The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-06-09
Our City.


Our own New York correspondent, whose lette
we publish to-day, speaks the language of appre
hension and dependency about the fate of New
Orleans, which is common TO the Northern press
The New York Mirror, for example, of the sam,
date with this letter, speaks of the accounts from
New Orleans as of " the most alarming character,
calculated to cause the most serious apprehension
for the safety Of that devoted city," The public art
told that g nothing short of an immediate fall O
the river which cannot be anticipated at this season
Of the year, can save the great commercial depot
of the South from almost total destruction' Other
papers talk of the roaring waters which engulp
us; the flight of our citizens before the rushing
flood; and the abandonment of great amounts Of
property, which it is impossible to save.
There is vast deal Of exaggeration in all this
We are gratifed, indeed, with the tone of commits
Grafton with which the supposed destruction of this
city is universally treated; but the picture is so
highly overcharged that we here cannot recognize
more than very remote likeness of the truth
Great loss Of property there has been; but not from
the devastations of any violent torrent-for the
stream grew upon the city slowly and gradually
almost insensibly, so that every thing peris!able
could be removed at leisure. The inundated plan
tations above have indeed suffered immensely in
their crops and buildings but in the inundated
portion of the city, the destruction of property by
the direct action of the water is not great except
relatively. Unfortunately the sufferers are mostly
the humble classes of laboring men, 10 whom small
losses are heavy burdens. Even TO them the Sc
verify of the infiction is in the indirect loss-the
loss OF time, the stagnation of business the cost
and all the damage of removal, and the dismal
prospect OF long summer with scaniy employ
ment. These are subjects for real sympathy, and
for all the assistance TO which the most liberal feel
ing for misfortune can prompt the charitable.
But these Affections, great they undoubtedly
are, cannot in any sense be treated as signs of
the obstruction of this devoted city," The
densely populated portions of the city, the streets
where nneteen-twentieths of the vast business of
this city is transacted the warehouses of It's COM
merce, the sites of retail trade and the residences
OF the more prosperous portion of its people, are
untouched, and there is no probability that they
will be touched. Although the crevasse is un-
closed, and continues 10 pour in its floods fourteen
miles above us, there is no appreciabIe rise re-
Gently in the waters, which escape by the rear of
the city into the swamps and the lakes, where the
average height is several feet below that of the
front streets. We make these explanations again,
that our friends abroad may the extravagant
ideas that are III circulation, about the overflow of
the whole city, and its probable destruction by
raging torrents and devastating floods. The injury
done to the streets, the roads, the banquettes and
the foundations of buildings in the submerged dis
trlcts is of course very great from the silent sap
ping of the waters. 1t is, however, totally unlike
and infinitely inferior TO the frghtful violence of
which Northern fancies describe
We do not desire to disguise the melancholy ex- |
tent of the damage, to underrae the sufIerings
and losses which have fallen upon one-thrd of cur
city by this calamity. But we must not let those |
whose good feelings we appreciate deceive them
selves by supposing that there is any reality in the
apprehension that New Orleans is in danger of de-
struciion.
We have bought some bitter experience, very
leary With little of the wisdom which that
experience should teach, we can repair damages,
md secure city from the possible recurrence of
my similar disaster hereafter