The Hotel Belleview at Belleair compares favorably with any in the State, and is peopled, during the cold months, with affluent golf maniacs, for whom two fine courses have been laid out.

When the pipes supplying water for the greens of his home course, at Brook, Indiana, freeze, annually, George Ade, for instance, knows that, instead of hibernating, it is time for him to take his white flannel suits, hang them on the clothesline in the back yard until the fragrance of the moth-ball has departed, pack them in his wardrobe trunk, and take his winter flight to the Belleview. He knows that, at the Belleview, he will meet hundreds of men and women who are suffering from the malady with which he is afflicted.

The conversation at Belleair is, so far as my companion and I could learn, confined entirely to comparisons between different courses, different kinds of clubs and balls, and different scores. Belleair turns up its nose at Palm Beach. It considers the game of golf as played at Palm Beach a trifling game, and it feels that the winter population of Palm Beach wastes a lot of time talking about clothes and the stock market when it might be discussing cleeks, midirons, and mashies. The woman who thinks it essential to be blond whether she is blond or not, and who regards Forty-second Street as the axle upon which the universe turns, would be likely to die of ennui in a week at Belleair, whereas, in Palm Beach, if she died in that time, it would probably be of delight—with a possibility of alcoholism as a contributing cause. And likewise, though Belleair has plutocrats in abundance, they are not starred for their wealth, as are the Palm Beach millionaires, nor yet for their social position, but are rated strictly according to their club handicap. Hence it happens that if, speaking of a Palm Beach millionaire, you ask: "How did he make it?" you will be told the story of some combine of trusts, some political grafting, or some widely advertised patent medicine; but if you ask in Belleair: "How did he make it?" the answer is likely to be: "He made it in 4, with a cleek."

Consider on the other hand, St. Petersburg, with its cheap hotels, its boarding houses, its lunch rooms and cafeterias, and its winter population of farmers and their wives from the North. The people you see in St. Petersburg are identical with those you might see on market day in a county town of Ohio or Indiana. Several thousands of them come annually from several dozen States, and many a family of them lives through the winter comfortably on less than some other families spend at Belleair in a week, or at Palm Beach in a day.

If I am any judge of the signs of happiness, there is plenty of it in the hearts of those who winter at St. Petersburg. The city park is full of contented people, most of them middle-aged or old. The women listen to the band, and the men play checkers under the palmetto-thatched shelter, or toss horseshoes on the greensward, at the sign of the Sunshine Pleasure Club—an occupation which is St. Petersburg's equivalent for Palm Beach's game of tossing chips on the green-topped tables of a gambling house. And yet—

Is it always pleasant to be virtuous? Is it always delightful to be where pious people, naive people, people who love simple pastimes, are enjoying themselves? I am reminded of a talk I had with a negro whose strong legs turned the pedals of a wheel chair in which my companion and I rode one day through the Palm Beach jungle trail. It is a wonderful place, that jungle, with its tangled trunks and vines and its green foliage swimming in sifted sunlight; with its palms, palmettoes, ferns, and climbing morning-glories, its banana trees, gnarled rubber banyans, and wild mangoes—which are like trees growing upside down, digging their spreading branches into the ground. For a time we forgot the pedaling negro behind us, but a faint puffing sound on a slight up-grade reminded us, presently, that our party was not of two, but three. When the chair was running free again, one of us inquired of the chairman:

"What would you do if you had a million dollars?"

"Well, boss," replied the negro seriously, "Ah knows one thing Ah'd do. No mattuh how much o' dis worl's goods Ah haid, Ah'd allus get mah exuhcize."

"That's wise," my companion replied. "What kind of exercise would you take?"

"Ah ain't nevvuh jest stedied dat out, boss," returned the man. "But it sho' would be some kind o' exuhcize besides pushin' one o' dese-heah chaihs."

"When you weren't exercising would you go and have a good time?"

"No, boss."

"Why not?"

"Well, boss, y' see Ah's a 'ligious man, Ah is."

"But can't people who are religious have a good time?"

"Oh," said the negro, "dey might have deh little pleasuhs now an' den, but dey cain't hev no sich good times like othah folks kin. A man 't 's a 'ligious man, he cain't hev no sich good times like Mistuh Wahtuhbe'y's an' dem folks 'at was heah up to laist week. Ah was Mistuh Wahtuhbe'y's chaih boy. He gimme ninety-two dollahs an' fifty cents tips one week! Yassuh! Dat might be cha'ity but 't ain't 'ligion. Mistuh Dodge, his chaih boy's been a-wohkin' foh 'im six weeks. I 'spec' Mistuh Dodge give dat boy fahve hund'ud dollahs if he give 'im a cent! Mistuh Wahtuhbe'y's pahty, dey haid nineteen chaihs waitin' on 'em all de time, jest foh t' drive 'em f'om de ho-tel to de club, an' de casino. Dat cos' 'em nineteen hund'ud dollahs a week, and de boys, dey ain't one o'em 'at git less'n hund'ud dolluhs fo' hisself. Dat's de kin' o' gen'men Mistuh Wahtuhbe'y an' his pahty is. Ah's haid sev'ul gen'men dis season dat ain't what you'd jes' say, 'ligious, but dey was, as folks calls it, p'ofuse. Dey was one ol' gen'man heah two weeks, an' deh was a young lady what he haid a attachment on, an' evvy evenin' 'e use' t' take huh foh a wheel-chaih ride in de moonlight. Fuhst night Ah took 'em out he tuhn to me, an' he says: 'Look-a-heah, boy! You sho you knows youah duties?'

"'Yassuh, boss,' Ah tell 'im. 'Deed Ah does!'

"'Den what is youah duties den?' sez 'e.

"Ah say: 'Boss, de chaih boy's duties, dey's to be dumb, an' deef, an' blin', an' dey cain't see nothin', an' dey cain't say nothin', an' dey cain't heah nothin', and dey cain't—'

"'Dass 'nuff,' he say. 'Ah sees you knows youah business. Heah's fiffy dollahs.'"

"Well," one of us asked presently, "what happened?"

"Ah took 'em ridin' through de jungle trail, boss," he returned, innocently.

"What did they do?"

"How does Ah know, boss? Di'n' Ah have ma eyes covuhed wi' dat fiffy dollahs? Di'n' Ah have ma eahs stuff' wid it? Yassuh! An' Ah got ma mouf full o' it yit!"

The chair boys, bell boys, waiters, barbers, porters, bartenders, waitresses, chambermaids, manicures, and shop attendants one finds in Palm Beach, Belleair, Miami, and many other winter resorts, are, numerically, a not inconsiderable part of the season's population, and the lives of these people who form a background of service, of which many an affluent visitor is hardly conscious, parallel the lives of the rich in a manner that is not without a note of caricature.

When the rich go South so do the hordes that serve them; when the Florida season begins to close and the rich move northward, the serving population likewise begins to melt away; if you are in Palm Beach near the season's end, and move up to St. Augustine, or Jacksonville, or Augusta, or any one of a dozen other places, you are likely to recognize, here and there, a waiter, a bell-boy, or a chambermaid whom you tipped, some weeks earlier, preparatory to leaving a latitude several degrees nearer the Equator. When you leave the Poinciana or the Breakers at the season's close, your waiter may, for all you know, be in the Jim Crow car, ahead, and when you go in to dinner at the Ponce de Leon at St. Augustine, or the Mason at Jacksonville, you may discover that he too has stopped off there for a few days, to gather in the final tips. Nor must you fancy, when you depart for the North, that you have seen the last of him. Next summer when you take a boat up the Hudson, or go to Boston by the Fall River Line, or drop in at a hotel at Saratoga, there he will be, like an old friend. The bartender who mixes you a pick-me-up on the morning that you leave the Breakers, will be ready to start you on the downward path, at the beginning of the summer, at some Northern country club; the barber who cuts your hair at the Royal Palm in Miami will be ready to perform a like service, later on, at some hotel in the Adirondacks or the White Mountains; the neat waitress who serves you at the Belleview at Belleair will appear before you three or four months hence at the Griswold near New London; the adept waiter from the Beach Club at Palm Beach will seem to you to look like some one you have seen before when, presently, he places viands before you at Sherry's, or the Ritz, or some fashionable restaurant in London or Paris. Likewise, when you enter the barber shop of a large hostelry just off the board walk in Atlantic City, next July, you will find there, in the same generously ventilated shirt waist, the manicurist who caused your nails to glisten so superbly in the Florida sunlight; and if she has the memory for faces which is no small part of a successful manicurist's stock in trade, she will remember you, and where she saw you last, and will tell you just which of the young women from "The Follies" and the Century Theater are to be seen upon the beach that day, and whether they are wearing, here on the Jersey coast, those same surprising bathing suits which, last February, caused blase gentlemen basking upon the Florida sands to sit up, arise, say it was time for one last dip before luncheon, and then, without seeming too deliberate about it, follow the amazing nymphs in the direction of a matchless sea—that sea which, as a background for these Broadway girls in their long silken hosiery, takes on a tone of spectacular unreality, like some fantastic marine back drop devised by Mr. Dillingham or Mr. Ziegfeld.



