USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > The Cincinnati miscellany, or, Antiquities of the West, and pioneer history and general and local statistics, Volume I > Part 28
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east of Main, 650 dollars, and if the question [ be, the raising one story and repairs costing the were put in that shape, would give a higher rent greater part of it, then the nett cost would be 3473 dollars, a sum which would be made up by the rents after deducting taxes and insurance in a less space of time than two years. for their present tenement. They rent in double rooms, the residue for six hundred and ninety- nine dollars, with the certainty when any of the tenants leave the premises to re-rent at higher O. W. Stevens owns the house next door north which cost with the lot 4600 rates. As a proof of which for the storeroom ad- joining their own, which is included in the The storeroom rents for 300 above statement at 200 dollars, they have been The house as much more 300 offered 250 dollars per annum for ten years, P. P. & R. C. Turpin own 600 if they would lease it so long a term of years.
Let us bring this operation to a focus as fol- lows:
Value of rents,
699
Corner building, 650
1349
Deduct taxes and insurance 104
Ground rent, 330 434
915
Affording more than 23 per cent profit on the investment, with the certainty of a future ad- vance.
Let me cite another case.
Every one knows the property on Broadway, South of the Holmes House, at the intersection of that street with Columbia and Second streets, and divided from the Hotel by a 10 foot alley .-- It was destroyed not long since by fire, with the exception of the Columbus house, a brick at the corner, the residue being frames. Mr. Clem- ent Dietrich, the proprietor of the south half of the property destroyed having engaged Mr. Sen- eca Palmer, one of our architects by contract to rebuild the property. Mr. P. with the public spirit which belongs to that profession, prevail- ed on the other property-holders to unite with Mr. Dietrich in putting up substantial and uni- form buildings to correspond with the appear- ance of the corner wlien repaired and finished. The result to the public is, that spacious busi- ness accommodations, and ornamental buildings are put up in place of the insignificant improve- ments which would have been made. The re- sult to the owners is a permanently profitable in- vestment of money which they could not have made as well in any other shapc.
Let me make a synopsis of the case.
C. Dietrich.
Cost of four lots and houses 13,000
Less insurance money 2,187 1,0813
Three new buildings, with re-
pairs and adding one sto-
ry to corner 5650
16,473
Of these two rent at
$1100
Two will fetch
950
2,050
the building next the al- ley which with the lot cost them 5250
It rents at 700 dollars per annum.
The entire cost of the block is then $26.323
And the aggregate of the rents is $3350, be- ing at the rate of 122 per cent. per annum in the investment. It must be remembered also that those rents will be augmenting constantly, in the nature of the case.
I propose next week to exhibit other modes of safe and profitable investments for which I have not room in an article already larger than I contemplated to make it.
The Whaling business.
Just as I was making up last week's "Adver- tiser," and too late to use the information, I re- ceived the annual exhibit of the whaling busi- ness in the United States, with the following note attached to it:
"The whale fishery is alive yet, in spite of lard oil- Yours, A WHALER."
I owe this favor, undoubtedly, to the articles on lard oil, whose statistical character gave them extensively the range of the periodical press in the United States, and I can truly assure the unknown writer that he has laid me under obligations, by the valuable, full, and interesting table sent, and which want of space in this print, alone withholds from my columns.
A synopsis of it follows.
The imports into the United States, for 1844 were:
Sperm oil. Whale oil. Whalebone. Bbls. 139,544. Bbls. 252,047. Ibs. 2,532,445. 1843 166,985. 206,721.
The supplies of 1844 were brought in 238 ships. barques, brigs, schooners, and sloops principally of the first class. The whaling voyages lasting for a length of time averaging three years, two thirds of the vessels employed are not included in this table. The whole number of whalers is 695, the increase during the last year being fifty vessels of 18508 tonsburthen.
I rejoice in the prosperous condition of this important trade. The whale fishery is the great nursery of American sailors, and it has served
If we deduct the insurance money from the expense of the late improvement, as it ought to | to prepare many of our naval heroes for useful-
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ness and honor in the national service. It was } cles have heretofore been brought from abroad" in this school that Charles Ramsdell, whose spirit stirring biography I gave so lately to the public, in these columns, was trained, as are thousands of other gallant and energetic spirits.
