These two institutions will carry the name of John Jacob Astor to the latest generations.  But they are not the only services which he rendered to the public.  It would be absurd to contend that in accumulating his enormous estate, and in keeping it almost entirely in the hands of his eldest son, he was actuated by a regard for the public good.  He probably never thought of the public good in connection with the bulk of his property.  Nevertheless, America is so constituted that every man in it of force and industry is necessitated to be a public servant.  If this colossal fortune had been gained in Europe it would probably have been consumed in what is there called “founding a family.”  Mansions would have been built with it, parks laid out, a title of nobility purchased; and the income, wasted in barren and stupid magnificence would have maintained a host of idle, worthless, and pampered menials.  Here, on the contrary, it is expended almost wholly in providing for the people of New York the very commodity of which they stand in most pressing need; namely, new houses.  The simple reason why the rent of a small house in New York is two thousand dollars a year is, because the supply of houses is unequal to the demand.  We need at this moment five thousand more houses in the city of New York for the decent accommodation of its inhabitants at rents which they can afford to pay.  The man who does more than any one else to supply the demand for houses is the patient, abstemious, and laborious heir of the Astor estate.  He does a good day’s work for us in this business every day, and all the wages he receives for so much care and toil is a moderate subsistence for himself and his family, and the very troublesome reputation of being the richest man in America.  And the business is done with the minimum of waste in every department.  In a quiet little office in Prince Street, the manager of the estate, aided by two or three aged clerks (one of them of fifty-five years’ standing in the office), transacts the business of a property larger than that of many sovereign princes.  Everything, also, is done promptly and in the best manner.  If a tenant desires repairs or alterations, an agent calls at the house within twenty-four hours, makes the requisite inquiries, reports, and the work is forthwith begun, or the tenant is notified that it will not be done.  The concurrent testimony of Mr. Astor’s tenants is, that he is one of the most liberal and obliging of landlords.

So far, therefore, the Astor estate, immense as it is, appears to have been an unmixed good to the city in which it is mainly invested.  There is every reason to believe that, in the hands of the next heir, it will continue to be managed with the same prudence and economy that mark the conduct of its present proprietor.  We indulge the hope that either the present or some future possessor may devote a portion of his vast revenue to the building of a new order of tenement