* * In 1897 the Traction Company dissolved, after distributing $6,000,000 as "a voluntary dividend" among its stockholders.
Nearly all the properties actually purchased and transferred in the manner described above, had little earning capacity, and therefore little value; they were decrepit horse-car lines in unprofitable territory.

The really valuable roads were those that traversed the great north and south thoroughfares--Lenox, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Avenues.

Many old New York families and estates had held these properties for years and had collected large annual dividends from them.

Naturally they had no desire to sell, yet their acquisition was essential to the monopoly which the Whitney-Ryan syndicate aspired to construct.

They finally leased all these roads, under agreements which guaranteed large annual rentals.