But it is in vain that our eastern brethren shut their eyes to the tendency of the lard oil manufacture. As a means of light, it is atonce cheaper, pleasanter, and of rapidly enlarging power of production. The increase of vessels for the whale voyages is in the growth of the leather business, a heavy and important manu" facture spending over the whole United States, and which grows, and must continue to do so, with the general advance of the country. This is evident from the fact that it is the increase in whale or tanner's oil, which has furnished freights for these vessels. That article has av- eraged 34} cents at New Bedford, for six years past, a price at which it may defy the competi- tion of lard oil, while sperm oil, which was in 1839, at an average of 1,03 cts., had gradually sunk by the close of 1843 to 63 cents. The av- erage of 1844, it is true, had improved to 88 cts. This is owing to the general revival of busi- ness, and confidence among dealers, which has produced the same state of things, with respect to lard oil, and raised its price 10 per cent al- ready. now that the season for the accumulation of raw materials has only commenced. At any rate, there is room and use in the world for both sperm and lard oil.
Dyers and Painters Colors.
Modern chemistry is the touch of Midas tur- ning everything to gold, and some of the chan- ges in color, taste, and properties, which natu- ral substances undergo in the crucible, the re tort and the furnace, are such as puzzle plain men of sound understandings, not familiar with the magic of the science. Who that surveys Piperine, a crystallized substance, looking like roll brimstone split up, would imagine that it was the extract and principle of the black pep- per, with whose smell and taste his daily dinner makes him familiar, or that the paper which wraps up the package of goods he has just pur- chased was made of straw, which grew on his own or his neighbor's farm, or that the ivory- black which serves him for paint, was made purely out of old boncs.
under the disadvantage to the community, that what is ordered from the east may be good, and ordinarily is of fair quality, while the corresponding manufacture here must be either better or cheaper, or both, if designed to super- cede'it.
Prussiate of potash, which ought rather perhaps to be called blue oxyde of potash, is a cheaper and more efficient coloring substance than the indigo which it replaces in dying. It is employed, in large quantities, in woollen factories, and calico print establishments at the east, and serves also for rendering iron as hard as steel.
The other articles named, are used by paint- ers, paper stainers, and oil cloth, fancy printing ink, and paper manufacturers, for whom they furnish blue and yellow of the deepest and most brilliant tints, with all the intermediate shades.
All these articles are made chiefly of animal substances, such as blood, hoofs, horns, old lea- ther, &c., and when we reflect on the immense amount of such offal, which annually runs to waste, in the Mill creek, and Deer creek valleys it will readily be understood that this establish- ment is prepared to operate on the most exten- sive scale.
As things now arc, the principal markets for these products must be sought east, although I doubt not the lapse of a few years will supply an abundant demand in Cincinnati and the west. What the future operations of this and other establishments must become in point of magnitude, may be judged from the fact that al- ready, in the infancy of the business, Mr. Dum- mig consumes, in his manufacture,two thousand pounds of animal substances, and nearly one thousand pounds of potash daily. Seven hands are here employed, and the operations go on, day and night.
Specimens of these articles are left at my of- fice, which I shall be pleased to show to. those who take an interest in the subject. Their ap- pearance itself will recommend them beyond anything I can say, but on the subject of their quality, I must relate one little incident. Mr. D. manufactured a supply of one of these articles for one of our heavy druggists,a man thorough- ly acquainted with dye stuffs, expecting to be paid the price of the eastern article, whatever that might be. That price proved to be 45 cents very carefully and then remarked : "The price as you see by this price current," shewing it to him, "is 45 cents, but for such an article as this I cannot think of giving you less than 60 cts;" and paid him accordingly.
Among the recent additions to our manufac- j per lb. at that time. The Druggist examined it turing industry , MR. CHARLES DUMMIG has com- menced the manufacture on an extensive scale, of colors, for dyers and painters, such as Prussi- ate of potash; Chrome Yellow and Green; Paris, Antwerp and Mineral Blue. The chromes are not new articles of manufacture here, Mr. R. Such establishments,in which labor forms al- most every thing, and raw materials almost noth- Conkling, on Court street. being already enga- ged largely in the business, but the other arti- ling, of the value of manufacturing deserve the
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support of every well wisher to the prosperity of Cincinnati. Had the immense banking pa- tronage to our pork business, which in the course of twenty years had swallowed up almost every man engaged on it, leaving the pork house, as the only assets, been diverted to manufactures of sinnlar descriptions. Cincinnati wo uld now have been one of the most important manufac- turing point in the United States. Every one can readily see that a department of industry, which gives 85 per cent to the farmer for raw material and divides 15 per cent among the packer, salt merchant, eooper, drayman, freight- er and commission merchant can never be so im- portant to the community as establishments in which the raw material is 15 per cent, and the value conferred on it by labor 85, in many of our factories this being the case.
