Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1875 — New Houses. [ARTICLE]

New Houses.

There are several house-agents in London who- combine the trade of letting houses with that of making coffins. The two employments do not at first seem to have any affinity, but in a new suburb where streets are being ran up bycontract, and inhabited before they are dry, such a combination is natural "enough. Indeed, in the hands of an intelligent and enterprising man tlie two employments might be dovetailed with the happiest results. At least one death may* be expected out of every large family settling down in a damp nbw house. It may only be the baby, but that will lie better than none. If the family happens to come from Ireland "or the west coast of Scotland, the Darwiniaii law will have enabled them to acquire some of the properties of india-rubber, so tliatthey* would possibly be damp-proof, and therefore hot desirable tenants. Such applicants a judicious house-agent will naturally refuse, and )ie may not only lmpe to profit in liis capacity of undertaker by some one taking a fatal cold in tlie damp cemetery, but in his capacity of houseagent lie may at every well-con-ducted funeral' inveigle new victims for the hundsome-looking streets still in the hands of tlie builders, and perhaps induce liis clients to enter them while the plaster is still wet upon tlie nine-itieli walls. Doctors arc, however, still more indebted to new houses than even houseagents or undertakers. It is said that when a young medical man of fair ability and pleasing manners wishes to settle down in London, his wisest course is to choose some fashionable district where showy houses with bow windows, pillared porticoes, and thin walls are being runup. If the soil on which tlie houses are being built is clay, so much tlie better for the young doctor; if the level of the gfOund is little above that of the Thames, liis prospects are vet more brilliant. lie may safely marry for love; for, although the fees lie will receive may not seem overwhelmingly large, he will be certain of constant employment. He may never become a renowned specialist or physician, in ordinary to a member of the royal family, but while lie is still a young man lie will be able to set up his carriage without borrowing money, and lie will not find it difficult to insure his life handsomely for his children; but in order to realize this pleasing picture lie must secure for liis own habitation an old and wellbuilt house. When lie is tired of life will be time enough for him to take a new r one. Few people except tlie Wandering Jew have the constitution of the nobleman who is said to have lived for many years almost rent-free by constantly moving from one new house to another. His friends thought he was suffering from some obscure disease of tlie brain, but the builders’ agents found him a capital decoy duck. As soon as they told a wavering client that LorjJ So-and-so had taken a house hi such a terrace the house* in the terrace were immediately at a premium, particularly those on each side of His Lordship. In fact builders find it an excellent speculation to give a good house cheap to a tenant with a title, and are thankful even for such small mercies as a knight’s widow. Our imaginary doctor will "find his time much taken up in prescribing ibr the servants who sleep on tlie ground floor of these new houses, anti consequently take rheumatism, and for tlie babies who sleep next the slates and have bronchitis. Everybody in the families he attends will have at least one severe cold on entering, but the piece de resistance will be neuralgia. It is sure to be prevalent in a new district, and lias the merit of being very persistent and difficult to cure. The Shakers who bivouacked a few weeks ago under hedges covered with snow suffered less from illness than did the inhabitants of some of the streets in our southern suburbs, where the cold cannot be kept out in winter nor tlie heat in summer, and where tlie walls are reeking with damp at every change of temperature. Bricks will Jiold about their own weight of water, and after having been thoroughly soaked they take a long time to become perfectly dry. As nineinch walls are only the thickness of the length of one brick they are necessarily not thick enough to prevent the rain which beats on the outside from soaking through to the inside. They can never be built so as to be really rain-proof, and inside them every change in the weather can always be distinctly felt. —Saturday Review.