Baltimore daily commercial. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1865-1867, 1866-02-22
VIBRATIONS OF HOUSE HUNTING AND
HOUSEKEEPING

NEAATAONS OF HOUSE HUNTING AND
HOUSEKEEPING.
New York capitalists are about entering
upon another role of experiences in the sud
den and fierce determination that is evinced
to speculate in real estate. According to the
Herald, the extravagant transactions in real
estate just now must find their parallel only in
the wondrous rage for specializing in gold that
was in vogue during the height OF the war.
AT any rate land, city lots and houses, come
and go under the hammer of the auctioneer
with a quickness hardly ever known in the
past, something sharply stimulated-it is plain
to understanding the annoying and remark
able scarcity of houses, which has come well
nigh creating something like panic amongst
those who are likely to be left without one.
even temporarily.
Besides, it is well known, generally. that
the First of May is the New Workers. "Cape
of Storms" that most have to double once a
year; and, as that time is fast approaching,
doubtless that has something to do with the
present desperate attempts to hold on Gin fee''
to every domicile which is up for chance of
that kind. The last Saturday Reoieac Lion
dom has an amusing article under the head of
"Domesticity, in which it deals at length
with the inconvenience and worry of "house
hunting" and raises the question whether
after all the trouble that is usually incident to
it, the result pays. We quote few passages,
to show that our own people-troubleda also like
the New Yorkers-are not alone in their per-
plexities that Englishmen, with all their vast
accumulation of capital and domicles, are not
exempt from the troubles of humanity in this
line:
San Engishmans passion for having sn
establishment of his own, involves him in a
"hundred other miseries, which no prudence
''can avert. House hunting itself is an occu-
"pation the WEAKNESS and dreariness of which
1'is almost understandable. 1t is no easy thing
F'for the future householder to catch his house
CIV A month or more spent III
hunting down Mr.. Puff's beautiful and
visionary descriptions, and proving their I'M
''reality by the labonous process OF inspection
''makes the most patient Englishman hate Tie
every name Of a furnished or unfinished
@'house. When, by felicitous accident he
"stumbles on what he wants, he is but enter
Sing upon train of continuous suiferings and
t'calamities. The man who takes q house
like the man who marries, has given the
"greatest of hostages to fortune Hence
forward, he is at the mercy Of gas compa-
''nies and water companies, to say nothing Of
''his being at the mercy Of the elements. lie
''soon learns that it is not an essential charac-
f'teristc of trials to sublimate and discipline
the character. A man must be very strangely
"open to kindly influences who finds himself
"a truer and nobler being for the bursting of
his water pipes. The hermits of antiquity,
whatever the hardships to which they were
"exposed, never underwent this
The writer goes on to show that even with
all the discomforts and trials he pictures, that
let the householder get finally located, he is
not for moment sure--in large numbers of
cases-of being further undisturbed, where
the rage tGr extending new lines of railroads
is so liable to interfere with dwellings.
LEST man should forget that he is, at best.
"a pilgrim and a bird of passage railways
''come in and remind him tiom time to time
when he Is settling into repose, that he must
"move on. Our fathers were at any rate
''blessed with comparative quiet. The great
''disturber Of the public peace was in their
''day the paviour; but when the street was
''paEed and the fuss fairly over, they could
''breathe in tranquility for a year or two again.
''The paviour has been succeeded by other
land more noisy mischief makers. What is
1.-THE use OF house at all, when a railway
may at any moment run within two feet of
sits wine cellar, and establish a central coal
depot opposite the windows of the drawing
room? What with underground, and sub
urban, and junction lines, whistng and
screaming and shaking have become the
ordinary conditions Of an Englishman's life.
''s . The sounds which the traveller
Gin the Pilgrims Progress heard proceeding
'from the mouth of hell are nothing to the
'noises which the railways are privileged to
"make all over suburbs that were once the
"retreat of solitude and Silence
This is amusing, certainly; although a di-
erosion somewhat and it shows that homes
in modern times are at the mercy of things
never dreamed of in the olden time. Recur
ring to the case of New York, and its vexa-
tons and expedients for multiplying space for
the swarms of human beings congregated too
thickly there, there is now a project up for
legislative action and with good prospect of
being carried too, by which it is proposed to
construct up Broadway either subterranean
railway, or one of two stories. to be placed
upon iron pillars, and to be assembled to or
descended to-as the case may be-by stair
cases at the corner of each block. Hazardous
as it is now to the last degree for even the most
wary and active to cross Broadway in the
crush of vehicles constantly occurring, it is
evident that some such expedient will have to
be resorted to ere long to relieve that great
thoroughtare of its passenger travel by ON
nibus and other present modes of conveyance.
In conclusion, let JUS congratulate ourselves
whilst we are privileged to do so-that as
yet, Baltimore is free comparatively from
many of the worst vexations to householders
chronicled above. Honses are difficult to be
had here-nay, generally impossible that
Tor the present is in too many cases a severe
hardship but then it is one which we trust
time and enterprise will cure. Even as mat
tiers stand with labor and building materials
at unwontedly high rates, we hear Of much
building as contemplated the coming spring;
and as our city is so rolling in its surface as to
absolutely prevent any railway but our horse
establishments from penetrating hither and
yon to annoy residents, it will doubtless be the
case always, that we shall be community to
congratulate ourselves on being free from most
of the vexatfons set forth by the iSaturday
RerieD as incident to 'domesticity."
PERSONAL---VERY. Gen. Grant has accepted an in
vitation to be present at grand Union ball at Bos
ton, Mass. to be given the 5h proximo in behalf
of the wounded heroes of the national army.
MARRIED.