CHAPTER LV

A DAY IN MONTGOMERY

I have walk'd in Alabama My morning walk....

—WALT WHITMAN.

As I have remarked before, it is a long haul from the peninsula of Florida to New Orleans. There are two ways to go. The route by way of Pensacola, following the Gulf Coast, looks shorter on the map but is, I believe, in point of time consumed, the longer way. My companion and I were advised to go by way of Montgomery, Alabama—a long way around it looked—where we were to change trains, catching a New Orleans-bound express from the North.

It was nearly midnight when, after a long tiresome journey, we arrived in Alabama's capital, and after midnight when we reached the comfortable if curiously called Hotel Gay-Teague, which is not named for an Indian chief or a kissing game, but for two men who had to do with building it.

We had heard that Montgomery was a quiet, sleepy old town, and had expected to go immediately to bed on our arrival. What then was our amazement at hearing, echoing through the wide street in front of the hotel, the sound of strident ragtime. Investigation disclosed a gaudily striped tent of considerable size set up in the street and illuminated by those flaring naphtha lamps they use in circuses. Going over to the tent, we learned that there was dancing within, whereupon we paid our fifteen cents apiece and entered. I have forgotten what produced the music—it may have been a mechanical piano or a hurdy-gurdy—but there was music, and it was loud, and there was a platform laid over the cobble-stones of the street, and on that platform ten or more couples were "ragging," their shoulders working like the walking beams of side-wheelers. The men were of that nondescript type one would expect to see in a fifteen-cent dancing place, but the women were of curious appearance, for all were dressed alike, the costume being a fringed khaki suit with knee-length skirt, a bandana at the neck, and a sombrero. On inquiry I learned that this was called a "cowgirl" costume. The dances were very brief, and in the intervals between them most of the dancers went to a "bar" at the end of the tent where (Alabama being a dry State) the beverage called "coca-cola"—a habit as much as a drink—was being served in whisky glasses.

Unable to understand why this pageant of supposed western mining-camp life should confront us in the streets of Alabama's capital, I made inquiry of an amiable policeman who was on duty in the tent, and learned that this was not a regular Montgomery institution, but one of the attractions of a street fair which had invaded the city—the main body of the fair being a block or two distant.

These fairs, he said, travel about the country much as circuses do, making arrangements in advance with various organizations in different places to stand sponsor for them.

Long after we were in our beds that night we were kept awake by the sound of ragtime from the tent across the way. I arose next morning with the feeling of one who has had insufficient sleep, and a glance at my companion, who was already at table when I reached the hotel dining room, informed me that he was suffering from a like complaint. I took my seat opposite him in silence, and he acknowledged my presence with a nod which he accomplished without looking up from his newspaper.

After breakfast there arrived a pleasant gentleman who announced himself as secretary of one of the city's commercial organizations.

"We have a motor here," said the secretary, "and will show you points of interest. Is there anything in particular you wish to see?"

"I think," said my companion, "that it would be a good thing to see the street fair."

"Oh, no," said the secretary earnestly. "You don't want to see that. There is nothing about it that is representative of Montgomery. It is just a traveling show such as you might run into anywhere."

"Yes," I said, "but we never have run into one before, and here it is."

"I have said right along," declared the secretary, somberly, "that it was a great mistake to bring this fair here at all. I don't think you ought to pay any attention to it in your book. It will give people a wrong impression of our city."

"Do you think it will, if I explain that it is just a traveling fair?"

"Yes. Wait until you see what we have to show you. We want you to understand that Montgomery is a thriving metropolis, sir!"

"What is there to see?"

"Montgomery," he replied, "is known as 'The City of Sunshine.' It is rich in history. It has superior hotels, picturesque highways, good fishing and hunting, two golf courses, seven theaters, a number of tennis courts, and unsurpassed artesian water. It has free factory sites, the cheapest electric power rates in the United States, and is the best-lighted city in the country."

"We have some pretty fair street lighting in New York," interjected my companion, who takes much pride in his home town.

"I said 'one of the best lighted,'" replied the secretary.

"What is the population?"

"Montgomery," the other returned, "is typical of both the Old and the New South. Though it may be called a modern model city, its wealth of history and tradition are preserved with loving care by its myriad inhabitants."

"How many inhabitants?"

"Roses and other flowers are in bloom here throughout the year," said he. "Also there are six hundred miles of macadamized and picturesque highways in Montgomery County. Indeed, this region is a motorist's paradise."

"How many people did you say?"

"Montgomery," he answered, "is the trading center for a million prosperous souls."

At this my companion, who had been reading up Montgomery in a guidebook, began to bristle with hidden knowledge.

"You say there are a million people here?" he demanded.

"Not right here," admitted the secretary.

"Well, how many do you claim?"

"Fifty-five thousand four hundred and ten."

"Right in the city?"

"Well, in the trolley-car territory."

"But in the city itself?" my companion insisted.

The secretary was fairly cornered. "The 1910 census," he said, with a smile, "gave us about forty thousand."

"Thirty-eight thousand one hundred and thirty-six," corrected my companion. He had not spent hours with the guidebook for nothing.

When, presently, we got into the automobile, I gave another feeble chirp about the fair, but the secretary was adamant, so we yielded temporarily, and were whirled about the city.

* * * * *

Montgomery is a charming old town, not only by reason of the definite things it has to show, but also because of a general rich suggestion of old southern life.

The day, by a fortunate chance, was Saturday, and everywhere we went we encountered negroes driving in from the country to market, in their rickety old wagons. On some wagons there would be four or five men and women, and here and there one would be playing a musical instrument and they would all be singing, while the creaking of the wagon came in with an orchestral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an inspection of the harness suggested that it was held together, not so much by the string and wire with which it was mended, as by the fingers of that especial Providence which watches over all kinds of absurd repairs made by negroes, and makes them hold for negroes, where they would not hold for white men.

In an old buff-painted brick building standing on the corner of Commerce and Bibb Streets, the Confederate Government had its first offices, and from this building, if I mistake not, was sent the telegraphic order to fire on Fort Sumter. Another historical building is the dilapidated frame residence at the corner of Bibb and Lee Streets, which was the first "White House of the Confederacy." This building is now a boarding house, and is in a pathetic state of decay. But perhaps when Montgomery gets up the energy to build a fine tourist hotel, or when outside capital comes in and builds one, the old house will be furbished up to provide a "sight" for visitors.

There are several reasons why Montgomery would be a good place for a large winter-resort hotel, and if I were a Montgomery "booster" I should give less thought to free factory sites than to building up the town as a winter stopping place for tourists. The town itself is picturesque and attractive; as to railroads it is well situated (albeit the claim that Montgomery is the "Gateway to Florida" strikes me as a little bit exaggerated); the climate is delightful, and the surrounding country is not only beautiful but fertile. Furthermore, there are already two golf clubs—one for Jews and one for Gentiles—and the links are reputed to be good.

Unlike many southern cities of moderate size, Montgomery has well-paved streets, and the better residence streets, being wide, and lined with trees and pleasant houses, each in its own lawn, give a suggestion of an agreeable home and social life—a suggestion which, by implication at least, report substantiates: for it has been said that the chief industry of Montgomery is that of raising beautiful young women to make wives for the rich men of Birmingham.

On such pleasant thoroughfares as South Perry Street, it may be noticed that many of the newer houses have taken their architectural inspiration from old ones, with the result that, though "originality" does not jump out at the passer-by, as it does on so many streets, North and South, which are lined with the heterogeneous homes of prosperous families, there is an agreeable architectural harmony over the town.

