THE REBUILDING OP PARIS.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 536, 24 June 1869, Page 4

THE REBUILDING OP PARIS.

(From Once a' Week.) The Parisians, within the last few years, have had opportunities of acquiring lessons hi political economy likely to make a more enduring impression on their minds than if they had read a score of treatises on the subject. Everybody knows that a great part of Paris has been rebuilt at an enormous cost. The last statement of the Prefect of the Seine says, that from the Ist October, 1867, to the 30th September, 1868, the number of newly-built houses amounts to 3685, and the number of houses demolished, 1764. Of the number of houses demolished, 717 were taken from the owners under the power possessed by the minister, the others were pulled down voluntarily by the proprietors. The value of the 717 houses thus thrown down by the Prefect for the purpose of widening and constructing new boulevards and streets is as completely thrown away as if the money had been tossed into the sea. No doubt, in some cases, the increased rent that will be obtained from the superior class of houses erected on sites formerly occupied by mean buildings will go far to pay the cost of the houses demolished, but a large number of the houses taken were fine

mansions built of stone, and calculated to last for centuries. The entire number of houses demolished from 1852 to 1868 is 23,711. What amount of money these houses represent is not stated, but it must be enormous. It was said that the house accommodation would be greatly increased, and consequently that rents would become lower rather than the reverse, but the actual fact is that they were nearly double what they were formerly. The rent question has, in fact, become a great grievance which affects every person in Paris who has to pay it ; and people complain bitterly, attributing the increase entirely to the proceedings of M, Mausmann, which is hardly just, considering that if he had not pulled down a single house the growth of the population would have caused a rise of rents, though, perhaps, not to the present height.