Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1889-02-08
Dome Department.
AMERICAN LETTERS, NOS.
THE NEGRO QUESTION, ETC.

/
LAKE CHARLES, La, Jan. IS, 1889.
was so much impressed with the won
derful fertility and apparent excellence
of Louisiana as we went through it yes
day from New Orleans in straight line
towards Texas, on the Southern Pacific
road, that stopped off here last night to
make little more acquaintance with the
State. The hotel am at, quite good
country one, was built during the last
year, and is kept by MIR. McGinty, who
moved here from Wisconsin, but he tells
me he was born on the st. Lawrence
about 80 miles from Prescott. His father
was native of Potsdam, n. Y. Mr..
McGinty left Canada in 1868. Suffering
some from bronchitis, he found it too cold |
in Wisconsin, and after first looking over
California, which he thought was too
damp and foggy, he came here. He likes
this climate very much and thinks the
place healthy.
As 1 am writing a little girl with a
Texan look and long ringlets brings in
telegram for guest. She says she de-
livers the kilograms and gets Sc month,
which she calls better than nothing. She
lives at home, has two brothers and three
sisters; they came here from Texas
though she was born in California. To
my question, which she liked best, Texas
or here, she said here, because it was
healthier. They lived at Orange, Texas,
and near Houston, and it was very I'M
healthy there.
This town is on Lake Charles, and Lake
Charles, with the help of river and
bigger lake, connects with the gulf. The
river is the Calcasieu, is navigable IS
miles from here, where it runs into for
est country of southern pine. There are
seven large saw mill establishments on
this lake within sight from the village
dock. Two of them, l am told, are run
by Michigan umbermen and cut out So
600 feet a day each. Average price of
southern pine here S12 the thousand; cy-
press, S12 to $40. The cypress comes
from the swamp lands and Is difficult to
get.
Sunday, at Mobile, Iattended the Pres
byterian church. 1t was a pretty little
, church inside, with very well appear
) ing audience and excellent congregations
al singing. Outside the church was as
fiat as the city-no steeple. The Catho-
lie cathedral, larger building, is built in
p the same way.
| From Mobile to New Orleans the
: country is not especially noticeable ex-
cept for its flatness, though number OF
: its water views are, notably the river
Pascagoua. New Orleans is supposed to
q have now about 10000 inhabitants. 1t
= consists of the old French city and the
! newer American one, welded together
+ 1t is flatter if possible than Mobile. lower
= than the Mississippi, and here lies it'
great trouble. 1t is difficult of drainage
and of pure air. Some of the streets are
boulevards in width, and there is an all
of thriftiness and vivacitv about the place
~ although it has not been especially pros
: porous since the war, and has lost much
y of its former trade 1t is curious thing
q again in the history of America that the
source of navigation of the two greatest
4. systems of the country and of the world
% should have each been settled by the
: French, the cities which these have
Y formed being Montreal and New Orleans
n The St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans
!, has for many years been its principal no
!. tel 1t is now managed by Vermonter
native of Danville, gentleman OF
marked good looks and address. regis
tered, as usual, simply Vermont. He in
y quired out my town and told me in conf
= dence that there was no such place in the
n world as Vermont. This is the Vermont
It ers creed and have yet to meet one scat
N tered anywhere in the world but wha
> believes it. He doesn't generally speal
y of it, He is by nature a cosmopolitan
h Born on high land, he grasps the customs
q and manners of world and adapts him
o self almost by magic to the management
of affairs. He knows perfectly well tina
= part of this management is not to in
trude his personality; but the iron strucl
isn't surer to send forth its spark THAI
r his bosom the fire when it strikes that o
- another Vermonter.
Ie The day left New Orleans was one o
y beauty. We crossed the Mississippi b.
e ferry, here but little over half a mil
10 in width, wonderfully narrow for so grea
- :, river. The fiat city lay behind Us
v marked by one tallish spire, by the tai
n double smoke stacks of the Mississippi
1t steamboats,, by the low, old built build
10 ings of the French part, sustained by
small number of scattering evergree
trees and shrubs and little grass; abov
it the chastened tints of warm sky
N Leaving the city, we passed large garden
S. and fields of vegetables. Then began tn
ly race through Louisiana. | have hinte
es that it is fertile land, but believe it
| 70 hot