This is not, of course, invariably true, but it is truer, I think, in Montgomery than in most other cities, and if Montgomery is defaced by the funny little settlement called Bungalow City, that settlement is, at least, upon the outskirts of the town. Bungalow City is without exception the queerest real-estate development I ever saw. It consists of several blocks of tiny houses, standing on tiny lots, the scale of everything being so small as to suggest a play village for children. The houses are, however, homes, and I was told that in some of them all sorts of curious space-saving devices are installed—as, for instance, tables and beds which can be folded into the walls. Not far from this little settlement is an old house which used to be the home of Tweed, New York's notorious political boss, who, it is said, used to spend much time here.

The chief lion of the city is the old State House, which stands on a graceful eminence in a small well-kept park. Just as the New York State Capitol is probably the most shamefully expensive structure of the kind in the entire country, that of Alabama is, I fancy, the most creditably inexpensive. Building and grounds cost $335,000. Moreover, the Capitol of Alabama is a better-looking building than that of New York, for it is without gingerbread trimmings, and has about it the air of honest simplicity that an American State House ought to have. Of course it has a dome, and of course it has a columned portico, but both are plain, and there is a large clock, in a quaint box-like tower, over the peak of the portico, which contributes to the building a curious touch of individuality. At the center of the portico floor, under this clock, a brass plate marks the spot where Jefferson Davis stood when he delivered his inaugural address, February 18, 1861, and in the State Senate Chamber, within—a fine simple room with a gallery of peculiar grace—the Provisional Government of the Confederacy was organized. The flag of the Confederacy was, I believe, adopted in this room, and was first flung to the breeze from the Capitol building.

It was past three in the afternoon when we left the State House, and we had had no luncheon.

"Now," said my companion as we returned to the automobile, "I think we had better have something to eat, and then go to the fair."

"But you were going to give up the fair," put in the secretary.

"Oh, no," we said in chorus.

"I have arranged about luncheon," he returned. "We will have it served at the hotel in a short time. But first there are some important sights I wish you to see."

"Man shall not live by sights alone," objected my companion. "What are you going to show us?"

"We have a beautiful woman's college."

"That," said my companion, "is the one thing that could tempt me. How many beautiful women are there?"

"It's not the women—it's the building," the secretary explained.

"Then," said my companion firmly, "I think we'd better go and have our lunch."

It seemed to me time to back him up in this demand. By dint of considerable insistence we persuaded our enthusiastic cicerone to drive to the hotel, where we found a table already set for us.

"I want to tell you," said the secretary as we sat down, "about the agricultural progress this section has been making. Until recently our farmers raised nothing but cotton; they didn't even feed themselves, but lived largely on canned goods. But the boll weevil and the European War, affecting the cotton crop and the cotton market as they did, forced the farmers to wake up."

The secretary talked interestingly on this subject for perhaps a quarter of an hour, during which time we waited for luncheon to be served.

"You see," he said, "our climate is such that it is possible to rotate crops more than in most parts of the country. Cotton is now a surplus crop with us, and our farmers are raising cattle, vegetables, and food products."

"Speaking of food products," said my companion, "I wonder if we could hurry up the lunch?"

"It will be along in a little while," soothed the secretary. Then he returned to agriculture.

Ten minutes more passed. I saw that my companion was becoming nervous.

"I'm sorry to trouble you," he said at last, "but if we can't speed up this luncheon, I don't see how I can wait. You see, we are leaving town this evening, and I have an awful lot to do."

"I'll step back and investigate," the secretary said, rising and moving toward the kitchen door.

When he was out of hearing, my companion leaned toward me.

"I suspect this fellow!" he said.

"What of?"

"I think he's delaying us on purpose. He's a nice chap, but it's his business to boost this town, and he's artful. He doesn't want us to see the street fair. That's why he's stalling like this!"

Now, however, the secretary returned, followed by a waiter bearing soup.

The soup was fine, but it was succeeded by another long interval, during which the secretary said some very, very beautiful things about the charm of Montgomery life. However, it was clear to me that my companion was not interested. After he had looked at his watch several times, and drummed a long tattoo upon the table, he arose, declaring:

"I can't wait another minute."

"Sit down, my dear fellow," said the secretary in his most genial tone. "I am having some special southern dishes prepared for you."

"You're very kind," said my companion, "but I must get to work. It's half-past four now; we are leaving in a few hours. It will take me an hour to make my sketches, and the light will be failing pretty soon."

"What are you going to sketch?" It seemed to me that there was suppressed emotion in the secretary's voice as he asked the question.

"Why, the street fair."

"Surely, you're not going to draw it?"

"Why not?"

"It's not representative of Montgomery. You ought to do something representative! What pictures have you made here?"

"I made one of those negroes driving in to market," said my companion, "and one of the dancing cowgirls in the tent across the way—the ones who kept us awake last night."

"My God!" cried the secretary, turning to me. "You intend to print such pictures and say that they represent the normal life of this city?"

"No, I won't say anything about it."

"But—" the secretary arose and looked wanly at the illustrator—"but you haven't drawn any of our pretty homes! You didn't draw the golf clubs—not either one of them! You didn't draw the State House, or the Confederate Monument, or the Insane Asylum, or anything!"

"I haven't had time."

"Well, you have time now! I tell you what: We'll let this luncheon go. I'll take you to the top of our tallest building, and you can draw a panoramic bird's-eye view of the entire city. That will be worth while."

My companion reached out, helped himself to a French roll, and put it in his pocket.

"No," he said. "I will not go to the top of a high building with you."

"But why not?"

"Because," he replied, "I am afraid you would try to push me off the roof to prevent my drawing the street fair."

I do not remember that the secretary denied having harbored such a plan. At all events, he countermanded the remainder of the luncheon order and departed with us.

At the entrance of an office building he made one final desperate appeal: "Just come up to the top floor and see the view!"

But we stood firm, and he continued with us on our way.

The fair was strung along both sides of a wide, cobbled street. It was really a very jolly fair, with the usual lot of barkers and the usual gaping crowd, plus many negroes, who stood fascinated before the highly colored canvas signs outside the tents, with their bizarre pictures of wild animals, snake charmers, "Nemo, the Malay Prince," and "The Cigarette Fiend," pictured as a ghastly emaciated object with a blue complexion, and billed as "Endorsed by the Anti-Cigarette League of America." I wished to inquire why an anti-cigarette league should indorse a cigarette fiend, but lack of time compelled us to press on, leaving the apparent paradox unsolved.

As we progressed between the tents and the booths with their catchpenny "wheels of fortune," and ring-tossing enticements, the secretary maintained a protesting silence.

Near the end of the block we stopped to listen to a particularly vociferous barker. I saw my companion take his pad from his pocket and place it under his arm, while he sharpened a pencil.

"Come!" cried the secretary. "Come across the square and let me show you our beautiful bronze fountain. Draw that!"

But my companion was already beginning to sketch. He was drawing the barker and the crowd.

Meanwhile an expression of horror came into the secretary's face. Looking at him, I became conscience-stricken.

"Come away," I said gently, taking him by the arm. "Don't watch him draw. He draws wonderfully, but Art for Art's sake doesn't appeal to you just now. The better he draws the worse it will make you feel. Let me get your mind off all this. Let me take you over to the autodrome, where we can see Mr. O.K. Hager and his beautiful sister, Miss Olive Hager, the 'Two Daredevil Motorcyclists, in the Thrilling Race against Death.' That will make you forget."

"No," said the secretary, shaking his head with a despondency the very sight of which made me sad; "I have letters to sign at the office."

"And we have taken up your whole day!"

"It has been a pleasure," he said kindly. "There is only one thing that worries me. Those drawings are not going to represent what is typical of Montgomery life. Not in the least!"

There arose in me a sudden desire to comfort him.

"How would it be," I suggested, "if I were to print that statement in my book?"

He looked at me in surprise.

"But you couldn't very well do that, could you?"

"Certainly," I replied.

His face brightened. It was delightful to see the change come over him.

"For that matter," I went on, "I might say even more. I could say that, while I admire my companion as a man, and as an artist, he lacks ingenuity in ordering breakfast. He always reads over the menu and then orders a baked apple and scrambled eggs and bacon. Would you like me to attack him on that line also?"

"Oh, no," said the secretary. "Nothing of that kind. It's just about these pictures. They aren't representative. If you'll say that, I'll be more than satisfied."

Presently we parted.

"Don't forget!" he said as we shook hands in farewell.

And I have not forgotten. Moreover, to give full measure, I am going to ask the printer to set the statement in italics:

The drawings accompanying this chapter are not representative of what is typical of Montgomery life.

