Year: 1872

Campst settlement-the worst part of the
| river. This will be done this summer, and


will surely make the river better for Dayi-
| cation. Again, gentlemen, every report
| from various parts of Texas and Arkansas
| and Louisiana promises full crop and
| good business season.


You will excuse my hastily gathered re-


marks. Be assured that the. people of the


Red river country are as anxious for you to
| come to them as you are to go, and that you
| will surely meet success if you adopt the
| right means. There is much more that
| could be urged in favor of this enterprise,
| but have only slightly touched the main
| points, and | sincerely hope to see the day
when Cincinnati will control the trade and
! reap the immense amount of pecuniary
benefits that result from successful enter
prise.


So ShrevepOrter has to carry his sugges-
tiOns to st. Louis and Cincinnati, actually
urging them to embrace Red river, our first
love, but one from which we are now di-
vorced. The point about this is that st.
Louis and Cincinnati are quarreling over
the Red river and Texas trade, which be-
Ionged to us since the first settlements, and
that they will have it all unless we roll up
our sleeves and set to work in dead earnest.

Sale Of City Lands in PIaquemines Parish.


The Plaquemines Republican, published
by Harry Mahoney at Point-a-la- Hache, in
in its last issue givesextended space to what
it calls an outrage on the public in the
recent sale, by order of the city of New
Orleans, of the McDonOgh tract in that
parish.


1t speaks of the tract as one of the most
valuable in the parish, of unsurpassed fer
tility, and mostly covered with valuable
timber 1t says that hundreds of persons
in the parish were anxiOusly waiting to
purchase, fully able to comply with the
terms of the sale, which was not advertised
in the parish, and from the manner it was
advertised in the city papers not single
person, except those in the secret, had any
suspicion that the McDOnOgh tract was re-
ferred to, as there are in the neighborhoOd
thereof several large tracts of land owned
by absentees, spectators and others, and
the description Of the land in question, as
given in the advertisement, will apply to
any of them as well as to the McDOnogh
tract; hence every person not in the ring
was completely humbugged.


The land, it is alleged, was sold to some
speoulators for 1.-THE of it's value, the
forms of law being complied with in the
letter more than in the spirit.


The Republican asks, "Wby did not
the city SOlons, as is customary, or
der the auctioneer to call the tract by its
proper name, and to state the owner there
of, and by whose and what authority it was
to be sold ?" asserting that, had this been
done, or had the people of Plaquemines
known of it, the land would have brought
at least double the price at which it was
sold.


The paper charges "that there was an
understanding, if not cOIlusion, between the
City Council and certain land spectators,
and that the object was to keep the sale as
secret as possible from all, except the mi
tiated, so as to avoid competition and to en-
able the land speculatOrs to buy on their
own terms but" it continues, in a vein of
sarcasm, we can not believe that old Ben
Flanders, the Mayor, the immaculate Elan
ders, with his beautiful hOmilies on official
honesty and his daily jeremiads over the
prevailing corruption in the city govern
ment, duly assisted by Administrators, all
models of civic virtue, propriety and
patriotism, and ever ready and will
ing to make any sacrifice of other peoples
money to subserve the interests of the city,
could for a single moment tolerate, much
less aid and cOuntenance such a wicked and
nefarious. scheme. Bah the very idea is
simply preposterous; but still certain igno-
rant and stupid persons here persist that
the city land was literally sacrificed, and
that the whole transaction should be made
the subject of judicial Investigation.