New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-12-08


tious securities strengthen public conf
dence in the bonds issued bona fide? It
would seem to US that the administration
in calling upon spectator to come for
ward and have his watch beaten in bag,
and then restored to him in perfect order,
could not profit by the result Of success
full trick, while detection in a detected
fraud might defeat any possible advantage
to the perpetrators. Bonds funded are
worth SO much. They could not be worth
more, If an inspector hostile to the fund
ing law should stigmatize them as fraudu-
lent. The administration, in inviting in
spection, took the risk that the president
of the Cotton Exchange might carry po-
litical animosity into his official action,
and even stigmatize where he could not
detect.
We can, indeed, see no more impro-
priety in gentleman in being present at
the process of determining between the
good and pretended bonds of the State
than if he should blindfold the boy that
turns the lottery wheel, or sit on the same
platform with the honorable administra-
tors who conduct the premium board
tombola. In neither case is the Judge re-
quired to approve the principle Of the
lottery or the funding board, but he is
asked on behalf of those who are to pay
the prize il the one case, or the bond in
the other, that the process of drawing is
fair. That is all. Since the Cotton Ex-
change has indicated its good sense by
re-electing ticket to which no other OBJ.
lection was apparently made except that
it had too much confidence in its own in
tegrity to fear any personal associations
where the public welfare was concerned,
we may hope the continued prosecution
Of measures by which the honesty and
economy of the cotton trade m ay be pro-
NOTED. For the first time made aware of
the valuable services rendered by the Ex-
change in guarding the pro- ducts of the
planter and laborer from the pickers
and stealers who infest our wharves
and warehouses, we have come TO take
an interest in the contamination of this
reform. There was period when not q
bale Of cotton grown on the Mississippi,
or its most extended tributary, could
have avoided New Orleans. From Browns
ferry, in, we believe, the county of jack
son, in the big bend of the Tennessee
river, the cotton came voyage of fifteen
hundred miles, over the Muscle Shoals
and other distractions, on its precarious
voyage to New Orleans. It could rarely
be shipped before the waters rose after
Christmas. New Orleans received, then,
fifty per cent of the whole cotton crop.
What did il matter to her whether the
city pickers and stealers robbed that cot
on, or the city cows eat holes in the
bales; or rival draymen dumped their
load in the mud and galloped back
for more? The cotton was obliged to
come. 1t was compelled to pay all
charges ard submit to all discount and
damage. When these charges were suffi-
cient to render the production of colt, n
Improbable they were loss to the city.
Otherwise all that was left in the city was
gain to the city. The case is changed
Browns Ferry now sends its whole crop
to an Eastern market before the river
rises Arkansas sends part of its
cotton across the Mississippi. Even
Vicksburg, discontinued with some want
of accommodation in the river steamers,
threatens to ship its cotton east by rail
New Orleans must then show as good a
market, as honest market, as economi-
cal a market, market as accommodating
and as speedy of transit and sale as any
other, or-it will lose part of the trade
for which all are competing The con-
tinuance Of a practical, able and honest
administration is, then, subject of pub
lie interest, which must meet the appro-
val of all.