With this statement my companion is in full accord. He admits that he would have drawn the State House had there been no fair, to interfere. But, as with certain items on the breakfast bill, street fairs are a passion with him. And so they are with me.



CHAPTER LVI

THE CITY OF THE CREOLE

When a poet, a painter, or a sculptor wishes to personify a city, why does he invariably give it the feminine gender? Why is this so, even though the city be named for a man, or for a masculine saint? And why is it so in the case of commonplace cities, commercial cities, and ugly, sordid cities? It is not difficult to understand why a beautiful, sparkling city, like Washington or Paris, suggests a handsome woman, richly gowned and bedecked with jewels, but it is hard to understand why some other cities, far less pleasing, seem somehow to be stamped with the qualities of woman-nature rather than man-nature. Is it perhaps because the nature of all cities is so complicated? Is it because they are volatile, changeful, baffling? Or is it only that they are the mothers of great families of men?

When I arrive in a strange city I feel as though I were making the acquaintance of a woman of whom I have often heard. I am curious about her. I am alert. I gaze at her eagerly, wondering if she is as I have imagined her. I try to read her expression while listening to her voice. I consider her raiment, noticing whether it is fine, whether it is good only in spots, and whether it is well put together. I inspect the important buildings, boulevards, parks, and monuments with which she is jeweled, and judge by them not only of her prosperity, but of her sense of beauty. Before long I have a distinct impression of her. Sometimes, as with a woman, this first impression has to be revised; sometimes not. Sometimes, on acquaintance, a single feature, or trait, becomes so important in my eyes that all else seems inconsequential. A noble spirit may cover physical defects; beauty may seem to compensate for weaknesses of character. The spell of a beautiful city which is bad resembles the spell of such a city's prototype among women.

Some young growing cities are like young growing women of whom we think: "She is as yet unformed, but she will fill out and become more charming as she grows older." Or again we think: "She is somewhat dowdy and run down at the heels but she is ambitious, and is replenishing her wardrobe as she can afford it." One expects such failings in young cities, and readily forgives them where there is wholesome promise for the future. But where old cities become slovenly, the affair is different, for then it means physical decay, and physical decay should never come to a city—for a city is not only feminine, but should be immortal. The symbol for every city should be a goddess, forever in her prime.

Among southern cities Richmond is the grande dame; she is gray and distinguished, and wears handsome old brocades and brooches. Richmond is aquiline and crisp and has much "manner." But though Charleston is actually the older, the wonderful beauty of the place, the softness of the ancient architectural lines, the sweet scents wafting from walled gardens, the warmth of color everywhere, gives the place that very quality of immortal youth and loveliness which is so rare in cities, and is so much to be desired. Charleston I might allegorize in the person of a young woman I met there. I was in the drawing-room of a fine old house; a beautifully proportioned room, paneled to the ceiling, hung with family portraits and other old paintings, and furnished with mahogany masterpieces a century and a half old. The girl lived in this house. She was not exactly pretty, nor was her figure beautiful in the usual sense; yet it was beautiful, all the same, with a sort of long-limbed, supple, aristocratic aliveness. Most of all there was about her a great fineness—the kind of fineness which seems to be the expression of generations of fineness. She was the granddaughter of a general in the Civil War, the great-granddaughter of an ambassador, the great-great-granddaughter of a Revolutionary hero, and though one could not but be thankful that she failed of striking resemblance to the portraits of these admirable ancestors, nevertheless it seemed to me that, had I not known definitely of their place in her family history, I might almost have sensed them hovering behind her: a background, nebulous and shadowy, out of which she had emerged.

Memphis, upon the other hand, will always be to me a lively modern debutante. I vision her as dancing—dancing to Handy's ragtime music—all shoulders, neck, and arms, and tulle, and twenty-dollar satin slippers. Atlanta, too, is young, vivid, affluent, altogether modern; while as for Birmingham, she is pretty, but a little strident, a little overdressed; touched a little with the amiability, and the other qualities, of the nouveau riche.

The beauty of New Orleans is of a different kind. She is a full-blown, black-eyed, dreamy, drawly creature, opulent of figure, white of skin, and red of lip. Like San Francisco she has Latin blood which makes her love and preserve the carnival spirit; but she is more voluptuous than San Francisco, for not only is she touched with the languor and the fire of her climate, but she is without the virile blood of the forty-niner, or the invigorating contact of the fresh Pacific wind. In my imaginary picture I see her yawning at eleven in the morning, when her negro maid brings black coffee to her bedside—such wonderful black coffee!—whereas, at that hour, I conceive San Francisco as having long been up and about her affairs. Even in the afternoon I fancy my New Orleans beauty as a little bit relaxed. But at dinner she becomes alive, and after dinner more alive, and by midnight she is like a flame.

I must admit, however, that of late years New Orleans has developed a perfect case of dual personality, and that, as often happens where there is dual personality, one side of her nature seems altogether incompatible with the other. The very new New Orleans has no resemblance to the picture I have drawn; moreover, my picture is not her favorite likeness of herself. She prefers more recent ones—pictures showing the lines of determination which, within the last ten years have stamped themselves upon her features, as she has fought and overcome the defects of character which logically accompanied her peculiar, temperamental type of charm. I, upon the other hand, am like some lover who values most an older picture of the woman he adores. I admire her for building character, but it is by her languorous beauty that I am infatuated, and the portrait which most effectively displays that beauty is the one for which I care.

Her very failings were so much a part of her that they made us the more sympathetic; she was too lovely to be greatly blamed for anything; gazing into her eyes, we hardly noticed that there was dust under the piano and in the corners; dining at her sumptuous table, we gave but little thought to the fact that the cellar was damp, the house none too healthy, and that there were mosquitoes and rats about the place; nor did it seem to matter, in face of her allurements, that she was shiftless, extravagant, improvident in the management of her affairs. If these things were brought to our attention, we excused them on the grounds of Latin blood and enervating climate.

But if we excused her, she did not excuse herself. Without being shaken awake by an earthquake, or forced to action by a devastating fire or flood, she set to work, calmly and of her own volition, to reform her character.

First she cleaned house, providing good surface drainage, an excellent filtered water supply from the river in place of her old mosquito-breeding cisterns, and modern sewers in place of cesspools. She killed rats by the hundreds of thousands, rat-proofed her buildings, and thus, at one stroke, eliminated all fear of bubonic plague. She began to take interest in the public schools, and soon trebled their advantages. She concerned herself with the revision of repressive tax laws. She secured one of the best street railway systems in the country. But, perhaps most striking of all, she set to work to build scientifically toward the realization of a gigantic dream. This dream embodies the resumption by New Orleans of her old place as second seaport city. To this end she is doing more than any other city to revive the commerce of the Mississippi River, and is at the same time making a strong bid for trade by way of the Panama Canal, as well as other sea traffic. She has restored her forty miles of water front to the people, has built municipal docks and warehouses at a cost of millions, and has so perfectly cooerdinated her river-rail-sea traffic-handling agencies that rates have been greatly reduced. Upon these, and related enterprises, upward of a hundred millions are being spent, and the vast plan is working out with such promise that one almost begins to fear lest New Orleans become too much enamored of her new-found materialism—lest the easy-going, pleasure-loving, fascinating Creole belle be transformed into the much-less-rare and much-less-desirable business type of woman: a woman whose letters, instead of being written in a fine French hand and scented with the faint fragrance of vertivert, are typewritten upon commercial paper; whose lips, instead of causing one to think of kisses, are laden with the deadly cant of commerce; whose skin, instead of seeming to be made of milk and rose leaves, is dappled with industrial soot.

Lord Chesterfield in one of his letters to his son, intimated that beautiful women desire to be flattered upon their intelligence, while intelligent women who are not altogether ugly like to be told that they are beautiful. So with New Orleans. Speak of her individuality, her picturesqueness, her gift of laughter, and she will listen with polite ennui; but admire her commercial progress and she will hang upon your words. Gaiety and charm are so much a part of her that she not only takes them as a matter of course, but seems to doubt, sometimes, that they are virtues. She is like some unusual and fascinating woman who, instead of rejoicing because she is not like all other women, begins to wonder if she ought not to be like them. Perhaps she is wrong to be gay? Perhaps her carnival proves her frivolous? Perhaps she ought not to continue to hold a carnival each year?