John M'Ewan.
Human nature is always a study of profound interest. Itis presented in the following nar- rative in a manner seldom witnessed. These details were taken from a letter of M. Waldie, M. D., of Glasgow to his nephew and are doubt- less authentic.
"I lodged in the house of a poor shoemaker, by name John M'Ewan. He had no family but his wife, who, like himself, was considerabiy beyond the meridian of life. The couple were very poor, as their house, and everything about their style of living, showed; but a worthier couple, I should have no difficulty in saying were not to be found in the whole city. When I was sitting in my own little cell, busy with my books, late at night, I used to listen with delight to the hymn the two old bodies sung, or rather, I should say, croon'd together, before they went to bed. Tune there was almost none; but the low, inarticulate, quiet chaunt, had something so impressive and solemnizing about it, that I missed not melody. John himself was a hard- working man, and, like most of his trade, had acquired a stooping attitude, and a dark, saffron hue of complexion. His close-cut, greasy black hair suited admirably a set of strong, massive, iron features. Ilis brow was seamed with firm, broad-drawn wrinkles, and his large gray eyes seemed to gleam, when he deigned to uplift them with the cold haughty independence of virtuous poverty. John was a rigid Cameronian, indeed; and everything about his person spoke the world-despising pride of his sect. His wife was a quiet, good body, and seemed to live in perpetual adoration of her stern cobler. I had the strictest confidence in their probity, and would no more have thought of locking my chest ere I went out, than if I had been under the roof of an apostle.
"One evening I came home, as usual, from my tutorial trudge, and entered the kitchen where they commonly sat, to warm my hands at the fire, and get my candle lighted. Jean was by herself at the fireside, and I sat down by her side for a minute or two. I heard voices in the inner room, and easily recognized the coarse grunt which John M'Ewan condescended, on rare occasions, to set forth as the representative of laughter. The old woman told me that the I said I, as soon as the storm subsided a little
good man had a friend from the country with him-a farmor who had come from a distance to sell ewos at the market. Jean, indeed, seem- ed to take some pride in the acquaintance, en- larging upon the great substance, and respecta- bility of the stranger. I was chatting away with her, when he heard some noise from the spence as if a table or a chair had fallen-but we thought nothing of this, and talked on. A. minute after, John came from the room, and shutting the door behind him said, "I'm going out for a moment, Jean; Andrew's had ower muckle o' the flesher's whiskey the day, and I maun stap up the elose to see after his beast for him. Ye need na gang near him till I come back."
"The cobler said this, for any thing that I could observe, in his usual manner; and walking across the kitchen, went down stairs, as he had said. But imagine, my friend, for I cannot de- scribe the feelings with which, some five min- ntes after he had disappeared, I, chaneing to throw my eyes downwards, perceived a dark flood, creeping broadly, inch by inch across the sanded floor towards the place where I sat. The old woman had her stocking in her hand-I eal- ed to her without moving, for I was nailed to my chair : 'See there, what is that?'
"'Andew Bell has coupit our water stoop,' said she rising. I sprang forward and dipt my finger in the stream. 'Blood! Jean, blood" The The old woman stooped over it, and touched italso; she instantly screamed out, 'Blood, ay, blood!' while I rushed on to the door from be- low which it was oozing. I tried the handle, and found it was locked-and spurned it off its hinges with one kick of my foot. The instant the timber gave way, the black tide rolled out as if a dam had been breaking up, and I heard my feet plashing in the abomination as I ad- vanced. What a sight within! The inan was lying all his length upon the floor ; his throat ab- solutely severed to the spine. The whole blood of the body had run out. The table with a pewter pot or two, and a bottle upon it, stood close beside him, and two chairs, one half-tum- bled downand supported against the other. I rushed instantly out of the house, and cried out in a tone that brought the whole neighborhood around me. They entered the house-Jean had disappeared-there was nothing in it, but the corpse and the blood, which had already found its way to the outer stair-case,making the whole floor one puddle. There was such a clamor of surprise and horror for a little while, that I scarce ly heard one word that was said. A bell in the neighborhood had been set in motion-do- zens, seores, hundreds of people were heard rushing from every direction towards the spot .- A fury ofexecration and alarm'pervaded the very breeze. In a word, I had absolutely lost all possession of myself, until I found myself grap- pled from behind, and saw a town's officer poin- ting the bloody knife towards me. A dozen voices were screaming, "Tis a Doctor's knife! this is the young doctor that 'bides in the house -this is the man !'
