ill sooner or later be
occupied by hotels, if not stores; and he who builds with any belief in
the permanency of his surroundings must indeed be of a hopeful
disposition.

A good lady occupying a delightful corner on this same avenue, opposite a
one-story florist's shop, said:

"I shall remain here until they build across the way; then I suppose I
shall have to move."

So after all the man who is contented to live in a future apartment
house, may not be so very far wrong.

A case of the opposite kind is that of a great millionaire, who, dying,
left his house and its collections to his eldest son and his grandson
after him, on the condition that they should continue to live in it.

Here was an attempt to keep together a home with its memories and
associations. What has been the result? The street that was a charming
centre for residences twenty years ago has become a "slum;" the
unfortunate heirs find themselves with a house on their hands that they
cannot live in and are forbidden to rent or sell. As a final result the
will must in all probability be broken and the matter ended.

Of course the reason for a great deal of this is the phenomenal growth of
our larger cities. Hundreds of families who would gladly remain in their
old homes are fairly pushed out of them by the growth of business.

Everything has its limits and a time must come when our cities will cease
to expand or when centres will be formed as in London or Paris, where
generations may succeed each other in the same homes. So far, I see no
indications of any such crystallization in this our big city; we seem to
be condemned like the "Wandering Jew" or poor little "Joe" to be
perpetually "moving on."

At a dinner of young people not long ago a Frenchman visiting our
country, expressed his surprise on hearing a girl speak of "not
remembering the house she was born in." Piqued by his manner the young
lady answered:

"We are twenty-four at this table. I do not believe there is one person
here living in the house in which he or she was born." This assertion
raised a murmur of dissent around the table; on a census being taken it
proved, however, to be true.

How can one expect, under circumstances like these, to find any great
respect among young people for home life or the conservative side of
existence? They are born as it were on the wing, and on the wing will
they live.

The conditions of life in this country, although contributing large