Far to the north of New Orleans the city of St. Paul was afflicted, some years since, by a similar agitation. It will be remembered that St. Paul used to build an ice palace each year. People used to go to see it as they go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Then came some believer in the standardization of cities, advancing the idea that ice palaces advertised St. Paul as a cold place. As a result they ceased to be built. St. Paul threw away something which drew attention to her and which gave her character. Moreover, I am told this mania went so far that when folders were issued for the purpose of advertising the region, they were designed to suggest the warmth and brilliance of the tropics. Had St. Paul a bad climate, instead of a peculiarly fine one, we might feel sympathetic tolerance for these performances, but a city which enjoys cool summers and dry, bracing winters has no apologies to make upon the score of climate, and only need apologize if she tries to make us think that bananas and cocoanuts grow on sugar-maple trees. However, in the last year or two, St. Paul has perceived the folly of her course, and has resumed her annual carnival.

In the case of New Orleans I cannot believe there is real danger that the carnival will be given up. Instead, I believe that the business enthusiasts will be appeased—as they were a year or two ago, for the first time in carnival history—by the inclusion of an industrial pageant glorifying the city's commercial renaissance. Also the New Orleans newspapers soothe the spirit of the Association of Commerce, at carnival time, by publishing items presumably furnished by that capable organization, showing that business is going on as usual, that bank clearings have not diminished during the festivities, and that, despite the air of happiness that pervades the town, New Orleans is not really beginning to have such a good time as a stranger might suppose from superficial signs. With such concessions made to solemn visaged commerce, is the carnival continued.

* * * * *

There are at least six cities on this continent which every one should see. Every one should see New York because it is the largest city in the world, and because it combines the magnificence, the wonder, the beauty, the sordidness, and the shame of a great metropolis; every one should see San Francisco because it is so vivid, so alive, so golden; every one should see Washington, the clean, white splendor of which is like the embodiment of a national dream; every one should see the old gray granite city of Quebec, piled on its hill above the river like some fortified town in France; every one should see the sweet and aristocratic city of Charleston, which suggests a museum of tradition and early American elegance; and of course every one should see New Orleans.

As to whether it is best to see the city in everyday attire, or masked for the revels, that is a matter of taste, and perhaps of age as well. To any one who loves cities, New Orleans is always good to see, while to the lover of spectacles and fetes the carnival is also worth seeing—once. The two are, however, hardly to be seen to advantage simultaneously. To visit New Orleans in carnival time is like visiting some fine old historic mansion when it is all in a flurry over a fancy-dress ball. The furniture is moved, master, mistress and servants are excited, the cook is overworked and is perhaps complaining a little, and the brilliant costumes of the masquerade divert the eye of the visitor so that he hardly knows what sort of house he is in. Attend the ball if you like, but do not fail to revisit the house when normal conditions have been restored; see the festivities of Mardi Gras if you will, but do not fail to browse about old New Orleans and sit down at her famous tables when her chefs have time to do their best.



CHAPTER LVII

HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS

Canal Street is to New Orleans much more than Main Street is to Buffalo, much more than Broad Street is to Philadelphia, much more than Broadway and Fifth Avenue are to New York, for Canal Street divides New Orleans as no other street divides an American city. It divides New Orleans as the Seine divides Paris, and there is not more difference between the right bank of the Seine and the Latin Quarter than between American New Orleans and Creole New Orleans: between the newer part of the city and the vieux carre. The sixty squares ("islets" according to the Creole idiom, because each block was literally an islet in time of flood) which comprise the old French town established in 1718 by the Sieur de Bienville, are unlike the rest of the city not merely in architecture, but in all respects. The street names change at Canal Street, the highways become narrower as you enter the French quarter, and the pavements are made of huge stone blocks brought over long ago as ballast in sailing ships. Nor is the difference purely physical. For though they will tell you that this part of the city is not so French and Spanish as it used to be, that it has run down, that large parts of it have been given over to Italians of the lower class, and to negroes, it remains not only in appearance, but in custom, thought and character, the most perfectly foreign little tract of land in the whole United States. Long ago, under the French flag, it was a part of the Roman Catholic bishopric of Quebec; later under the Spanish flag, a part of that of Havana; and it is charming to trace in old buildings, names, and customs the signs of this blended French and Spanish ancestry.

La Salle, searching out a supposed route to China by way of the Mississippi River, seems to have perceived what the New Orleans Association of Commerce perceives to-day: that the control of the mouth of the river ought to mean also the control of a vast part of the continent. At all events, he took possession in 1682 in the name of the French King, calling the river St. Louis and the country Louisiana. The latter name persisted, but La Salle himself later rechristened the river, giving it the name Colbert, thereby showing that in two attempts he could not find a name one tenth as good as that already provided by the savages. The "St. Louis River" might, from its name, be a fair-sized stream, but "Colbert" sounds like the name of a river about twenty miles long, forty feet wide at the mouth, and five feet deep at the very middle.

La Salle intended to build a fort at a point sixty leagues above the mouth of the river, but his expedition met with disaster upon disaster, until at last he was assassinated in Texas, when setting out on foot to seek help from Canada. In 1699 came Iberville, the Canadian, exploring the river and fixing on the site for the future city. Iberville established settlements at old Biloxi (now Ocean Springs) and Mobile, but before he had time to make a town at New Orleans he caught yellow fever at Havana, and died there. It therefore remained for his brother, Bienville, actually to establish the town, and New Orleans is Bienville's city, just as Detroit is Cadillac's, and Cleveland General Moses Cleveland's.

Bienville's settlers were hardy pioneers from Canada, and presently we find him writing to France: "Send me wives for my Canadians. They are running in the woods after Indian girls." The priests also urged that unless white wives could be sent out for the settlers, marriages with Indians be sanctioned.

Having now a considerable investment in Louisiana, France felt that a request for wives for the colony was practical and legitimate. Louisiana must have population. A bonus of so much per head was offered for colonists, and hideous things ensued: servants, children, and helpless women were kidnapped, and the occupants of hospitals, asylums, and houses of correction were assembled and deported. Incidentally it will be remembered that out of these black deeds flowered "the first masterpiece of French literature which can properly be called a novel," the Abbe Prevost's "Manon Lescaut," which has been dramatized and redramatized, and which is the theme of operas by both Massenet and Puccini. Though a grave alleged to be that of Manon used to be shown on the outskirts of the city, there is doubt that such a person actually existed, although those who wish to believe in a flesh-and-blood Manon may perhaps take encouragement from the fact that the arrival in the colony of a Chevalier des Grieux, in the year 1719, fourteen years before the book appeared, has been established, and, further, that the name of the Chevalier des Grieux may be seen upon a crumbling tomb in one of the river parishes.

When the girls arrived they were on inspection in the daytime, but at night were carefully guarded by soldiers, in the house where they were quartered together. Miss Grace King, in her delightful book, "New Orleans, the Place and the People," tells us that in these times there were never enough girls to fill the demand for wives, and that in one instance two young bachelors proposed to fight over a very plain girl—the last one left out of a shipload—but that the commandant obliged them to settle their dispute by the more pacific means of drawing lots. As the place became settled Ursuline sisters arrived and established schools. And at last, a quarter of a century after the landing of the first shipment of girls, the curious history of female importations ended with the arrival of that famous band of sixty demoiselles of respectable family and "authenticated spotless reputation," who came to be taken as wives by only the more prosperous young colonists of the better class. The earlier, less reputable girls have come down to us by the name of "correction girls," but these later arrivals—each furnished by the Company of the West with a casket containing a trousseau—are known to this day as les filles a la cassette, or "casket girls."

A curious feature of this bit of history, as it applies to present-day New Orleans, is that though one hears of many families that claim descent from some nice, well-behaved "casket girl," one never by any chance hears of a family claiming to be descended from a lady of the other stock. When it is considered that the "correction girls" far outnumbered their virtuous sisters of the casket, and ought, therefore, by the law of averages, to have left a greater progeny, the matter becomes stranger still, taking on a scientific interest. The explanation must, however, be left to some mind more astute than mine—some mind capable, perhaps, of unraveling also those other riddles of New Orleans namely: Who was the mysterious chevalier who many years ago invented that most delectable of sucreries, the praline, and whither did he vanish? And how, although the refugee Duc d'Orleans (later Louis Philippe of France) stayed but a short time in New Orleans, did he manage to sleep in so many hundred beds, and in houses which were not built until long after his departure? And why are so many of the signs, over bars, restaurants, and shops, of that blue and white enamel one associates with the signs of the Western Union Telegraph Company? And why is the nickel as characteristic of New Orleans as is the silver dollar of the farther Middle West, and gold coin of the Pacific Slope—why, when one pays for a ten-cent purchase with a half-dollar, does one receive eight nickels in change? Ah, but New Orleans is a mysterious city!

