The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1871-03-14
New Orleans aud eThe American
vpuiCp.y

For long time it has been painful
apparent that the Mississippi was by ia
a more uncomfortable stream to manag
than was consistent with perfectly pleas
ant navigation. Its persistency is an
nually lengthening its outlet in very ma
terial manner, has Of itself proved grea
obstacle to ship masters, and indeed ren
dercd a trip from the Gulf to New Or
leans almost as expensive an undertaking
as one to London or Liverpool. In fact
difficulties have grown so thick and fas
in the vicinity of, and below the Crescent
city, that the enterprising residents o.
that place have determined, if possible, ,tc
let the Father Of Waters follow his owl
sweet will, and obtain some other
avenue to the sea. With this end in
view the Southern papers have been grow
ing enthusiastic over scheme to construct
a ship canal from Fort st. Phillip to Bre.
ton Island, in the Gulf of Mexico, by
which, it is contended, vessels could pro-
ceed easily to New Orleans from the
Gulf, and without the present cost of
towage and numerous other expenses.
Different advocates of the work give diff.
ferent estimates of the probable cost and
so varied are the respective figures that
we may be regarded as bringing them
down to pretty fine point in fixing the
ultimate price of the canal at somewhere
about two or twenty-five million dollars.
Captain G. w. Howell, an officer of the
Engineer Corps, has interested himself
upon the subject, and it is his confident
belief that the project is feasible one,
especially ifa ten or twenty thousand
dollar survey Of the proposed route be
undertaken. The work he admits may
be difficult one, but when once COM
pleted he sanguinely believes that it will
prove decided thing of beauty and a
joy for very considerable period. BY
such a canal, he argues, a fourishing
commercial city will spring up seventy
miles below New Orleans a sort of Amer
lean Venice, where freight can be trans
ferred directly into ware houses, "with-
out one-tenth the expense, annoyance and
damage now sustained at New Orleans"
Among the most enthusiastic supporters
of the embryo canal are many of the
chivalrous New Orleanders themselves,
WIN, Ill .iUii in"vVo"V ~ -~ ---a-o
prospect of any kind of enterprise in their
vicinity, apparently fail to see that the
scheme in question leaves them entirely
in the cold. AS matter of fact, it would
make their city seventy-fve miles in
land town, and remove from her wharves
the few solitary vessels that now struggle
in that direction. 1t would render her
large warehouses of no account, and cause
her new-made elevators to become sad
monuments of at might have been"
The new Venice would probably prove
to be a big investment, with the products
Of North America, South America and
the West Indies all within her reach but
poor New Orleans, the home of chivalric
men and gentle women, would be but n
reminiscence of the sad past; and the
grass in her streets and the wailings Of
her speculative traders would only herald
the day when some heather Chinec should
perch upon her topmost church steeplc
and sketch the ruins of her proudest in
fcan vunicG""t "tbwea nethe new Amer
good thing in one direction, but are you
not asking little too much of sacrifice
in another.