"Of course this restored me to my self pos- session. I demanded a moment's silence, and said-'It is my knife, and I lodge in the house; but John M'Ewan is the man that has murdered his friend.' 'John M'Ewan" roared some one in a voice of tenfold horror; 'our elder, John M' Ewan, a murderer! Wretch! wretch! how dare ye blaspheme ?' 'Carry me to jail immediately,'
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load me with all the chains in Glasgow, but don't neglect to pursue John M'Ewan.' I was instantly locked up in the room with the dead inan, while the greater part of the crowd follow- ed one of the officers. Another of them kept watch over me until one of the magistrates of the city arrived. This gentleman, finding that I had been the person who first gave the alarm, and that M'Ewan and his wife were both gone, had little difficulty, I could perceive in doing me justice in his own mind. However, after he had given orders for the pursuit, I told him that as the people about were evidently unsatisfied of my innocence, the best and the kindest thing he could do was to put me fothwith within the walls of his prison ; there I should be safe at all events and I had no doubt, if proper exertions were made, the guilty man would not only be found, but found immediately. My person being searched, nothing suspicious, of course, was found upon it; and the good baillie soon had me conveyed under a proper guard to the place of security-where, you may suppose, I did not, after all, spend a very pleasant night. The jail is situated in the heart of the town, where the four principal streets meet ; and the glare of hur- rying lights, the roar of anxious voices, and the eternal tolling of the alarum-bell -- these all reached me through the bars of my cell, and, together with the horrors that I had already wit- nessed, were more than enough to keep me in no enviable condition.
"Jean was discovered, in the gray of the morning, crouching under one of the trees in the green, and being led immediately before the magistrate, the poor trembling creature con- firmed, by what she said, and by what she did not say, the terrible story which I had told .-- Some other witnesses having also appeared, who spoke to the facts of Andrew Bell having re. ceived a large sum of money in M'Ewan's sight at the market, and been seen walking to the Vennel, arm in arm, with him -- the authorities of the place were perfectly satisfied, and I was set free, with many apologies for what I had suffered. But still no word of John M'Ewan.
"It was late in the day ere the first traces of him were found -- and such a trace! An old woman had died that night in a cottage not many miles from Glasgow -- when she was al- most in articulo mortis, a stranger entered the house, to ask a drink of water -- an oldish dark man, evidently much fatigued with walking .-- This man finding in what great affliction the family was -- this man, after drinking a cup of water, knelt down by the bedside, and prayed, a long, an awful, a terrible prayer. The peo- ple thought he must be some travelling field preacher. He took the bible into his hands- opened it as if he intended to read aloud -- but shut the book abruptly, and took his leave .-- This man had been seen by these poor people to walk in the direction of the sea.
"They traced the same dark man to Irvine, and found that he had embarked on board of a vessel which was just getting under sail, for Ireland. The officers immediately hired a small brig, and sailed also. A violent gale arose, and drove them for shelter to the Isle of Arran .-- They landed, the second night after they had left Irvine, on that bare and desolate shore -- they landed, and behold, the ship they were in pursuit of at the quay! The captain acknow- ledged at once that a man corresponding to their description had been one of his passengers at Ir- vine-he had gone ashore but an hour ago. They
searched -- they found M'Ewan striding by him- self close to the sea-beach, amidst the dashing spray-his bible in his hand. The instant he saw them he said, you need not tell me your errand; I am he you seek ; I am John M'Ewan that murdered Andiew Bell! I surrender my- self your prisoner. God told me but this moment that you would come and find me ;-- for I opened his word, and the first text that my eye fell upon was this.' He seized the offi- cer by the hand, and laid his finger upon- .See you there" said he. 'Do you not see the Lord's own blessed decree ? Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. And there,' he added, plucking a pocket-book from his bosom, 'there, friends is Andrew Bell's siller -- you'll find the haill o't there, an' be not three half crowns and a sixpence. Seven and thirty pounds was the sum for which I yielded up my soul to the temptation of the prince of the pow- er of the air. Seven and thirty pounds !- Ah! my brethren ! call me not an olive until thou see me gathered. I thought that I stood fast, and behold ye all how I am fallen.'
