Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1893 — TOO VALUABLE TO SELL. [ARTICLE]

TOO VALUABLE TO SELL.

Where Property Gan Scarcely Be Bought fbr Low or Money. Chicago Post. There are twenty or thirty great business centers in the City of London where property is of almost equal value and rated exceedingly high. To buy the four .acres now occupied by the Bank of England and bounded by Princess, Threadneedle and Lothberrv streets and Bartholomew lane it would be necessary to produce a well certified check for the snug sum of $40,000,000. Ten million dollars per acre is the valuation made not long ago on a lot in the vicinity of the bank, and a lease was mada on that-basis. Pieoadilly, Strand, Fleet street, Charing Cross and other business streets in London have corners worth from $50,000 to 1100,000 a front foot. The owners of this property being as a ruio men or estates of great wealth, are satisfied with 3 to 31 per cent, on their investments, whße here the owners of such property—expect 6to 8 per cent.: consequently land is a great deal higher in the business center of London than it is Chicago. I notice that on the sec-ond-hand business streets in London land is held about twice as high as it is here. In the suburbs of London a great deal of property has been sold out by the lot by methods similar to ours. London is fast becoming a great city of home owners. The managers of large estates that were held for a number of years upon leases made on a low valuation concluded that it would be better to subdivide the property and sell itout in lots, and reinvest the money. This has been done to a great extent in all parts of the city of London, and probably accounts for the wonderful increase in population during the last fifty years. Small buildings, such as we sell for S3OO to SI,OOO are sold in London for almost twice that sum. In Paris little property is offered for sale; in fact a sign board is U rarity, although occasionally you see a piece of property on the backstreets for lease. It is very hard to get any information about property in Paris. Most of it is held by owners who are wealthy and refuse to sell, but on the principal streets the rent of the stores is high, considering their size, the stores being very shallow and small. Prices are no doubt higher, the rental value considered, than in Chicago.

In Venice scarcely any property is offered for sale. tfhe city has decreased in population, but there seem to be no vacant houses, and the only way I could ascertain the value of property was to figure out the rents on the business streets, which were higher, all things considered, than in Chicago. In the old city of Rome rents on two or three of the principal streets are very high, and the stores being small it would seem that a small income must be produced according to the value held upon the land. In some directions from the center of Rome buildings are being erected, and land for an ordinary residence lot, in a rather poor locality, compared with any of our suburbs, would be about 30 or 4G per cent, higher than the prices we. ask.

Even in Cairo, Egypt; the price oi lots along the business streets would astonish an American. I asked the proprietor of an English store called the Manchester, located near Shepneara s rioitti? wiitix rtjn t no patti. The store was about 25 feet front by about forty feet deep, with a small annex half as large. He answered that he paid about $2,000 per annum. It did not look to be worth over SSOO. Cairo has a population of about $350, - 000, and there are some stores in the Turkish quarters where the bazaars are, about, 4 feet square—room enough for the proprietor to sit tailor fashion and sell his wares to passers-by—which bring about SSO a month. Even in Jerusalem a boom is in * progress, on account of the railroad having been extended to the city, and lots were selling for SSOO to SBOO that we would consider high at $200; and I discovered in nearly every city I visited, even in old Athens, which is rapidly increasing in population under the administration of Kiug George, that lots were selling on the outskirts for S3OO to S4OO.

A scientific journal tells this story of a frog’s cunning; A brood of chickens was fed with moistened meal in saucers, and when che dough soured a little it attracted large numbers of flies. An observant toad had evidfentjy noticed this, and every day toward evening he would make his appearance in the yard, hold to a saucer, climb in and roll over and over until ho was covered with meal, having done which he awaited developments. The flies, enticed by the smell, soon swarmed around the scheming bntrachian, and whenever one passed within two inches or so of his nose his tongue darted out and the fly disappeared. The plan worked so well that the toad ness of it._