, 1875-05-15
4 Dying City.

course, intended to supply the fall trade
y. l. Herald
~~-~--7-0-~---<4s--~~----~
4 Dying City.
Senator Morton is reported as saying to tn
reporter of Western newspaper that New
Orleans is a dead city; that it has lost it
opportunity; that St. Louis, Galveston an
even Chicago have reached out and robbed
Of It's former trade privileges, and that n
amount of good government can restore it
( We have had many stories of this kind iron
/ the Crescent City, and we confess that moth
/ ing since the war has distressed us more thar
| the blight that seems to have fallen upon New
! Orleans. Il il one of the most interesting O
our cities. II has continental quality the
none of the others possess. lis roots extend
/ into other soils than the Cavalier or the Puri'
tan. New Orleans, French in its origin,
and at one time under the control of the
! Spaniards, has always shown the Influence OF
France and of Spain There Is something OF
Paris in the spr:yhtliness ard taste Of the
people; in tho ckiyalry, whicl does rot even
now disdain the duello; in the merriment,
which makes Sunday a feast day ard not n
day Of fasting; in the Carnival and Mardi
Gras. Every street in the old city recalls the
glory of the Bourbon or the ambition of the
Bouapar;e. Before the war i: was prodigal.
luxurious metropolis. The planters looked
upou winter visit to New Orleans as re-
compense for hard seasons work in the
cotton field and sugar house. The Missis-
| sippi poured its treasures into its lap. 1t was
the entrepoot Of Mexico and Cuba and Texas.
There WAS no city to challenge its dominion
but Mobile, for Galveston was little ses-
coast town that was scarcely Known in the
family of cities. Alone, therefore, far dis
tant from the other ruling cities, mistress of
the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi, New
Orleans rapidly strobe along, and before the
war had perhaps as much wealth for her Iop-
ulation as any city in the republic
Even now New Orleans is ninth in the list
of cities, if We may take the figures of the
census of 1870. 1t then reported 19l 900
population and 30, ,656 ngs-something
more than San Francisco and less than Gin
cinnatti- The latest authority as 10 it com
merce, Edward King, in his valuable and in
teresting work ON The Great South, -" shows
still many signs Of prosperity. The last re-
ported cotton crop, 1928, was hundred
thousand bales larger than the year before the
war. The total value of impyrts in New
Orleans for the same Year was more than one
hundred millions and the exports over six
hundred millions More thar one-third OF
the cotton passed through New Orleans.
This is q source of enormous wealth alone.
II is hard to think that city should be dead,
or in any apprehensious of death, that sends
ont from its ports more than six hundred
millions of dollars year.
There are, of course, many reasons that
affect the growth of q seaboard town The
railroads have diverted much of the Missis-
sippi trade The sugar crop in Louisiana has
fallen away. The Western produce, that III
past times was foated down to New Orleans
III rude fatboats, now seeks New York and
Baltimore. Texas has been growing since the
war into imperial prominence, and naturally
seeks port at Galveston. The railroad has
shown its supremacy over the river. In the
olden times the river was the line of military
defence, the channel of trade. But now the
railroad has usurped that function We de-
fend our railroads in war and depend upon
them "a the arteries of commercial life in
peace Therefore the growth of the great
railway systems of the West and partly of the
South have injured New Orleans. The fed
eral go-ernmept, by the subsidies it granted
to the Pacific railways and other lines in the
Northwest, has thrown It's influence against
the South and largely against New Orleans
So far as the account OF the general govern
ment with the South is concerned, it has not
only taken millions from the Southern States
in the process of war, but given millions 10
the Western States in the way Of railway en-
dOwmeuts. Is it any wonder, then, that with
all these causes in operation, an indulgeIt
government strengthening the West and
negleeting, nay, trampling the South, there
should be sounds Of paralysis in the great
metropolis Of the Southwest
Senator Morton Is an eminent statesman Of
the republican party. He has been the
apostle Of repression and revenge. He has
chsmpiCned every infamy or usurpation in
the South that called itself government.
/ Therefore, when he pronounces New Orleans
dead city he speaks his owl condemnation
and that Of his party. Dying New Orleans
represents the ignorance, the cupidfy. the
| folly and the crimes OF Mr.. Morton's party.
But We are confident that lie has passed toe
harsh Judgment. New Orleans may suffer
a temporary depression, syncope from wal
! and " reconstructioa," but there are element,
OF strength and glory about the old town
which even the war and Fepubllcanism can
not destroy.-N Y. Herald.
!
AN exchange truly says, that it costs les:
I than q cent a day 10 take your weekly paDer,