Once, when the French and English were fighting for the possession of Canada and New Orleans was depending for protection on Swiss mercenaries, the French officer in command of these troops disciplined them by stripping them and tying them to trees, where they were a prey to the terrible mosquitoes of the Gulf. One day they killed him and fled, but some of them were captured. These were taken back to New Orleans, court-martialed, and punished according to the regulations: they were nailed alive to their coffins and sawed in two.

Ceded to Spain by a secret clause in the Treaty of Paris, of which she did not know until 1764, Louisiana could not believe the news. Even when the Acadians, appeared, after having been so cruelly ejected from their lands in what is now New Brunswick, Louisiana could not believe that Louis XV would coldly cast off his loyal colony. The fact that he had done so was not credited until a Spanish governor arrived. For three years after, there was confusion. Then a strong force was sent from Spain under Count O'Reilly, a man of Irish birth, but Spanish allegiance, and the flag of Spain was raised. O'Reilly maintained viceregal splendor; he invited leading citizens to a levee; here in his own house he caused his soldiers to seize the group of prominent men who had attempted to prevent the accomplishment of Spanish rule, and five of these he presently caused to be shot as rebels.

Spanish governors came and went. The people settled down. At one time Padre Antonio de Sedella, a Spanish Capuchin, arrived with a commission to establish in the city the Holy office of the Inquisition, but he was discouraged and shipped back to Cadiz. Miss King tells us that when, half a century later, the calaboose was demolished, secret dungeons containing instruments of torture were discovered.

On Good Friday, 1788, fire broke out, and as the priests refused to let the bells be rung in warning, saying that all bells must be dumb on Good Friday, the conflagration gained such headway that it could not be checked, and a large part of the old French town was reduced to ashes. Six years later another fire equally destructive, completed the work of blotting out the French town, and the old New Orleans we now know is the Spanish city which arose in its place: a city not of wood but of adobe or brick, stuccoed and tinted, of arcaded walks, galleries, jalousies, ponderous doors, and inner courts with carriage entrances from the street, and, behind, the most charming and secluded gardens. Also, owing to premiums offered by Baron Carondelet, the governor, tile roofs came into vogue, so that the city became comparatively fireproof. Much of the present-day charm of the old city is due also to the noble Andalusian, Don Andreas Almonaster y Roxas, who having immigrated and made a great fortune in the city, became its benefactor, building schools and other public institutions, the picturesque old Cabildo, or town hall, which is now a most fascinating museum, the cathedral, which adjoins the Cabildo, and which, like it, faces Jackson Square, formerly the Place d'Armes. In front of the altar of his cathedral Don Andreas is buried, and masses are said, in perpetuity, for his soul. When the Don's young widow remarried, she and her husband were pursued by a charivari lasting three days and three nights—the most famous charivari in the history of a city widely noted for these detestable functions. The Don's daughter, a great heiress, became the Baronne Pontalba and resided in magnificence in Paris, where she died, a very old woman, in 1874.

In the Place d'Armes much of the early history of New Orleans, and indeed, of Louisiana, was written. Here, and in the Cabildo, the transfers from flag to flag took place, ending with the ceding of Louisiana by Spain to France, and by France to the United States. At this time New Orleans had about ten thousand inhabitants, most of the whites being Creoles.

Harris Dickson, who knows a great deal about New Orleans, declared in an article published some years ago, that outside lower Louisiana the word "Creole" is still misunderstood, and added this definition of the term: "A person of mixed French and Spanish blood, born in Louisiana." As I understand it, however, the blood need not necessarily be mixed, but may be pure Spanish or pure French, or again, there may be some admixture of English blood. The word itself was, I am informed, originally Spanish, and signified an American descended from Spaniards; later it got into the language of the French West Indies, whence it was imported, to Louisiana, about the end of the eighteenth century, by refugees who arrived in considerable numbers from San Domingo, after the revolution of the blacks there. Thus, the early French settlers did not use the word.

If any misapprehension as to whether a Creole is a white person does still exist, that misunderstanding is, I believe, to be traced to the doors of an old-time cheap burlesque theater in Chicago, where the late impresario, Sam T. Jack, put on a show in which mulatto women were billed as "a galaxy of Creole beauties." This show traveled about the country libeling the Creoles and doubtless causing many persons of that class which attended Sam T. Jack's shows, to believe that "Creole" means something like "quadroon." But when the show got to Baton Rouge the manager was waited upon by a committee of citizens who said certain things to him which caused him to give up his engagement there and cancel any other engagements he had in the Creole country.

True, one frequently hears references in New Orleans to "Creole mammies," and "Creole negroes," but the word used in that sense merely indicates a negro who has been the servant of Creoles, and who speaks French—"gombo French" the curious dialect is called. Similarly one hears of "Creole ponies"—these being ponies of the small, strong type used by the Cajan farmers. According to the Louisiana dialect Longfellow's "Evangeline" was a Cajan, the word being a corruption of "Acadian." About a thousand of these unfortunate expatriates arrived in New Orleans between 1765 and 1768. Within a century they had multiplied to forty times that number, spreading over the entire western part of the State.

Much of the temperament, the gaiety, the sensitiveness of New Orleans comes from the Creole. He was Latin enough to be a good deal of a gambler, to love beautiful women, and on slight provocation to draw his sword.

The street names of New Orleans—not only those of the French Quarter, but of the whole city—reflect his various tastes. Many of the streets bear the names of historic figures of the French and Spanish regimes; Rampart Street, formerly the rue des Ramparts marks, like the outer boulevards of Paris, the line of the old city wall. Other streets were given pretty feminine names by the old Creole gallants: Suzette, Celeste, Estelle, Angelie, and the like. The devout doubtless had their share in the naming of Religious Street, Nuns Street, Piety Street, Assumption Street, and Amen Street. The taste for Greek and Roman classicism which developed in France at the time of the Revolution, found its way to Louisiana, and is reflected in New Orleans by streets bearing the names of gods, demi gods, the muses and the graces. The pronunciation given to some of these names is curious: Melpomene, instead of being given four syllables is called Melpomeen; Calliope is similarly Callioap; Euterpe, Euterp, and so on. This, however, is the result not of ignorance, but of a slight corruption of the correct French pronunciations, the Americans having taken their way of pronouncing the names from the French. The Napoleonic wars are commemorated in the names of Napoleon Avenue, and Austerlitz and Jena Streets, and the visit of Lafayette in the naming for him of both a street and an avenue. But perhaps the most striking names of all the old ones were Mystery Street, Madman's Street, Love Street (Rue de l'Amour), Goodchildren Street (Rue des Bons Enfants), and above all those two streets in the Faubourg Marigny which old Bernard Marigny amused himself by naming for two games of chance at which, it is said, he had lost a fortune—namely Bagatelle and Craps—the latter not the game played with dice, but an old-time game of cards.

The French spoken by cultivated Creoles bears to the French of modern France about the same relation as the current English of Virginia does to that of England. Creole French is founded largely upon the French of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, just as many of the so-called "Americanisms" of older parts of the country, including Virginia and New England, are Elizabethan. The early English and French colonists, coming to this country with the language of their times, dropped, over here, into a linguistic backwater. In the mother countries language continued to renew itself as it flowed along, by elisions, by the adoption and legitimatizing of slang words (as for instance the word "cab," to which Dean Swift objected on the ground that it was slang for "cabriolet"), and by all the other means through which our vocabularies are forever changing. But to the colonies these changes were not carried, and such changes as occurred in the French and English of America were, for the most part, separate and distinct (as exampled by such Creole words as "banquette" for "sidewalk," in place of the French word trottoir, and the word "baire," whence comes the American term "mosquito bar.") The influence of colloquial French from Canada may also be traced in New Orleans, and the language there was further affected by the strange jargon spoken by the Creole negro—precisely as the English dialect of negroes in other parts of the South may be said to have affected the speech of all the Southern States.

Between the dialect of the Louisiana Cajan and that of the French Canadian of Quebec and northern New York there is a strong resemblance; but the Creole negro language is a thing entirely apart, being made up, it is said, partly from French and partly from African word sounds, just as the "gulla" of the South Carolina coast is made up from African and English. The one is no more intelligible to a Frenchman than the other to a Londoner. The ignorant Creole negro wishing to say "I do not understand," would not say "moi je ne comprends pas," but "mo pas connais"; similarly for "I am going away," he does not say, "je m'en vais," but "ma pe couri"; while for "I have a horse," instead of "j'ai un cheval," he will put the statement, "me ganye choue." It is a dialect lacking mood, tense, and grammar.

