第724页 / 共2651页

Many people let furnished houses, and get a rent, not only for

the use of the house, but for that of the furniture. The revenue,

however, which is derived from such things, must always be

ultimately drawn from some other source of revenue. Of all parts

of the stock, either of an individual or of a society, reserved

for immediate consumption, what is laid out in houses is most

slowly consumed. A stock of clothes may last several years; a

stock of furniture half a century or a century; but a stock of

houses, well built and properly taken care of, may last many

centuries. Though the period of their total consumption, however,

is more distant, they are still as really a stock reserved for

immediate consumption as either clothes or household furniture.