AN IMMENSE HOUSE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 444, 8 February 1890, Page 3

AN IMMENSE HOUSE.

Could you, if requested, give the size and location of the largest building in the world? asked the St. Louis ‘Republic.’ If trying to answer such a question,, would you designate the St. Peter’s Cathedral, the City Hall at Philadelphia, the St. Paul’s Cathedral, or the Westminster Abbey, as. being worthy of such high-sounding title? Not one person in 100 would go outside the above list to find an answer for the question. Yet it would be necessary to do so before a correct answer could be given. There are many large buildings, both in the United States and in Europe; many hundred - roomed structures of stone and iron, glass and. brick. . Every American, European, and Oriental country has its scores of public and private mansions, yet Vienna, Austria, has the giant of them all. The “Freihaus” (free house), situated in Wieden, a suburb of the city just mentioned, is the most spacious building on the globe. Within its walls a whole city of human beings live, work, sleep and eat. It contains in all between 1,200 and 1,500 rooms, divided into upward of 500 dwelling apartments of from four to six rooms each. . This immense house has thirteen courtyards—five open and eight covered —and a large garden within its walls. A visitor to the building relates that he once spent two hours in looking for a man known to reside in the house.

Scarcely a trade, handiwork or profession can be named which is not represented in this enormous building. Gold and silver workers; makers of fancy articles lodginghouse keepers, bookbinders, agents, turners, hatters, officers, locksmiths, joiners, tutors, scientific men. Government clerks, three bakers, eighteen tailors, twenty-nine shoemakers and many other tradesmen live in it. The house has thirty-one staircases, and fronts on three streets and one square. In one day the postman’s delivery has amounted to as many as l,ooopieces .to this single but titanic house. To address a letter to the house aud to the person it is intended for does not assure the sender that the person to whom it is addressed willi ever receive it. In order to ‘make assurance doubly, sure,’ all letters addressed to the ‘Friehaus’ must be’, provided with both the given and the sur- ; i name of the person tor whom intended, the number of the court, the number of the staircase'and the number of the apartment, otherwise it is apt to go astray as though addressed to a city unprovided with direc-. tions as to street and number. At the present time 2,112 persons live in this immense building and pay an annual' rental of 100,000! florins. 'l*:' ‘ \