The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1869-08-14
New Orleans as n Summer Resi-
efencc.
NEGLECTED CAPABILITIES.

Why not make New Orleans a place
to be sought instead of a place to be
run away from in the Summer season
more and more," says New York pa
per-" people are coming to find out that,
for the one benefit they derive from a
remote watering place they leave behind
them hundreds of comforts and conven-
fences which no spot can supply like the
METROPOLIS This remark has quite as
much application to New Orleans as to
New York. OF course there are always
those who,in the vacations of business,
will migrate simply for the sake of change,
and who will relish even the discomforts
and privations of travel or Of distant So
journ merely because of the new sensations
which they impart to body and mind.
If they live in the city they will natu-
rally seek recreation away from it.
But if they live in the country and have
vacant space in the summer to fill up,
there is no reason why they should not
while away the time between the city
and its adjacencies. Moreover, the
mass of the urban population have no
vacation of business ) the summer bring s
no resting spell to them; whatever
snatches of holiday enjoyment they may
realize must be obtained from opportuni
ties offered by the city or its surroundings
How much are they interested, then,
in having the summering faculties and
attractions of New Orleans, now merely
incidental and unprecedented, and com
paratively both rude and unsy<tematic,
put opon the footing of special object
of public solicitude and municipal at
tention ? On every side the scientific
and artistic eye cali see here the capa-
bilities for picturesque and salubrious
improvements. No city is mole favored
with broad, extended areas tor parks,
and esplanadcs, and artificial lakes and
fountains Or more favored with unfail-
ing and convenient supplies of water
for bathing the person OF refreshing and
cooling the various thoroughfares. And
what account can the city give of the culti-
vation of these capabilities tits beggar-
ly enough. There are no floating baths.
There are no interior baths. The city
squares, which ought to be pleasant re-
sorts, gay, elegant and blooming with
floral and female beauty, are for the
most part avoided by decency, and aban-
doned to vagrancy, rutfianism, obscenity
and disreputable amours. The City,
Park, socalled, is simply broad satire
upon the name; a satire which some
bucolic humorist has exquisitely pointed
by proposing, in effect, to rent this re-
markab!e ground as a COW pasture at the
generous price of fifty dollars! The
streets ought to be, at least i'll dry, hot
and dusty spells, washed and cooled
every night by streams drawn from the
Mississippi. AS it is, for all practical
purposes, in such seasons they are
about as strange and foreign to the wa
ters Of that river as the srcets OF Tan
buctoo. But it is needless, ana would be
tedious. to exhaust the catalogue of
shortcomings with reference to the de-
velopment of the resources for various
imp. ovement and adornment presented
by the city's topography. 1t is more
agreeable to reflect that, in spite of the
plentiful lack of enterprise and cult
vation in this regard, there is no sum-
mering place by seashore. or in the far
interior, to which one may 60 from this
city without feeling that he has left be-
hind him many comforts and convenien-
ces-gastronolnic, locomotive, bibacious.
festive, sportive-which they do not, and
never can, combine, In consideration
IF all which, we again submit Why not
adopt a policy expressly designed to
bring into play all the capabilities of
New Orleans as summer residence, and
to advertise the public at large that here
the trying heated term can be passed
in safety and amidst elegancics and
luxuries which few other cities in the
world afford IN 0. Bulletin.