $50 foot. Boquet and Atwood streets
are being prepared for the loops of the Fifth
avenue cable road, which will be completed
about December l, according to present ar
rangements. Equally favorable reports of ac-
tiyity in realty come from all other districts
around the city.
An expert in the art of painting chimneys
says for the benefit of steam-users who are
continually annoyed by men soliciting such
Jobs: "If, before raising the new chimney, each
section oil II, as IL comes from Cne SnOp, is
coated with common coal tar, then filed with
light shavings and fired, it will resist rust for
an indefinite period, rendering future painting
unnecessary. In proof of this we have such a
chimney at our works, erected in 1866, which
was treated as above described, and is to-day
as bright as it was the day it was raised, with
out a particle of paint applied since, while I
can cite several raised since ours and afterward
painted several times with the kinds of paint
usually employed that have long since been
eaten up with rust.
''Of course, every gang of chimney and roof
artists who strike our city are anxious for a
job of painting our new stack. and when told it
is q years old they stand aghasr, as the iron
looks bright and new, showing no signs of ever
having been painted. The theory by which 1
account for this result is that the coal tar is
literally burned into the iron, closing the pores
and rendering it rust-proof Now, while this
may not be new to the scientific world, vet the
plan is simple and has proved so efficient in our
experience that 1 am induced to submit it to
the readers of your paper who have chimneys
to erect"
READY TO STRIKE.