New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-03-30

their names perpetuated, or that our stand
ard OF greatness is too high TO show in this
matter any gratitude.
HUMANITARIAN DREAMS.
In the cleaning of this immense checker
work domain, the street surveyor or super
intendent of improvements is the grano
Rhadamanthus, and complaints have been
immemorial about the way in which they
are cleaned, from the time Bienvllle odg
his first sidewalk canals, and tshed IN h1 ~;
water for shrimps on Charities street. me
basis Of these complaints is settled upon
the fact that it would require a man OF nue.
engineering genius to skillfully make the
experiment, about ten times the money
ever appropriated lit has cost lnilllons
alone already to secure rise ana IalI ol
few inches toward the lake,; lastly, II every
house was bodily lifted up and the iounda-
tons underneath scraped OF the century
of accumulated filth, it is doubtful Wnether
ANYBODY would be satisfied; especially. as
ia very certain would be the case, II some
contractors pockets were STUFFED from the
ontlay. There have been about million
plans suggested OF the best method of
cleaning and draining the city lat one
time every ward politician, from But
lers time down, had one on the
subject, digging canals through one
street, filing uu others already dug, pump
ing up tie filth one hundred feet in the air
and letting it run off in the river, and so
on. Whatever the theories may have been,
the practice has been to do nothing; and
the slime will probably vegetate with as
much freshness and yerdUre on the cutters
and the resking atmosphere of the canals
blacken az readily any pasteboard II a night
exposed in their neighbOrhoOd as has done
for twenty years past. This theory IS rem
dered all the more probable by the fact
that no public work is being done now on
the streets at all, and by the additional
fact that the employees in this department
have not been paid for two months. What
the theories are as 10 how we are to get
through the summer months, We leave Tor
some other occasion to explain.
PAST EFFORT.
The work upon the old Bayou st. John,
commenced by Baron Carondelet, and upon
which $300.000 were sunk before stockhold-
ers became convinced there was no money
in il, was the first attempt at draining the
city Il is not easy to see how the city
could have got along without this drain; or
at this day without any of the network OF
draining canals which have since been cut
and which have had the greatest develop
ment II the upper portion of the city.
PRESENT SITUATION.
Suffice it to say that the draining canal
which bounds the upper limit OF the city
has perforated Metalrie ridge, that the
earthwork along the lake edge has been
extended from this limit to the New canal
on Basin street, lacking 1000 feet, and
that the portion of the city bounded by
these limits will! probably never again be
under overflow. AS for the extension of
the lake levee there is not much probable
ity OF there being any for some time to
come good many doubt, too, whether
the Metairie ridge, even if the embank-
ment had never been made. would not
have been sufficient for the portion of tie
city this side of the ridge, but it is some
satisfaction, at any rate, to know that the
distance from the upper line (abOut 2OCO
feet, by two and a half miles from the
ridge TO the lake, has been made somewhat
capable Of habtation, and is being occu-
pied to some extent by colOred pioneers.
CHARACTERISTICS.
4 clever paragraph might be made about
the peculiar characteristics of our streets
the longest Of which, st. Charles, if so con-
sidered, under one name, ought to be nearly
two hundred squares, and which, though
only considered as a sort of coffeehOuse
row by stranger, with a certain number
of places of amusement, restaurants, sport
ing saloons, pawnbroker shops and ''sheap
stores" attached, is really one Of the noblest
avenues. considered in its entirety, and re-
membering the magnificent avenue at the
upper end. in the world. And what
thoroughfare, if the levee can be called
such with its membranes of cot
TO NnGfprn rnf1pn--ItG
in winter, and simoOns of dust in summer;
its G000 alternate labOrers and oilers, boat
men, sailors, fruit dealers and peddlerg,
markets and railroads. hiding places and
shelters. affords such curious study as the
river front? How different Charities, with
its secretve look, closed upper shutters and
sOmpre looking lawyers vending their way
to court; a street, in short. which not only
never adFertises, but in which it is difficult,
except from inquiry Of old inhabitants, to
find ont where "a man transacts his BUSH
ness; or from Canal street. with its glitter
ing ephemar;e and fashions, upon which
the stranger fingers or lounges for his last
promenade, and upon which a pretty
woman never ceases to look through show
windows. so long as she has a bright colored
rag 10 her back; and Carondelet, with Its
well dressed mob Of cotton and sugar ope-
rarors, brokers il stocks, who have, unlike
BdnVuoS gDOSJ, speculation IN ther eyes,
and who if New Orleans ever becomes like
Babylon, and the wailing and lameutation
Of the dealers in merchandise and frank
incense ana precious stones ascend to
heaven, will have some Of the sins OF the
city to answer for.
Something ought upon the present Occa-
sion 10 be said about the streets OF the
river front, which are almost lifeless in the
day, and absolutely like a cemetery at
night. and of the opposite faubourg now
deserted also, where few years ago all the
fast men and fast women seemed to be con-
centrated after midnight; of the streets
which have been depopulated or kept from
improving by the meanness, benevOl6nce or
legal madness Of their claimants: Of the
Auglan portion, and a good many others
but the subject grows; suffice it to say
that their value is from thirty TO fifty per
cent in some localities below what they
were appraised at years ago; but that, con-
sidering the probability of revival in the
commerce of this place, and happy re-
of present financial difficulties,
there is no reason why investments that
may now be made should not be as valua-
bic as at any previous time in the history
OF the city.