"I saw this singular fanatic tried. He would have pleaded guilty ; but, for excellent reasons, the crown advocate wished the whole evidence to be led. John had dressed himself with scru- pulous accuracy in the very clothes he wore when he did the deed. The blood of the mur- dered man was still visible upon the sleeve of his blue coat. When any circumstance of pe- culiar atrocity was mentioned by a witness, he signified by a solemn shake of his head, his sense of its darkness and its conclusiveness ; and when the judge, in addressing him, enlarged upon the horror of his guilt, he, standing right before the bench, kept his eye fixed with calm earnestness on his lordship's face, assenting now and then to the propriety of what he said, by exactly that sort of see-saw gesture, which you may have seen escape now and then from a de, vout listener to a pathetic sermon, or sacramen- tal service. John, in a short speech of his own, expressed his sense of his guilt ; but even then he borrowed the language of Scripture, styling himself 'a sinner and the chief of sinners.' Ne- ver was such a specimen of that insane pride. The very agony of this man's humiliation had a spice of exultation in it ; there was in the most penitent of his lugubrious glances still some- thing that said, or seemed to say, 'Abuse me: spurn me as you will; I loth myself also; but this deed is Satan's.' Indeed he continued to always speak quite gravely of his 'trespass,' his 'backsliding,' his 'sore temptation !'
"I was present also with him during the fi- nal scene. His irons had been knocked off ere I entered the cell; and clothed as he was in a most respectable suit of black, and with that fixed and imperturbable solemnity of air and aspect, upon my conscience I think it would have been a difficult matter for a stranger to pick out the murderer among the group of cler- gyman that surrounded him. In vain did these good men labor to knock away the absurd and impious props upon which the happy fanatic leancd himself. He heard what they said, and instantly said something still stronger himself -- but only to shrink back again to his own fast- ness with redoubled confidence. He had once been right, and he could not be wrong; he had been permitted to make a sore stumble" This was his utmost concession.
"What a noble set of nerves had been thrown away here! He wasled, sir, out of the damp,
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dark cellar, in which he had been chained for ( I, 'that'll do with some, but I've been there and weeks, and brought at once into the open air. staid a week.' ' Why friend,' says he, 'if there's His first step into the open air was upon the scaffold! and what a moment! In general, at least in Scotland, the crowd, assembled upon such occasions, receive the victim of the law with all the solemnity of profoundest silence !-- not unfrequently there is even something of the respectful, blended with compassion on that myriad of faces. But here, sir, the moment M'- Ewan appeared, he was saluted with one uni- versal shout of horror; a huzza of mingled joy and triumph, and execration and laughter ; cats, rats, every filth of the pillory was showered a- bout the gibbet. I was close to his side at that terrific moment, and I laid my finger on his wrist. As I live, there was never a calmer pulse in the world ; slow, full, strong : I feel the iron beat of it at this moment. anything out of the way in the hoss, let's know it.' .Why, do you mean to say that you don't know that colt's got two bone spavins.' 'I deny it,' said he, and his eyes stuck out so you could a hung your hat on 'em.' "Well, friend,' says I, 'I'll prove this to you; lead your colt over this way where there is a little the soundest horse I ever did see, and we will compare their legs.' -- Now that colt was a dreadful made one; his hock jints were deeper than any I have seen, and the upper pints inside the hind leg stuck out clean and handsome I tell you. Well, old Brown's leg was a gunny round thing, like any other old Plug's. 'There,' says I, 'I mean to say that them bones stickin' out like a frog's elbow, on your colt, but when you get him to work, there bound to lame him, for they're nothing "There happened to be a slight drizzle of rain at the moment ; observing which he turned round and said to the magistrates : 'Dinna come out, dinna come out, your honors, to weet your- selves. Its beginning to rain, and the lads are uncivil at ony rate, poor thoughtless creatures. more nor less than bone spavins.' 'O, dear,'says he, 'what shall I de ?' and he turned as blue as a whetstone. 'Well,' says I. "there never was a nigger so black but there was some white in his eye, and our case has some bright spots in it yet. Lets find that chap what owns this hess .. I'll help you to trade. We can cut him through and make a good thing out of a bad one.' .Well, says he, 'you start after him.'
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