12 Proceedings of Ninth Annual Meeting 



How Atlantic City, according to prophets, had reached her zenith 

 every year and never would be any larger. Well all this ''won- 

 derful growth" had reached a valuation in 1899 $57,000,000, 

 much less than half what Atlantic City is assessed for to-day. 



I know you do not like to hear a lot of figures. I wouldn't 

 either if I were in your seats. I did not like them at school and 

 am not overfond of them yet. But figures do not lie, though 

 Senator Sorghum says, "liars figure." However, a study of the 

 assessors' figures for the last 21 years yields some interesting 

 information. 



When we speak of the valuation of seashore property of New 

 Jersey, we mean the strip from Keyport on Raritan Bay to 

 Cape May and include not only the cities and boroughs directly 

 on the ocean, but also the parts of townships with their towns 

 that front on the salt water of the numerous bays, for they are 

 valuable chiefly because they are on the salt water and have 

 capitalized that advantage. 



We find we have transformed this region of sand and salt 

 water from a comparatively worthless waste to a territory which 

 in 1 92 1 had an assessed valuation of $296,838,000.00, or if the 

 assessors had been a little bit more zealous we could say three 

 hundred million dollars. 



For convenience we have not considered the valuation prior to 

 1899, but taking the values then, as before stated $57,000,000.00, 

 we find that in the last 21 years the increase has been $239,- 

 000,000.00, or 414 per cent. 



Let us go into details a bit. We find that : 



Monmouth County increased 207 per cent. 



Ocean County increased 375 per cent. 



Atlantic County increased 780 per cent. 



Cape May County increased 612 per cent. 



In contemplating this increase of the purely coastal part of 

 the state, we naturally wonder what the rest of the state has 

 been doing all this time. Let us call the roll. We will begin 

 with Atlantic, because it is alphabetically and numerically on top : 



Atlantic, 677 per cent. Middlesex, 370 per cent. 



Bergen, 432 per cent. Monmouth, 172 per cent. 



Burlington, 103 per cent. Morris, 135 per cent. 



Camden, 373 per cent. Ocean, 234 per cent. 



Cape May, 494 per cent. Passaic, 301 per cent. 



Cumberland, 94 per cent. Salem, 137 per cent. 



Essex, 303 per cent. Somerset, 133 per cent. 



Gloucester, 190 per cent. Sussex, 124 per cent. 



Hudson, 393 per cent. Union, 551 per cent. 



Hunterdon, 37 per cent. Warren, 85 per cent. 



Mercer, 249 per cent. 



