The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1860-04-25
WHOLE NO. 1874.
Correspondence Of the Times.
New ORLEANS. Anril 10th

Correspondence OF the Times.
NEW ORLEANS, April 10th.
DEAR Col. Perhaps word from the
Sunny South might interest your readers,
therefore drop you line to let ycu know
tina: the folks are all ''pretty we'll consider
ing that they have just got over a severe
spell of the Spring races, which carried off
many thousands-(dolla
Commander Jarvis recently took little
stealing excursion down in the Gulf and
brought home couple of clumsy looking
steamboats,, which he says he beat General
Mirsmon out Of at the "fall game" The
prizes are in this port now, but the people
here don't relish the joke, and the Press
says many hard things in regard to the mat.
ter.
Tomorrow the Henry Clay monument
will be inaugurated on canal street, when if
anticipations are realized, there will be the
greatest gathering, the greatest military and
civic display, and the longest and loudest
speeches delivered, ever witnessed in the
Crescent City.
The weather is warm enough for August
here, and the stagnant water in the sewers
Of the city has attained about the consisten-
cy of cream. Green corn, peas, strawber-
ries, and potatoes are in abundance, so we
may conclude that our summer has fairly
commenced.
Mosquitoes are arriving and strangers arc
leaving, but business is quite brisk and all
the busy marts daily thronged
New Orleans, the metropolis of the South
and next to New York, the greatest COM
mercial emporium of the New World, is a
city per Sc, having no rival, and fearing
none; her immense trade could go nowhere
else, and she has attained her present great
Importance more from necessity than from
the peculiar activity of heI business men.
She sits at the foot of the Mississippi valley
and fattens on the trade of nearly two thou
sand miles of railroad navigation, and drains
into her golden lap the wealth of nearly
half a continent; besides her merchantmen
traverse every sea in every cline, and whv
should she not be rich and great? Built at
the very gates of death, the grim monster
in his yearly rounds knocks ct nearly every
door, desolating many happy households
with his dread epidemic, marking his foot.
steps with the iairest and bravest Of this
sunny cline.
During the long, hot summer months, her
pulse nearly ceases to beat. Her citizens
Of atiiuence HE to the cooler shades of the
north and east to rest from the busy tolls OF
life, yet they return with the Autumnal
frosts, and bring in their trail thousands of
wealthy visitors, when the Crescent Citv
awakens from her hot and deathly slum-
bers into one animated scene of business
and gayety.
One thing that strikes the stranger As
rather singular here, and that is the fact that
they don't bury people here in the ground
but leave the dead to moulder into their na
tive dust above ground. The buryine
grounds, or grave yards rather, consist of 8
series of ovens or vaults, reminding one of
an oven, in which there are three OPENINGS
to place the dead. In some of the places
where the poorer classes are buried these
vaults are arranged with the tombs in tiers
like the letter boxes in a Post Office and
look very rude. Others owned by .yealthy
families, from their magnifcence, would re-.
mind one OF the gorgeous Mausoleums OF
the Orient.
1t is said that during the fearful mortality
attendant udon the epidemic, bodies of the
dead are often thrown together in LARGE
heaps and burned, and 1t must be often nee
essary, as grave dug two feet in the ground
I "o'AN Ah VIVA "@tSA a. dlAv SSdSOI OF the
year.
This is too grace a subject and I will
change it.
A word as to the manner in which one Of
the natives would put fellow through (or
couldD on Sunday here. Go to church in
the morning of course; either walk down
the dim aisles of the Old Cathedral where
the walls are hung with the most rare and
sacred paintings Italy has ever produced
or attend fashionable church up town,
where all the Coloncls, Majors and Generals
60 with their wives and pretty daughters to
hear DR.. Somebody preach-no matter
where, but attend church. Divine service
at an end, visit horde of "two-bit' shows,
endless in number and humbuss. st. Char.
les Street, and the vicinity of Jackson Sor.
are crowded with them. After dinner take
the choice of going to horse race prize
fight or dog In the evening attend
masquerade ball, concert, theatre, faro
bank, cock pit, or 60 and get drunk; as Sum-
day is the great amusement day of the week,
| every saloon is kept open, and crowds OF
men may be seen at all times examining the
ceilings of the whisky shops through the
bottom of their tumblers.
Such would be very limited programme
of Sabbath days exercise in the Crescent
City if one chose ''to see the Elephant"
Yours collectively, CRESCENT.