To this day one may occasionally see in New Orleans and in other lower river towns an old "mammy" wearing the bandanna headdress called a tignon, which, toward the end of the eighteenth century, was made compulsory for colored women in Louisiana. The need for some such distinguishing racial badge was, it is said, twofold. Yellow sirens from the French West Indies, flocking to New Orleans, were becoming exceedingly conspicuous in dress and adornment; furthermore one hears stories of wealthy white men, fathers of octoroon or quadroon girls, who sent these illegitimate daughters abroad to be educated. The latter, one learns from many sources, were very often beautiful in the extreme, as were also the Domingan girls, and history is full of the tales of the curious, wild, fashionably caparisoned, declasse circle of society, which came to exist in New Orleans through the presence there of so many alluring women of light color and equally light character. Some of these women, it is said, could hardly be distinguished from brunette whites, and it was largely for this reason that the tignon was placed by law upon the heads of all women having negro blood.

No morsels from the history of old New Orleans are more suggestive to the imagination than the hints we get from many sources of wildly dissipated life centering around the notorious quadroon balls—or as they were called in their day, cordon bleu balls. An old guide book informs me that the women who were the great attraction at these functions were "probably the handsomest race of women in the world, and were, besides, splendid dancers and finished dressers." Authorities seem to agree that these balls were exceedingly popular among the young Creole gentlemen, as well as with men visiting the city, and that duels, resulting from quarrels over the women, were of common occurrence. If a Creole had the choice of weapons slender swords called colichemardes were used, whereas pistols were almost invariably selected by Americans. Duels with swords were often fought indoors, but when firearms were to be employed the combatants repaired to one of the customary dueling grounds. Under the fine old live oaks of the City Park—then out in the country—it is said that as many as ten duels have been fought in a single day. Duels having their beginnings at the quadroon balls were, however, often fought in St. Anthony's Garden, for the ballroom was in a building (now occupied by a sisterhood of colored nuns) which stands on Orleans Street, near where it abuts against the Garden. This garden, bearing the name of the saint whose temptations have been of such conspicuous interest to painters of the nude, is not named for him so much in his own right, as because he was the patron of that same Padre Antonio de Sedella, already mentioned, who came to New Orleans to institute the Inquisition, but who, after having been sent away by Governor Miro, returned as a secular priest and became much beloved for his good works. Padre Antonio lived in a hut near the garden, and it is he who figures in Thomas Bailey Aldrich's story "Pere Antoine's Date Palm."

To the Creole, more than to any other source, may be traced the origin of dueling in the United States, and no city in the country has such a dueling history as New Orleans. The American took the practice from the Latin and by the adoption of pistols made the duel a much more serious thing than it had previously been, when swords were employed and first blood usually constituted "satisfaction." Up to the time of the Civil War the man who refused a challenge became a sort of outcast, and I have been told that even to this day a duel is occasionally fought. Governor Claiborne, first American governor of Louisiana, was a duelist, and his monument—a family monument in the annex of the old Basin Street division of St. Louis cemetery—bears upon one side an inscription in memory of his brother-in-law, Micajah Lewis, "who fell in a duel, January 14, 1804."

Gayarre, in his history of Louisiana, tells a story of six young French noblemen who, one night, paired off and fought for no reason whatever save out of bravado. Two of them were killed.

Two famous characters of New Orleans, about the middle of the last century, were Major Joe Howell, a brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, and Major Henry, a dare-devil soldier of fortune who had filibustered in Nicaragua and fought in the Mexican War. One day while drinking together they quarreled, and as a result a duel was arranged to take place the same afternoon. Henry kept on drinking, but Howell went to sleep and slept until it was time to go to the dueling ground, when he took one cocktail, and departed.

Feeling that a duel over a disagreement the occasion for which neither contestant could remember, was the height of folly, friends intervened, and finally succeeded in getting Major Henry to say that the fight could be called off if Howell would apologize.

"For what?" he was asked.

"Don't know and don't care," returned the old warrior.

As Howell would not apologize, navy revolvers were produced and the two faced each other, the understanding being that they should begin at ten paces with six barrels loaded, firing at will and advancing. At the word "Fire!" both shot and missed, but Howell cocked his revolver with his right thumb and fired again immediately, wounding Henry in the arm. Henry then fired and missed a second time, while Howell's third shot struck his antagonist in the abdomen. Wounded as he was, Henry managed to fire again, narrowly missing the other, who was not only a giant in size, but was a conspicuous mark, owing to the white clothing which he wore. At this Howell advanced a step and took steady aim, and he would almost certainly have killed his opponent had not his own second reached out and thrown his pistol up, sending the shot wild. This occurred after the other side has cried "Stop!"—as it had been agreed should be done in case either man was badly wounded. A foul was consequently claimed, the seconds drew their pistols, and a general battle was narrowly averted. After many weeks Henry recovered.

A great number of historic duels were over politics. Such a one was the fight which took place in 1843, between Mr. Hueston, editor of the Baton Rouge "Gazette" and Mr. Alcee La Branche, a Creole gentleman who had been speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives, and was running for Congress. Mr. La Branche was one of the few public men in the State who had never fought a duel, and in the course of a violent political campaign, Hueston twitted him on this subject in the columns of the "Gazette," trying to make him out a coward. Soon after the insulting article appeared, the two men met in the billiard room of the old St. Charles Hotel, and when La Branche demanded an apology, and was refused, he struck Hueston with a cane, or a cue, and knocked him down. A duel was, of course, arranged, the weapons selected being double-barreled shotguns loaded with ball. At the first discharge Hueston's hat and coat were punctured by bullets. He demanded a second exchange of shots, which resulted about as before—his own shots going wild, while those of his opponent narrowly missed him. Hueston, however, obstinately insisted that the duel be continued, and the guns were loaded for the third time. In the next discharge the editor received a scalp wound. It was now agreed by all present that matters had gone far enough, but Hueston remained obdurate in his intention to kill or be killed, and in the face of violent protests, demanded that the guns again be loaded. The next exchange of shots proved to be the last. Hueston let both barrels go without effect, and fell to the ground shot through the lungs. Taken to the Maison de Sante, he was in such agony that he begged a friend to finish the work by shooting him through the head. Within a few hours he was dead.

The old guide book from which I gather these items cites, also, cases in which duels were fought over trivial matters, such, for instance, as a mildly hostile newspaper criticism of an operatic performance, and an argument between a Creole and a Frenchman over the greatness of the Mississippi River.

Professor Brander Matthews tells me of an episode in which the wit exhibited by a Creole lawyer, in the course of a case in a New Orleans court, caused him to be challenged. The opposing counsel, likewise a Creole, was a great dandy. He appeared in an immaculate white suit and boiled shirt, but the weather was warm, and after he had spoken for perhaps half an hour his shirt was wilted, and he asked an adjournment. The adjournment over, he reappeared in a fresh shirt, but this too wilted presently, whereupon another adjournment was taken. At the end of this he again reappeared wearing a third fresh shirt, and in it managed to complete his plea.

It now became the other lawyer's turn. He arose and, speaking with the utmost gravity, addressed the jury.

"Gentlemen," he said (Professor Matthews tells it in French), "I shall divide my speech into three shirts." He then announced: "First shirt"—and made his first point. This accomplished, he paused briefly, then proclaimed: "Second shirt," and followed with his second point. Then: "Third and last shirt," and after completing his argument sat down. The delighted jury gave him the verdict, but his witticism involved him in a duel with the worsted advocate. The result of this duel Professor Matthews does not tell, but if the wag's colichemarde was as swift and penetrating as his wit, we may surmise that his opponent of the Code Napoleon and the code duello had a fourth shirt spoiled.



CHAPTER LVIII

FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES

The numerous antique shops of the French quarter, with their gray, undulating floors and their piled-up, dusty litter of old furniture, plate, glass, and china, and the equally numerous old book stores, with their piles of French publications, their shadowy corners, their pleasant ancient bindings and their stale smell, are peculiarly reminiscent of similar establishments in Paris.

That Eugene Field knew these shops well we have reason to know by at least two of his poems. In one, "The Discreet Collector," he tells us that:

Down south there is a curio shop Unknown to many men; Thereat do I intend to stop When I am South again; The narrow street through which to go— Aha! I know it well! And maybe you would like to know— But no—I will not tell!

