Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1898 — MEDITERRANEAN HOUSE RENTS. [ARTICLE]

MEDITERRANEAN HOUSE RENTS.

Hiffheat at Gibraltar and Lowest on tbe Island of Malta. In no place on the surface of the globe is rent so high as at Gibraltar, the reason being, saj’s the Philadelphia Inquirer, that the geographical position of the town precludes the possibility of its being extended in any direction. A long, narrow strip of what was once sea beaeh is alone available for building purposes. All the rest is precipitous rock. Upon this narrow parapet, in some cases less than 100 yards in width, are crowded the homes of 25,000 people. As much as ten dollars a week is asked and obtained for the use of one small room, arid this, too, in a place where the normal rate of wages is quite ten per cent, less than in America. Naturally, the overcrowding is fearful, aftd, the water supply being scarce and intermittent, cleanliness of living, as we understand it, is almost impossible. No wonder that in the old dayh the plague and the cholera ravaged the “rock” w’ith a virulence unknown in the filthy and pestilential cities of the far east. In Malta, on the other hand, house rent is ridiculously cheap. Anywhere outside of Valetta an excellent sevenroom house can be had for sls a year, while rates and taxes are unknown. The houses are built entirely of the cream-coloaed stone of which the island is composed, and which is so soft that it can be cut wfth a saw into blocks or slabs of any desired size or shape. So, while the Maltese builder is digging up his foundation, he is at the same time getting out the material for his walls, his flooring and his roof.