The Water Works—Brooklyn City Bonds

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THE WATER WORKS—BROOKLYN CITY BONDS.

We do not pretend to any intimate acquaintance with the business affairs of the Brooklyn City Water Works Company, but it would not greatly surprise us to hear, at any moment, that it had stopped operations. How the money is to be raised at this critical period to carry it on we cannot conceive. The city of New York advertised the other day for a loan of fifty thousand dollars for Central Park purposes, and there was not a single bid. Under such circumstances Brooklyn bonds will hardly be sought after. We should regret very much to hear of such a stoppage. It would be a great misfortune in many respects, but chiefly with regard to the two or three thousand men engaged on the line of the works, besides the hundreds employed in laying pipes. The distress that would result from the deprivation of employment among such a host may be more easily imagined than described.

Yet there is no species of property in which money can be more safely invested, than in Brooklyn city bonds. These bonds contain the promise of the city to pay an interest of six per cent, and the principal at a given time; and they are equivalent to an absolute mortgage, secured on every house and lot in the city. They are safer than any mortgage, for it is impossible that the taxable value of the entire real estate in the city should fall below the amount for which bonds have been issued. They are more reliable even than State stocks, for in time of pressure and financial difficulty a State or nation may repudiate her indebtedness, while a city cannot. As long as the city itself exists, so long there is ample security for the punctual payment of interest on the city bonds. While there is a cent in the city treasury, the holder of city bonds can recover judgment and receive his money, even, if it be denied him by the city authorities; and if there were no tax raised to pay his claim, the bond holder could procure from the courts a mandamus compelling the city fathers to lay a tax on purpose to meet the liabilities of the city on its bonds. Men never could desire or devise more ample securities, more stringent enactments, than protect the holders of city bonds. Brooklyn is as yet too young a city for her bonds to have acquired much reputation on the London or Paris exchanges, but where their nature and value is understood, they are appreciated, and eagerly sought after. The wealthier German inhabitants of the city have perceived their value, and have communicated with their friends at home, who, acting on the advice, have invested largely in this stock; so that there are actually more Brooklyn City Bonds held in Germany than in all Europe beside. These German financiers have discovered, that though there may be investments which return a larger percentage, there are none which exceed in security and permanence the bonds of the City of Brooklyn.