MR. URBAN AND A COUNTRY HOUSE 



In short, Mr. Stimpson declares that be- 

 tween discontented and overpaid laborers he 

 could not realize four per cent, upon his pur- 

 chase, with his own supervision and anxieties, 

 (which were immense,) thrown into the bar- 

 gain. 



"And yet you would purchase?" 

 "This is the explanation," says the witness; 

 "the increase of population and manufactures, 

 has brought the skirts of the town upon me. 

 I have opened a new street or two; I have al- 

 ready sold three very charming sites at prices 

 which cover all my original payment, and I 

 have some half-dozen in hand, after the sale of 

 which I shall still have my homestead with 

 some four or five acres, which I can afford to 

 devote to horticultural pursuits ; or if my wife 

 insists — and when she does insist she insists 

 pretty strongly— I can retire to town with my 

 investment trebled." 



RESULTS OF INQUIRY 



I HAVE thus brought to view through the ve- 

 hicle of an imaginary examination— and in 

 the interest of my friend Mr. Urban, and sim- 

 ilar inquirers— all the aspects of a fifty-acre 



269 



