The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1848-12-22
4 Manhattansr IN New Orleans.
- PEEP INTO THE Z X c HAN Z
from the Literary World.l


Let us stroll to the Exchange, some evening,
where, oddly enough, butin strict accordance with
| the iron sway of utility, Change time is at early
eandle-light; for daylight is too precious in New
| Orleans to be wasted IN a loungmg talk
Above the bar and post-office, (the former out Of
/ sight, you'd think, but no, looked down upon
through wide cut-out in the floor are the talking
/ smoking, reading-roOms of the merchants. By
twilight they begin to fill. The dozen chess-tabes
| in a small recess are early taken una crowd
| stand round for observation and remark and cal
| culatlons are begun, and checking done by men
| who have calculated and checked all dav 10 some
purpose. By-and-by the sand upon the floor is
scraped ABOUT like the strings Of violin when in
nOcent $ thirteen" is learning Paddy Carey. Knots
OF readers stand round the bulletin boards and by
the tables, where the gazettes of all the States are
lying. But everywhere talking, money night
mared crowd Yonder is the cotton broker with
the fluctuations of the market for ten years past
all pencilled on his face his brain divided into
sections like the columns of a balance-sheet, for
dollars and cents, farthing's rise and farthing's
fall whose life is only nursed on from year to year
and saved from shipwreck on the grinding sands
Of anxious care by the summer trip he makes to
England, or TO France, or TO Northern State.
Near him is 3 sugar-bFoker, fat with perpetual
tasting of the sweets of life whose jolly phz and
merry laugh, and careless talk are fine offsets for
the troubled look Of his neighbor g in the cotton
Ane In one corner the banking agent, whose
principals are in London or Paris. their cores
pOndence a nightmare in the dreams of law post
masters) chatting Familiarity with the Jolly planter
who has just DOTTED his hat in return to the obse-
quIous bow Of a passing factor. In another corner
a sallow-taced man, versed in the tobacco mystic
ries, you may tell it by the nervous twitching of
his facel is figuring estimates for the London mar
ket. Ills nelghbor in the -four line has his thoughts
IN Boston, and on nemory's wings is doing around
It's bullt-uP cow-paths for a sale. Some are Eng
hsh-you can tell them by their rosy look, the cd
dity Of their hat the starch of their collar and the
1auO of tha The pcb1 byyt
volubility and gesture. Others are Germans: as
they read or talk no sparkle of the eye or change
of feature indicates their thoughts. Some are Yam
KEGS there is sharpness in their eye like the feel
OF Bostonia1 east wind on Cambridge bridge.
Some are from Gotham: they carry themselves
with an unmistakeable air Of superiority and indie
pendence; and although merchants now, and fam
lly men, they feed on the important feelings of
their cerkship days, and the SAVIOR of the old Pine
and Wall street times hangs around them still.
Some from Philadelphia: their gestures are all
right angles, and invisible parallelogTams are on
the floor wherever they walk. And you could
work out alphabetically the number Of pins in their
weiladjusted neckcloth. Some from--every
where. If there is ever to be congress Of nations
let it be held in New Orleans there will be no |
mileage for delegates. OF all the crowds, perhaps |
not one calls the city his home, from birth choice
Faces are here, upon whom the Exchange gas |
lights have shone tW many winter; faces, too, |
that next year You viii look in vain 10 find All |
ilitCilt SpoCutdilOu HUEhllB
for them all the day, dreaming of them by night.
So it is in every country, more or less-be sure |
OF that But yet you may search the world over |
to find the science of money making reduced to |
such perfection and become of such an all-engross-
ing influence, as in New Orleans.
But if the denzens of the Crescent City work /
for money in the daylight, gas and candles see it
freely spent The clerk sal bis bowling. or bis |
billiards, or in theatre parquette; the mechanic, /
at the circus or the minor ball. The beauty and
fashion of the city throng the concert room or be-
siege Donizetti and HalevY from atticed boxes in /
the Opera Francais The evening is the reaction /
of the day-the prolonging of the money fever.
Here and there are quiet drawing-rooms, from /
the breasts of whose inmates, and from whose /
tranquil iresdes, at which domestic love is ever /
chaste presiding goddess, the demons of Mammon /
have not wholly driven away home pleasures in |
which the quiet soul, if it has escaped the fascina
tons and seductions of the perfidious sirens of /
fashions train in the world without, may gratefully
share.
These are the GASES in the desert of New Orleans
life. Happy they who are as fortunate as myself
in finding them