The St. Johns herald., 1889-07-18
THE FRENCH ORIOLES.
Some of the PecuIiarities of This Simple
 Minded People.

Minded People.
 The French Creoles of the lower class are hand-to-mouth class of peo- pie, purchasing the stick of wood to- day ard the handful of herbs that are to cook and season their potage, filling their small market baskets with in- numerable pinches of this, that and the other, laying in few sous of sugar and coffee at a time, and-going next day, for three hundred and sixty five days in the year, and doing iden- tically the same thing, in s@cula seculorum. Dislike to the accumula- tion Of household goods, to well-stored cellars and pantries, to generous abundance, to picturesque profusion, to the essentials of a large-handed hospitality even within the narrow limits of their neighborhood acquaint- ances, an ant-like economy and ab- stemiousness, a curious juXtaposition of eternal self-restraint and passion for sensations, colOrs, sounds, per- fumes, fantastic sensualities, an in- stinct for microscopic money-getting welded to an instinct that has filled New Orleans with noble institutions for the poor, the blind, the sick, the world weary; passion for novels and for splendid churches, fond en- durance of rigors of cold and hunger for the brilliant efflOrescence of care meprenaDt and carnival, voluntary exile from all laughter and joy that their feet may twinkle 8 night CT two on the mirrored floors of the masquo balls down in Chartres and Royal st t'eets; such arc the fragments of sweet and bitter herbs that go to make up part cf the paradox of Creole character and communicate to it an indefnable piquancy and strangeness by their thick bars of light and shadow.
 Tho chief charm of the character is a touching gentleness and benignity that blends all other characteristics and per meatcJ the wholo constitution Of the native Creole. There i5 something e,egiac tender, dreamy about the race, 8 remnant or recollection of earlier and better days, an aroma of exile coming from old colonial times. when so many emigrated from the gay fatherland to the trackles3 wilderness of Louisiana. seeking their fortunes. Disappointment seems to have inn pressed itself as a trait of herodity on their spiritual make up; 8 brooding languor has spread from the luxurious climate through the limbs and consti- tuition of the immigrants, the advent urou5 spirit of the marvellous brothers Bienville, Iberville and Sauvalle, laid under perpetual embargo by q Chinese wall of swamp bayou and bogue, has sunk into a GU iou3 psychological numbness and content with surround ings; geography. exploration, litera- tu.6, research, travel (beyond the in- evitablc transit to tranc3 once in lifetime) are unknown luxurie5 10 these lotus-eating folk, and in their way they are as still il their sunny corner as the sun-loving alligator that haunts their streams
 The customs, games and sports of these exiles are full of "reminiscences 1 of tho fatherland, mingled with odd i accretions and aftergrowths. clinging conservatism. poetic susceptibility There are songs and Christmas customs smacking of Gascony, Provence, Cham pagne. San Domingo, Franche-Comte, such as finger in Canada and form touching links with the folk over the sea. -J. A. Harrison, in Autrefois.