Evening star., 1925-10-18

~ UEEN ISABELLA of Spain
once wrote to Christopher
" ':'5@s"si Dss2 Chris. I take my
~ pen in hand to write and
ask you why didn't you hit Florida
when you was discovering America,
instead of them bum islands which
you landed on? Where was your real
estate judgment, anyways? j hate to
tell you. dear friend, but as a realtor
you are a darn good shoeblack. l only
wisht I had picked on Ponce, when
/ was picking. There's the boy with
the head on him. he give only one
string Of beads for all Of Miami,
plugged nickel for Palm Beach, and
the natives felt they had cheated him
at the price so they threw in St. Au-
Eustine and Tampa for good luck. and
now lookit the darn thing. That De
Leon feller is the kind Of a boy-friend
to have. Hoping this makes you feel
as bad as 1t does me.
yrs. truly, Bella"
How I do love to read them quaint
old personal letters of great people.
AS l was saying only the other night
to George, that's my husband. a per-
son can learn such "a lot from read
Ing about the mistakes of the great,
such as that poor queen of Spain.
correspondence that we come to get
interested in Florida real estate. We
decided we was going to turn over
q profit by her loss. on account there
amt now any doubt about the stuff
Ponce De Leon pulled. In fact, the
Florida boom in real estate is the
most frequent thing person hears
this season and has even drove pro-
hibition out Of our national converse
tions.
The more and George thought this
over, the more anxious we was to get
something good down there, nothing
extravagant, see, but maybe forty or
fifty acres of just rough country stuff
that could be picked up cheap near
the ocean for S25 or $50 an acre. Nor
was we unrea sonable about the loca-
ton. 1t didn't have to be anything
fancy, in fact we felt pretty near any
old place would do just SO long as it
was one where we could be absolutely
certain Of cleaning up a coupla hun
dred thousand on it, during the first
two weeks.
The only trouble was, I and Geo.
hadn't ever been to Florida as yet,
only in our imagination, which of
course everybody has done that. And
so it was kinda difficult for us to de-
eide where to sink our money. Nat
urally we had read a big bunch of real
estate ads about developments, sub
divisions, additions and other arith-
metic Of the real estate school, and
the whole lot Of them was listed so
swell a person felt pretty near COM
PEELED to enney meenie minee moe
them with the forefinger and send the
first payment to the one the Moe fell
on.
Sk ~
TAKE for q sample the Chilicon-
ed like hot stuff. All it says was that
they had for sale lots Nos. 167S99-
S881<11-s246ss-112 Section P.
D. Q. Township 0000. 1t was one Of
them simple statements that speak
for themselves and nobody else. Any
ono who was such q simp as not to
know at once where that property was
located. wasn't fit to own 1t, you could
just see that. was all for jumping
right into such q promising PROPOSE
ton. especially as the terms was lilo
down and never no more, because you
was certain to turn II over before the
next payment como due.
But Geo. says no, they probably
mean you will turn 1t over with a
spade. I'd rather take something in
one Of them developments with a pret-
ty picture In the ad, you know. one of
them with two-story Spanish Hildagos,
the kind that Is built around a por-
tiere or whatever they call it. Or else
\ development on the beach with pic
lures OF one-piece bathing suits all
nlled to overnowing with girls show
ing how good tho development is, and
etc. And says no such thing, George
Jules. you'll buy in one of them places
which Is advertised as thoroughly re-
stricted or I won't get the money out
the Savings Bank.
Well. at that Geo. grabbed one side
OF the newspaper, which was all full
of Florida real estate ads, and I
grabbed ahold Of the other. and we
was just about to start a regular old
style tug of words out of it, when the
front door bell rung, and who would