FROM the English conquest to this day transactions in real estate have been as safe and profitable as almost any business on Manhattan. The early settlers became wealthy by the simple rise of land, and left vast estates to their posterity. William Bayard's farm, which in 1800 was valued at $15,000was sold in 1833 for $60,000, to gentlemen who divided it and sold it for $260,000, leaving still an ample margin for subsequent transactions. When the Central Park was first planned, lots could have been bought on Fifth avenue between Fifty-ninth and Seventy-fifth streets for $500 each, which now bring from $18,000 to $25,000; above Seventy-fifth street they sold for $200 each, now for $10,000 or $15,000 each. A plot of fifty-five lots on Eighth avenue, purchased a few years since for $11,500, is now valued at $300,000 by the successful purchaser, who still holds it. Many of the wealthiest and sharpest men deal entirely in real estate. Panics affect prices in this kind of property, crushing those who deal only in margins, but the solid capitalist who invests well is sure to survive depressions and prosper. The transactions in real estate in our day are enormous, often exceeding a million dollars a day. Business in real estate, like all other speculations, opens a theater for sharpers. An amusing spry is told of a Frenchman who, many years ago, when land suddenly rose to great value, concluded to do like his neighbors—invest something in city lots. Without examining it, he purchased something or nothing near, the Wallabout in Brooklyn. Some time after he visited his seller to inform him that he had visited the "grant lot vot he had sell him, and he finds no ground at all; no tong he finds but vataire." He accordingly asked for the return of his purchase-money, but was coolly told that the bargain could not be reversed, and that he must keep the lot. "Den, " says the excited Frenchman, "I ask you to be so goot as to take de East Ribber off de top of it. " The man again declined, whereupon the Frenchman threatened to go and drown himself there in order to enjoy his land, and was as coolly told that he might thus employ his water privilege. The poor Frenchman's land is still submerged.