The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1871-11-05
LETTER FROM SHREVEPORT.

LETTER FROM sHREvEPORT.
SHREVEPORT, La, October Is, 1871.
Editor Morning Star and Catholic Messenger,
Having no particular Catholic news to i'm
mart worthy Of note since my last, will touch
upon those topics of pnblic interest that have
been uppermost in and agitating the public
mind for fhe pnst decade of days or more.
yellow fever; false, as We have not had one case
originating here, and but two cases supposed
to be yellow fever-one an engineer on a steam
boat from New Orleans, who recovered; the
other, one of our largest hardware merchants
who had just returned, ria Ticksburg, from New
York, took sick on arrival, and died in three
days. His death occurred more than q week
ago, and no signs of the fever have appeared
since.
On the night of the 10th inst. we had visit
from that gentleman known to the nursery as
be has returned to Shreveport far many years
past. We hailed him with great pleasure, and
Congratulated ourselves that Jack, the ever
victorious enemy of the yellow knight, had
arrived in advance of him, oil glittering in his
cold, gray armor, ready for q tilt. The saffron
knight came not, SO Jack quietly disappeared,
perhaps to meet him elsewbere-but leaving
determined breeze and bracing atmosphere in
possession of the field till hia return.
Next in the public mind is our grand Rail
road convention and Mass Meeting, to be held
here on the 18th inst, with a view of prosecu-
ting the construction of the Southern Pacific
Railroad, and of making Shreveport the grand
railroad centre and commercial entrepot of the
Southwest-which we. her citizens. believe
fast fitting her for.
Dispatches received here by our Board of
Trade inform Ms that Chicago. st. Louie. Gin
einneti, Louisville Memphis. Vicksburg, Little
Rock and Monroe, and all of our surrounding
inland towns, have each credentialed (allow
me the conage), full committee of their
interests at our Convention. see by yester-
days dispatches that New Orleans has finally
and tartlily consented to be represented.
Judging from the nonchaiance of her Press,
excepting the PicayMae, our foster-motber il
treating too lightly the desperate, insinuating
and. thus far, successful efforts of some of the
aforementioned cities to divert our trade and
wean us from her. She does not seem to APP
preciate the thousands of cattle and sheep, the
hundreds of bales Of cotton and hides, and the
quantity of beeswax and tallow shipped to
nor the hundreds Of thousands of dollars worth
of goods and Western produce laid down here
and at Jefferson. from those cities, and sold at
profit here, for less than the New Orleans
buyers could sell for and "make even" That
great advantage in price, confined at first to a
few, soon forced the majority of onr merchants
to the same markets. In the estimation OF
business men here, a million dollars would fall
far short of covering the trade that has foated
APP the Mississippi during the past season, in
stead of down, as it should have gone, by force
OF habit it nothing more.
These facts constitute another and q forcible
demonstration of the success and superiority
of energy and enterprise over natural advan-
tages" and force of habit: in this progressive,
go-aheari age the laggard is left in the lurch.
The question with New Orleans now is, what
can revert to her this stream of fortune Red
River was wont to pour, so surely and steadily,
into her lap? can see but one certain method,
which is by railroad-connection, and that speed
lily. 1t is now for her to decide whether she
afford Thus to ''cast her gems away" OF
tamey submit to their being thus snatcbed
from her casket. Will she give up, without u
struggle or ans effort to retain it, q tributary
which yields her, according to the 50 carefully
collected" figures of the Picayune, one-third of
her whole tradef In other words, can she give
mp or lose opc-tAird of her accustomed trade
without % fatal finch in her securities and an
eyer-depressing frown on the face of her real
estate st. Louis is no mean competitor: her
iron nerve and metallic blood and muscle rem
der her foeman well worthy the Crescent's
steel, though she have no grit of masts or
buckle well her .armor" and look to her
iaurels.n
Well, after the railroads that agitate ns.
come those great Northern lights" the Chi
cago and lake shore fires. These heve been
certainly terrible, and in the history OF our
world, believe, are unprecedented in extent
guilty and the "sink of sin" the Northern papers
and those persons who have seen her in her
PampeTed pride represent her to have been,
providentiai publication, and "Gomorrha y
were a better name for her sinful cindcrs and
ruined relics than Chicago" Yet, We must
h Judge not, that we D1aynot be judged ~ there
were too many good, just amt innocent among
the victims; the sufferings and disasters to
aH are too great to admit our Withholding for q
moment tdat Christian sympathy and Samari-
tan ald which we ourselves would expect, ask
and feel grateful for in like misfortunes.
may be permitted, however to express the
hope and wish, for the sake of her future
morals and the purity of her new garments,
that the a'om,inabie, uncivilized, unchristian
and native to Chicago, lies forever lost in her
ton. =
This has certainly been year of blood and
4 burning. The records of the wars, revolutions.
riots, crimes, accidents and disas tiers of 1S7i
will foot mp greater and more fatal than those
of any period since Father Noahs boat-ride
above the corpse of drowned world.