ACCORDING TO FLORIDA

"In the beginning was the word and the word was 'reality'" is the new gospel preached by the Realty Research Society, Ichabod Babbit, President. "Man" says Mr. Babbit, "was an incident and woman a side issue. The beginning of the world was real estate with water thrown in as a chaser." Even nature has consistently dealt in real estate values, destroying and making properties with each successive geologic age. As for man, ever since the serpent advertised the apples of Eden and Noah obtained a monopoly of the ripuarian rights on the face of the globe, no movements of consequence have omitted the real estate factor.

Mr Babbit is sure that "Alexander Caesar, Attila, Charlemagne, th settlers of Manhattan, and the west" were actuated by the same urge which has recently raised prices in Florida. And it may be said that although Attila and John Doe stand for somewhat different methods of land improvement, it is substantially true that each followed a kindred instinct and urge. In fact economists have long recognized this urge and given it the caption, "land hunger". One may suspect that the term real estate finds company in Mr. Babbit's mind with barbarian transactions chiefly to steady the turbulence of property dealings in any age, with the sedative of tradition.

But one suspects that only if one is over-serious. Mr Babbit's later words class him with the framers of humorous analogies. For he observes with glee that Noah in founding the menagerie business was the first man to water the stock; while he was yet more modern in utilizing the dove for sky-sign advertising. And his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, having organized the "Globe Girdling Construction Company", sought the several continents because "such a big proposition could not be handled from the ark alone".