The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1914-03-12

often illegible. There was fractional paper
currency in circulation then-25 and 81 cents
that were Enthusiastically counterteits, but which
passed as readily as though genuine. The city
of New Orleans issued paper money in denoml-
atoms up to $40, but it rapidly oepre-
ciated until it ceased to have any value and
was seen no more.
Perhaps this is as good a place as any to
speak of marketing, etc, in the early days.
There were not the facilities then for caring
for food, particularly in hot weather. that
there are now, and supplies were bought for
the day only In the morning the mistress of
til e house would start for the French market
attended by one or more colored servants, &C
cording to the size of her establishment who,
carrying baskets, trailed along behind. Arrived
at the market she made her purchases at
the different stalls. which were deposited in
the baskets of her attendants. Chickens and
fowls were bought alive, and with their legs
tied together were carried home to be killed
and dressed for dinner. This French market
has been from the earliest days, and is be-
d
fish. game. vegetables and fruit sold there,
but everything from a needle to piano. COT
fee and chocolate sold at stalls that do
business all night well as all day, and with
each cup you are given an oblong bit OF pastry
so rich that II would tax the digestion of an
ostrich The chocolate is so thick that it will
almost hold spoon upright and the coffee so
strong that unless you are used to the "biack
coffee" of the south you are likely to pass a
wakeful night after partaking of single cup
One of the pests the New Orleans housekeeper
had to contend with was tiny red ant that
will make it's way through a cork stopper in
such numbers as to fill bottle already full of
syrup. After putting sugar in my coffee l
have sometimes had to skim off the ants which
had found their way into the sugar bowl To
guard against these insects the legs of case
18th shelves for holding food are set in cans
filled with oil or water. When servants were
sent out to nearby grocery for articles for
the house they received from the shop keeper
gift known laignappe, proportionate in
value to the amount of the purchase. If it
was only five cents the lagnappe would be
perhaps stick of candy. 1t hardly need be
said that the New Orleans market is, or was,
one of the best in the world, and there were
cooks who knew how to prepare and serve the
good things found there. Some might object
to roast beef cooked until it black all
through and with cloves of garlic inserted in
it; but the native dishes, particularly gumbo
appealed to the writer, to whom also little
garlic was not distasteful.
The picture in Mrs. Ripeys book of the Or
leans Theatre shows more pretentious look
ing building than recall it. but last saw it
in its decadance, when it had been superseded
by the New Opera House, also in the French
section, and then modern in its architecture
and it's equipment. Here is what wrote Ct it
in the late SOS: "a long way down the Rue de
Chartres, past cafes and very Frenchy gro
ceries-one- STORED, low-roofed, long green
suffered buildings with red tile roofs-psst
the little garden in rear of the dingy brown
cathedral with its glass covered ice cream
saloon; few PAGES down Orleans street and
stood before the Theatre d. Orleans, two
stories, of reddish brown stucco, with row of
gas lamps. across it's rudely ornamented facade
Under one portion of the front is the Cafe d
Orleans, where the bearded chorus singers sit
most of the day slipping eau sucre and playing
dominoes." 1t was not large theatre and the
interior was dingy looking, Back of the
orchestra is what in theatres on the other side
of the water would be called the pit The
fashionables occupied the gallery, which was
divided into compartments or boxes seating
four, and at the rear were boxes with lattices
that let down so that their occupants might
see and hear withoutbeing seen. Mrs, Ripley
speaks as if opera goers did not dress for the
ccasion, but there / must differ with her. l
have never seen else where SO brilliant an audi
ence, so many beautiful women or such dis
play of diamonds and other precious stones.
New Orleans was at this time the only city in
this country to main tain an opera company for
an entire season. But today single "star"
no doubt is paid as much as would support an
entire company in those days, when the price
of box seating four was only four dollars.
Mrs. Ripley made many trips to her old
ONE in Kentucky on the river steamers and
did not find them at all comfortable-rather
the reverse-but my experience was quite
di fferent. My first trip down the Mississippi
from Cairo, Illinois, to New Orleans l found
truly delightful, and other trips up the Miss
ssippi, the Missouri, the Ohio. the Red River,
etc, were no less so. The fare was good. and
recall the pastry especially as the best had
ever eaten. There was music, vocal and instru-
m entail, by the colored walters, dancing in the
evening in the after cabin for those who
wished, gambling in the forward cabin. and
every boat in those days carried professional
gamblers and tragedies were not infrequent.
when knives, or pistols, or both were used.
In the late SOS and early COS the steamboat
business on the Mississippi and its tributaries
was very large. as may be judged from the
following description, written at the time, Of
t he levee or water front of New Orleans.
Before the CITY. some three or four miles In