The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-12-22

&hat there Is no money in country
real estate. Real estate is all right
over there, only 1t required some Amer
lean smartnes to prove that by rent
ing a la.borer's cottage at what in our
currency would be seventy-five cents
a week, improving it a little and sub
letting it at three dollars and sixty
cents a week there were profits to be
earned that were well worth any
body's while.
"At first 1 began In one cottage and
lived in it myself along with woman
cousin, who was equally amused and
interested in the experiment To-day
I've more than two dozen cottages and
little homes on my books. Some OF
them / lease from their owners who
have inherited them from what you
might call way back A few of them
l bought outright when 1 found they
were going at bargain; all of them
are leased from me by artists, authors,
city people who want tiny country
homes and lots of them are occupied
by Americans who long to test the
charms of English country life.
On the North Sea.
"It is the person of small means who
wants a summer or a year spent quiet
ly in the country to whom my cottages
make the strongest appeal, for after
all is done and said 1 don't know
cheaper, more comfortable and more
picturesque, healthful life than can be
found right in a roomy, matched cot
tage that has it's own little garden and
Is located in one of the beautiful ana
healthful shires of England.
my village, as I call it, for 1 now
live in the manor house or hall, and
am landlady for pretty nearly the
whole of the ancient little settlement,
hn a ~
off the German ocean is worth about
a dollar a lungful to city-sick people.
The living is very cheap and l can
vouch for almost Incompatible weather
from May to November. Now, OF
course, air and scenery are big in
ducements to country living, but what
delighted me with cottage life over
there was that l found ! would enjoy
all the comforts of a simple home and
a few important luxuries for the sum
of two hundred and fifty dollars
year, or, when my cousin and kept
house together, we spent just hVe
hundred a year and kept two servants
and eventually our trap and pony.
don't know just where else this ex-
perience could be duplicated and it's
worth telling about as an inducement
to other women to go and do likewise
How She Did It,
What we had for that sum was
foHr-roomed matched cottage set In
an acre Of ground. When an English
laborer's cottage is well built it is just
about the Suggest little home in the
world Ours was made by knocking
two adjoining two-story cottages INTO
one by means of doors through the par
titions. This gave up two big rooms
below and two equally large under the
thatch above. The cottage itself was
about seventy-five years old, with size
walls of timber and plaster, END wallS
Of brick a roof of admirable thatcn
a foot and a half thick; windows with
tiny diamond shaped loaded panes:
fine well of water in the rear, and
well grown hawthorne hedge all about
the property. A coat OF white-wash in
side and out and little scrubbing ana
hedge clipping were all the improve
ments required before moving in our
furniture.
"As a rule furniture In England rs
rather more expensive, / find. than In
America, but the facilities offered for
purchasing on the installment plan are
just the same as over here. Twenty
five dollars or five pounds worth. paid
for at the rate OF a pound a month,
was enough for us to begin honuse-
keeping. The chief items of expense
and interest in the van load set down
at our gate was a tiny American
cooking stove and a big tin British
bath tub. A stove IS an essential in
a laborer's cottage, where, since time
immemorisl. all the cooking has been
done on big hob CRATE and nowadays
even In the most modern brick slate
cottages, the peasant women still pre-
fer TO boil and fry at the CRATE, bake
in the brick oven at the side OF the
chimney and heat their acrubbing and
laundry water in big basin called the
copper that sets over its own little
brick and cement fre box close at the
other side OF the CRATE.
'What. with a slight allowance OF