New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1853-03-02
WEDNESDAY MORNING. MARCH 2. 1858
ore CITY

We do not believe that NewOrleans ever was
gayer or moro thronged with strangers than i
is at the present moment, or than it has beer
for some weeks past Even during the period o
the Jenny Lind Juror there was not large,
floating multitude in our city.
Our hotels are swarming with inmates. and a
perpetual buzz goes up from within them, as
though they were busy bee-hives. Our places
of public resort and amusement show a vast
. array Of curioasly casing faces
. At our opera, at our theatres, at Dan Ricc's
Museum and Hippodrome, in hotel bar rooms
and at hotel dinner tables, and at restaurants
strangers swarm, and seem always to curiously
relish the sights and novelties of NewOrleans
With difficulty We thread our way along the
narrow banquettes of Chartres or Royal streets
through the many-colored, Kaleidoscope like
throng of fair maidens and matronly danes. A
push, aud not a courteous request for room, is
the onlySay of obtaining passage through
the great door-ways of our fashionable hotels.
On the Levee we tread a devious path through
great heaps of up-piled merchandise, and mo-
mentarily we secure bodily safety in escaping
from rattling drays and whirling carriages, by
feats Of activity which would do no discredit to
the professional gymnasist. Even our churches
are crowded on the Sunday by this gay, noisy,
curiority glowing, pleasure-seeking irruption of
visitors.
curious thing is this annual incoming of
the tide of strangers. 1t contrasts strikinely
with the summer stiffness Of cur city, in the
loud hum and quick hustle of active human life
which itbrings with it. Itcomes upon us like
sudden Hood 1t brightens on us like a quick
ening sunburst. 1t hurries us along as though
drawn into violent Whirlpool The summer
dreamy Incidence of repose is almost swept from
memory in the resistless calls of pressing bust
ness and ceaseless gayety, We forget how
hesutifnl New Orleans is in summer, its life all
- sunny holiday, its air cooled by the pleasant
ssa-breeze, and odorous in the breath of ten
thousand and ten million flowers, its society
graceful in the periodical sociabilty of new
associations and of " old folks at homea
In winter our city is but one great caravan
serai, thronged by the pilgrims of pleasure or
business; vast, annually filled store house, a.
great theatre Of vanity, folly, display, and cost
by gaieties, Fair ladies from every State in
the West and South. and dressed in every style
- Aohoy VI oaPiitVs pue INNING "
approachable elegance Of female taste keen
eyed merchants, with restless movements and
endless questions concerning articles they may
have shipped to our market; burly, hard-ha
ed, open-faced, oareless-paced Hatboatmen :;
firm stepping, hearty looking and ceaselessly-
gazing farmers, with any quantity of corn, to-
bacco, ETC., in the hands of their factors; and
others, Of every pursuit and of every condition,
jostle one, everywhere in our crowded thorough
fares, and the citizen of New Orleans scarcely
knows whether or not he is to consider himself
at home, or whether Or not his city has not sud-
denly become different from what he deemed it
in the idle summer hours
But this annual irruption is welcome 1t is
= friendly invasion. It brings treasure to our
city. It gives profit to the laborer, mechanic,
merchant and professional man. 1t rouses us
from our summer torpor, and makes NewO Orleans,
within all its limits, quick with varying and in
teresting forms of life. And, finally, it brings
around the season during which our merchants
find it most specially to their profit to advertise
in the Crescent.