The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1880-03-05
MIR. SALA's PEN SKETCHES OF NEW
r-.'-. 3 ORLEANS.
New Orleans City Item.l


Mr.. George Augustus Sala's letter
from New Orleans to the London Tele-
graph shows an appreciation of the ro-
mantle features of the city, such as
few journalists who have enjoyed a
experience have shown; and a
keenness of observation which is GER
tainly remarkable. He has given in
his letter of January 80, most artistic
abstract Of almost every exterior fea-
ture for which our city is remarkable;
and delicately blended his descriptive
passages with historical illusions that
evidence u thorough familiarity with
the early history of Louisiana and an
artists fondness for what we might
venture to term the local color of tradi-
tional facts. There are some delicious
fancies in the following paragraphs
which we clip from the concluding
portion of the letter: .el--
"But those who would see Jackson
square Alright should take pattern by
the pilgrim to Melrose abbey, as ad-
pale moonlight. Then, somehow or
another, the valiant Gen. Andrew
Jackson-cocked hat, jack-bocts, crook
ed sabre, long-tailed charger and all,
take unto themselves wings and flee
away. Even the granite pedestal with
its stern monition as to the preserva.
tion of the Union vanishes into thin
air and is replaced by statue of
Charles Nv, King Of Spain and the
Indies, with the order of the Golden
Fleece around his neck, the star of
Calabrava on his breast, and pigtail.
The oranges and the magnolias, the
vines and the evergreens remain, love-
lier than ever; the old courthouses still
flank the cathedral; but it is the unre-
stored church of st. Louis-the church
that Regidor Don Andres Almonaster
built. See gliding along the still water
in the pale moonlight the phantoms Of
the past-plantolns in embroidered
coats and lnonstrously Tapped waist
coats, in silk stockings and buckled
shoes; phantoms in bagwigs and full
boLlo.nou t'>or"kes eIaborately powder
ed; feminine ghosts, w1tn .vusxe and
patches, in hoops and brocaded sacques.
They wave phantom fans, and the ap-
partitions of bygone beaux bow over
their hands and whisper airy nothings
in ears long since overtaken by the
surdity Of death.
Jackson Square, transformed under
the pale moonlight and full OF ghosts,
is really very confusing place. That
narrow passage, for instance, might be
the Rue Querscampoix, whittier rich
and poor are flocking to gamble in the
shares in John Laws Mississippi bub-
BILE. And who comes here? An old
gentleman in clerical costume, q young
scaPegrace in an embroidered coat,
and pretty but Il somewhat saucy
young lady in a satin petticoat Ia
word: it is the Worthy Able Provost,
doing the honors to Kanon Lescaut
and the Chevalier Des Grieux. Jack
son Square! There is no such name.
This is the Place d'Armes of the
French, the Plaza dc Armas of the
Spanish domination. Idle f,ncies!
The past is irrevocable! The horse
car comes jingling along the Chartrcs
street track, and I return to Young
America telegraphing and telephoning
and phonographing aud electric light
ing the world out of its mind, knitting
up the ravelled sleeve of care with an
Elias Howe sowing machine, scorncr-
ing all the grain and all the pork in
the Great West and making dollars all
day and all night long, for ever and
ever.'
Mr.. Sala has probably seen in New
Orleans all that an experienced traveller
can sec during so briefa visit. The in
terror romance of the older life of New
Orleans, that which is hidden away in
quaint and quiet places-that which
fingers in fragments of old unwritten
songs whose sweet airs and strange
words are handed down from mother
to daughter like heirlooms-that which
is interviewer in the lives of certain
strange little communities composed OF
wanderers from ali parts Of the world
who meet occasionally at tcrfuhc,s OF
sources i1ti"ees-that which subsists in
curious relationships between families
! Of the Crescent City and of the old
Aztec capital so far distant-that whicl,
so PLEASANTLY reveals itself in the tropi.
| cal softness of changes which European
| tongues have acquired on the shores
of the Mexican Gulf and the islands OF
the Caribbean sea;-the family legends
the secret history of South American
and Cuban and Central American rev.
oiutionary expeditions, the stories o
such wild fortune as the widest ro
nance could not outrival;-these, and
perhaps many other queer things, may
have remained hidden from our gifted
visitor during his brief stay. If so it is
only to be regretted that so brillian,
and obserrant writer has not had the
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