The Republican journal., 1873-09-11
Letter from Boston,
Correspondence Of the Journal.
BUSINESS PROSPECTS.

Business, already looking up, promises
! to be unusually active. Already the vast
! army Of summer tourists is pouring into
the city, taxing to their utmost the abilities
OF the several railroad and steamboat
lines; the clergy are docking home to
their hungry parishes with renewed
vigor, browner faces and, let us hope,
| rested heads pregnant Of trenchant and
ennobling thought; the lecture field al
ready shows q few skirmishers, and soon
Will be discovered that vast army of good,
bad and Indifferent platform teachers CD
which annually invests the cities and towns
OF the United States the places of amuse-
ment are re-opened with superior attrac-
tons CHATS what they say); fairs and
exhibitions are in order; the newspapers
are making thrifty showing in their adj
advertising columns shopkeepers move
about with brisk step; the burned district
is presenting daily new symptoms Of or
der being brought out Of chaos, many
built structures; and in short if Boston
does not have busy fall, then all signs of
prosperity are delusion and snare.
REAL ESTATE.
But hold | must make q single ex-
ception, viz, the real-estate interest This
business has been decidedly overdone in
this city and its vicinity since the war at
the close of which every man out of work
who didn't % into the Reinsurance bust
ness hung ont his single as u real-estate
agent, These spectators bought up
large tracts Of land in and near the city,
in most cases making but nominal de
post in the way of purchase money
BY cutting these Lands up into building
lots, and putting up dwellings, usually on
borrowed money, the operators manage
to do quite q business on 4 veIy small
capital for the demand for tenements has
been until within year OF two active be
partly by the large influx from the country
Of those brought into a knowledge OF city
life by the late war, and who found their
former rural life msupportable after the
hustle of their new experience or the larger
acquaintance with the world acquired
around the mess table or the camp fire in
the army though the principal cause was
the eyer-lncrcasing encroachment sof bust
ness on the living portion otthe city proper
and the throwing out of their homes whole
streets Of househoders by public improve
ments. The pioneers in this real-estate
enterprise IN some instances amassed re
spectacle fortunes in few months, and
their success naturally causing 4 large fol-
lowing, hopeful of the same prosperity,
the result soon became apparent in the
large numbers Of unoccupied houses to be
seen on every hand, Then came the fire,
which proved the feather that pressed to
the earth many an overburdcned dealer in
real estate. A large number Of buildings
had been built IN expectation Of a demand
and left. The fire completely upset all
these well-laid plans for the future, and
what with taxes and interest money, many
q man with high hopes Of an early COM
potency has been forced into bankruptcy
with but a Slim array Of figures on the
assets side of his balance sheet Go where
You Will in and about the city, and empty
houses finished and in all stages Of con
stIuction, can be counted by the score.
Nay, IN Ward lG, formerly Dorchester
fifteen hundred tenantless houses, were
last month found to exist by actual count
Land is sadly neglected and prices are
lower than for some years past; but
builders and land land operators say better
dave ~ hf,I1