New Orleans daily crescent., 1866-10-03
VOLUME XVI.

council, such matters as had peculiar significance,
or We're of such grave responsibility as required,
under the laws and ordinances your Legislative
action, have been wisely deferred.
Unremitting as have been your efforts to sub
| serve the interests Of the city, legislation OF per
haps greater scope and importance Will, for the
next year require your attention.
1t will be both my pride and pleasure to CO.
operate with you in every measure calculated 70
benefit the city.
Apart from such reformatory measures as your
wisdom will suggest to you in the course OF
municipal legislation, respectfully submit snch
as have occurred to my mind as necessary to the
public welfare, or originating with others, nave
met my concurrence.
| cail your attention first to topics of general
nature yet closely identified with the weil-being,
credit and honor Of the city.
HEALTH OF THE CITY.
A mutual subject of congratulation is the i'm
proved health OF the city. The terrible epidemics
Of yellow fever, which up to 1858 visited US at
ftful periods, visit US no more. Sporadic cases OF
the former scourge alone remind US that 1t ever
existed here in an epidemic form.
Another scourge, unconined to any locality,
made its appearance in the East and SLOWLY moved
to the West sparing neither age, sex, situation or
condition. This is the Asiatic cholera, yet pre-
vailing to an alarming extent in some OF the first
cities in the United States. Sanitary measures
were fruitiess to prevent its desolatng progress
Louis, Cincinnati and Nashville suffer from cpl
demic cholera, the disease which made It's appear
ance in New Orleans in July last, has caused us to
suffer but inconsiderabie loss.
Indeed the cholera has nearly dsapp cared from
our midst.
Built upon a bed of spongy alluvunl, with diff
cult drainage, and to the eye'of q stranger san
itarily unsafe, New Orleans, with no such natural
advantages as her sister cities possess, is, never
America.
The health statistics Of the present year, even
with the cholera in our midst, abundantly proves
this assertion to be so well founded as to defy
refutation.
To the energetic exertions of the street com,
missioner, city surveyor, draining commission and
the recently established Board of Health, we must
feel indebted to no inc0nsiderable extent for not
only our exemption from epidemic cholera, but
also for an extraordinary reduction Of those semi
tropical diseases which formerly made their ap-
pearance among US in the summer and autumn.
| would add, in this connection, that no pains
should be spared by the city authorities tolncrease
the general healthfulness, so that aosenteeism
may become a relict of our past history, and cap
italists from every section Of the world be in
duced to come hither, and settle amongst US per
manently.
THE RIOT OF THE THlETIBTH OF JULY.
The peace of the city, with one melancholy
exception, has not been seriously disturbed since
the re-inauguration Of the civil government in
March last.
This exception was the memorable riot which
ensued in and around Mechanics Institute on the
Both July The seeds Of this violent outbreak
were sOwn by men who claimed to be members
| of the defunct convention Of 1864, and by those
who affiliated with them in anunlawful attempt to
overthrow the existing State and municipal gov
| ernments
| The object of the conventionists and their white
afiliators were, as far as have been able to learn
| two fold: Negro suffrage and dislranchisement Of
| every man who had participated in and sympa-
| thized with the late war This was to be accom-
pshed by radical change in the Constitution of
| Louisiana-the sequence, the reelection TO office
| of men whose antecedents as public officers were
in opposition to the overwhelming majority of the
| people of the State.
| Violent and revolutionary harangues, and Sc
| ductive offers of future, honor and emolument
were used to infame the mind of our negro popu-
aton.
| EIncited to disregard their proverbal and life
| long respect and subOrdinatioR to the whites,
many of these unfortunate victims to the teaching
of white radical leaders, for the first time in the
history of the city, were armed participants in
| a riot.
Fer several weeks prior to the outbreak, law
| abiding citizens contemplated, with much uneasi-
ness, the reassembling of the convention. Actu-
ated alone by earnestdesre to preserve, if pos
sible, the public peace, addressed Brevet Major
| Gen. Baird letter, decaratory of my purpose to
! arrest the members of the convention whenever
they should meet within the corporate limits of the
| CITY, provided such convOcation was unsanctioned
| by the military authorities
| Martial law in a mild form, as at present, being
| still in existence, ! had then, have new, no
standing my great desire to see civil law supreme.
Gen. Baird's reply plainly indicated that the
chief magistrate of the city would find no warrant
J for the arrest of the members IF the convention
| from military headquarters.
Anxious to do everything in my power to pre-
serve the peace, seeing that the fermentation of
the public mind grew greater every day, then
| verbally proposed to the commanding general
that the civil and military authorities should act
| Jointly in case of emergency.
| On the morning of the 30th July, I caused a
portion of the police to be distributed ia such a
manner rs to provoke no difficulty, holding re-
| serve ins readiness should a disturbance ensUe.
The commanding general had promised the sup
port of body of white soldiers | was ready,
| General Baird was not.
l At noon the riOtcWas commenced by body of
4 armed negroes marching in procession up Dau-
| phin street, toward Mechanics Institute insult
ing and assaulting un0tending citizens on Canal
street.
i The police were then ordered to protect citizens
from the murderons assault of armed negroes,
4 both on Canal street and in the vicinity of Me.
chanics Institute
Pursued by indignant and excited friends and
! acquaintances of, and sympathisers with, the in
4 suited and wounded in Canal street, the negro
4 procession marched rapidly to Mechanics Insti-
tute, on Dryades street, few hundred yards dis
tant.
Here, as well as on Canal street. the police
were met with pstolvolleys and such missiles as
could be seized by the negroes for the purpose OF
assault and destruction of life.
| Armed and intQratad negroes assembledin front
of the Institute. inside the edifice a body Of
armed negroes and members of the convention
were barrcaded firing Unfortunately from the
windows on police and citizens 1t was necessary
for the protection of the liyesIof citizens, well
as the lives of policemen, that these assaiiants
!, should be disodged.
After stout resistance the police obtained pos
session of the interior. OF the Institute.
There are two important facts conclusively es
| tablshed by veracious eye-witnesses, viz:
l. Thatsthe police were first fred upon on the
neutral grou1d Canal street, while discharging
their duty, by members of the procession.
2. That the first shots on the arrival of the
police at the Institute, were fired from the win
} doWs Of that edjfce by the whites and negroes
therein barrica0ed. Just before l o'clock, thE
riot then furioUsy progressing, called upor
Gen. Baid at his headquarters, aud asked if the
} troops promised IN case of emergency, were al
hand, and if not, when he could give me military
assistance. I was informed by the general tha
he had been deceived as to the hour of the meet
ing of the CGayenti@n, having been under the i'm
pression that it met at i'll the evening instead o
u l2-noOn.
l was astonished that the commanding genera
should make this statement, as the time of meet
ing az o'ci0Ck) had been advertised in the leading
Journals of the city for many days previous, and
vas the subject of public conversation in every
He stated fhs+ Tiaut Gov, Toorl,iau bod ;r,t