The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1877-02-25

| is heard in the land and the voice OF the
house agent follows like gentle obHgdto
| equally in echo and in alteration. 1t is the
season when the household gods become un-
easy on their pcdestals, when the fire dogs
growl revolt ut their warm corner, and the
very crane in the chimney swings out with
the spirit of peripatetic and a pilgrim. Al
though in tho home of the period we must
for fire dogs and crane read register and
range, and for household gods the majolica
monsters on the carved brackets, or perhaps
the bonds in the bureau drawer, the fact is
the same the spirit of the season inspires
vague, mysterious discomfort with the home
of tho year and desire for other taberna-
ces, and the town is turned iopsy-turvy
with the new deal of old mahogany.
Nobody knows precisely why this is the
case-why the average family of this metro
polls cannot be happy for moro than twelve
months in the same house, and several
philosophers who have examined the point
with more or less profundity have hope
lessly given it up as an impenetrable mys-
terry of nature, like the continued viability of
that oldest inhabitant, batrachian hermet-
ically canned up in bowlder for forty GEN.
turtles. But our annual domestic revolution
seems to place us in the scale of habitancy
somewhere between the conservative Briton,
our ancestor, who never moves if he can
help it, and the red man who preceded us
in these parts, and who moves always at the
slightest possible provocation. In fact,
our habits seem very like a compromise
between these two, and it may be the British
or Dutch blood in us that keeps us
even year in one place, and the Indian
example which induces the notion that
line must be drawn somewhere to prevent
man from becoming mere vegetable; that
at least he must get ont of his winter snug
gerry when the grass grows 1t is not per-
haps, an unmitigated evil. 1t puts the land
lord on his good behavior and compels the
tenant to show his record, both of which are
advantages; for, on the one hand, the tenant
| by finding the value of record is led to cul-
tivate the article and, on the other, the land
| lord, who might, in conceivable circum-
stances, hold his head so as to endanger the
stars, is led to reflect on the humility of his
position as a mere intermediary between
the tenant and the tax-gatherer; the tax
gatherer MS certain as the tide or the sunset,
the tenant often painfully uncertain and
evanescent.
There are not yet facts enough to indicate
any general tendency with regard to rents.
All the pressure of the times makes itself
felt in the demand for houses or flats of a
| al 70 nd hi inc
| demand for rents within the limit of small
regular incomes will at least prevent a fur
| ther reduction in that class of houses
| Perhaps the number of families prepared to
| pay thousand dollars was never so great
as now; but they have not increased, as
would be natural in prosperous times, by ac-
cessions from the number of those who pre-
viously paid five hundred dollars. They have
come down from the number that previously
paid two thousand. Further up, however
in the higher figures in very expensive
houses there is the permanency and tran
guilty of accumulated wealth that is undis-
turbed by the pressure
All the great schemes-the real estate
bubbles that were filled in the speculative
period which Immediately followed the
war-have been swept away and are done
with as elements of actual transactions. All
the conception of prices which was a part
of those schemes has been shown to be
visionary. The prolonged operation of de-
pressing facts has carried us down to a
realm of positive realities in this respect.
| Transfers are constantly made, however,
and, doubtless, there are many transactions
yet in state of uncertainty, from which
sanguinc projectors hoped to derive great
! advantage. None remain, however, that
were based on mere moonshine. as were the
greater part of those in which fortunes
were made by selling just before dinner
what had been bought just after breakfast.
Nearly all the transactions that now remain
unadjusted are founded on advantageous
operations that were made in liquidation Of
those earlier schemes. They are on the Sec
ond or third stage of descent toward the
real world of finance from the airy heights
of romantic fortune makers 1t is apparent
that such stages of descent may lie repeated
indefinitely if holders of mortgages are SO
inclined for while we are down to real
prices forced sales are injurious to these in
any times. Thus there are now many fine
pieces of property in this city held with
Just moderate margin outside the mort
Alphabetically worth what they are held
at if judged by any fair measure of prices
vet forced sale would oblitcrate the margin
and sacrifice portion of the mortgage price.
But, as it is in the interest of all parties to
avoid such results as much to prevent indi-
vidual calamity as the general bad effect on
prices, there is spirit of wise moderation
in this respect.
In 80 far as that moderation is based on
tbo homo for M car1v improvement we do