But later, when filled with remorse over his extravagance in "blowing twenty dollars in by nine o'clock A.M.," he reveals the location of his favorite establishment, saying:

In Royal Street (near Conti) there's a lovely curio shop, And there, one balmy fateful morn, it was my chance to stop—

So that, at least, is the neighborhood in which he learned that:

The curio collector is so blindly lost in sin That he doesn't spend his money—he simply blows it in!

In his verses called "Doctor Sam," Field touched on another fascinating side of Creole negro life: the mysterious beliefs and rites of voodooism—or, as it is more often spelled, voudouism.

Until a few years ago it used to be possible for a visitor with a "pull" in New Orleans to see some of the voudou performances and to have "a work made" for him, but the police have dealt so severely with those who believe in this barbarous nonsense, that it is practised in these times only with the utmost secrecy.

Voudouism was brought by the early slaves from the Congo, but in Louisiana the negroes—probably desiring to imitate the religion of their white masters—appropriated some of the Roman Catholic saints and made them subject to the Great Serpent, or Grand Zombi, who is the voudou god. These saints, however, are given voudou names, St. Michael, for example, being Blanc Dani, and St. Peter, Papa Liba. This situation is the antithesis of that to be found in Brittany, where Druidical beliefs, handed down for generations among the peasants, may now be faintly traced running like on odd alien threads through the strong fabric of Roman Catholicism.

Voudouism is not, however, to be dignified by the name "religion." It is superstition founded upon charms and hoodoos. It is witchcraft of the maddest kind, involving the most hideous performances. Moreover, it is said that a hoodoo is something of which a French negro is very much afraid, and that his fear is justifiable, for the reason that the throwing of a wanga, or curse, may also involve the administering of subtle poisons made from herbs.

Legend is rich with stories of Marie Le Veau, the voudou queen, who lived long ago in New Orleans, and of love and death accomplished by means of voudou charms. Charms are brought about in various ways. Among these the burning of black candles, accompanied by certain performances, brings evil upon those against whom a "work" is made, while blue candles have to do with love charms. It may also be noted that "love powders" can be purchased now-a-days in drug stores in New Orleans.

In the days of long ago the great negro gathering place used to be Congo Square—now Beauregard Square—and here, on Sunday nights, wild dances used to occur—the "bamboula" and "calinda"—and sinister spells were cast. Later the voudous went to more secluded spots on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, and on St. John's Eve, which is their great occasion, many of the whites of the city used to go to the lake in hopes of discovering a voudou seance, and being allowed to see it. A friend of mine, who has seen several of these seances, says that they are unbelievably weird and horrible. They will make a gombo, put a snake in it, and then devour it, and they will wring a cat's neck and drink its blood. And of course, along with these loathsome ceremonies, go incantations, chants, dances, and frenzies, sometimes ending in catalepsis.

There are weird stories of white women of good family who have believed in voudou, and have taken part in the rites; and there are other tales of evil spells, such as that of the Creole bride of long ago, whose affianced had been the lover of a quadroon girl, a hairdresser. The hairdresser when she came to do the bride's hair for the wedding, gave her a bouquet of flowers. The bride smelled the bouquet—and died at the church door.

It was, I think, in an old book store on Royal Street—or else on Chartres—that I found the tattered guide book to which I referred in an earlier chapter. It was "edited and compiled by several leading writers of the New Orleans Press," and published in 1885, and it contains an introductory recommendation by George W. Cable—which is about the finest guarantee that a book on New Orleans can have.

Mr. Cable, of course, more than all the rest of the people who have written of New Orleans put together, placed the city definitely in literature. And it is interesting, if somewhat saddening, to recall that for lifting the city into the world of belles lettres, for adorning it and preserving it in such volumes as "Old Creole Days," "The Grandissimes," "Madame Delphine," and other valuable, truthful, and charming works, he was roundly abused by his own fellow-townsmen. Far from attacking Mr. Cable, New Orleans ought to build him a monument, and I am glad to say that, though the monument is not there yet, the city does seem to have come to its senses, and that the prophet is no longer without honor in his own country.

Some further leaves are added to the literary laurels of the city by what Thomas Bailey Aldrich has written of it, and the wreath is made the greater by the fact that in New Orleans was born "the only literary man in New York," Professor Brander Matthews.

Another distinguished name in letters, connected with the place, is that of Lafcadio Hearn, who was at one time a reporter on a New Orleans newspaper, and who not only wrote about the French quarter, but collected many proverbs of the Creoles in a book which he called "Gombo Zebes." In his little volume, "Chita," Hearn described the land of lakes, bayous, and chenieres, which forms a strip between the city and the Gulf, and which, with its wild birds, wild scenery, and wild storms, and its extraordinary population of hunters and fishermen—Cajuns, Italians, Japanese, Spanish, Kanakas, Filipinos, French, and half-breed Indians, all intermarrying—is the strangest, most outlandish section of this country I have ever visited. The Filipinos, who introduced shrimp fishing in this region, building villages on stilts, like those of their own islands, were not there when Hearn wrote "Chita," nor was Ludwig raising diamond-back terrapin on Grand Isle, but the live-oaks, draped with sad Spanish moss, lined the bayous as they do to-day, and the alligators, turtles and snakes were there, and the tall marsh grass, so like bamboo, fringed the banks as it does now, and water hyacinth carpeted the pools, and the savage tropical storms came sweeping in, now and then, from the Gulf, flooding the entire country, tearing everything up by the roots, then receding, carrying the floating debris back with them to the salt sea. One has to see what they call a "slight" storm, in that country, to know what a great storm there must be. Hearn surely saw storms there, for in "Chita" he describes with terrifying vividness that historic tempest which, in 1856, obliterated, at one stroke, Last Island, with its fashionable hotel and all the guests of that hotel. I have seen a "little" thunderstorm in Barataria Bay and I do not want to see a big one. I have seen brown men who, in the storm of 1915 (which did a million dollars' worth of damage in New Orleans), floated about the Baratarias for days, upon the roofs of houses, and I have seen little children, half Italian, half Filipino, who were saved by being carried by their parents into the branches of an old live-oak, where they waited until good Horace Harvey, "the little father of the Baratarias," came down there in his motor yacht, the Destrehan, rescued them, warmed them, fed them, and gave them back to life. I was told in New Orleans that there were ten seconds in that storm when the wind reached a velocity of 140 miles per hour at the mouth of the Mississippi, that it blew for four hours at the rate of 90 miles, and that the lowest barometrical reading ever recorded in the United States (28.11) was recorded in New Orleans during this hurricane.

Of the summer climate of New Orleans I know nothing at first hand, and judging from what people have told me, that is all I want to know. The winter climate suited me very well while I was there, although the boast that grass is green and roses bloom all the year round, does not imply such intense heat as some people may suppose. Furthermore, I believe that the thermometer has once or twice in the history of the city dropped low enough to kill any ordinary rose, for a friend of mine told me a story about some water pipes that froze and burst during an unprecedented cold snap which occurred some years ago. He said that an English colonel, whom he knew, was visiting the city at the time and that, finding himself unable to get water in his bathtub, he sent out for several cases of Apollinaris, and with true British phlegm proceeded to empty them into the tub and get in among the bubbles.

Still another figure having to do with literature, and also with the history of New Orleans, is Jean Lafitte, known as a pirate, whose life is said to have inspired Byron's poem, "The Corsair." There was a time, long ago, when Lafitte, together with his brother, his doughty lieutenant, Dominique You, and his rabble of Baratarians, caused New Orleans a great deal of annoyance, but like many other doubtful characters, they have, since their death, become entirely picturesque, and the very idea that Lafitte was not a first-class blood-and-thunder pirate is as distasteful to the people of New Orleans to-day, as his being any kind of a near-pirate at all, used to be to their ancestors. Nevertheless Frank R. Stockton, who made a great specialty of pirates, says of Lafitte: "He never committed an act of piracy in his life; he was [before he went to Barataria] a blacksmith, and knew no more about sailing a ship or even the smallest kind of a boat than he knew about the proper construction of a sonnet.... It is said of him that he was never at sea but twice in his life: once when he came from France, and once when he left this country, and on neither occasion did he sail under the Jolly Roger." According to Stockton, Lafitte, when he gave up his blacksmith shop (in which he is said to have made some of the fine wrought iron balcony railings which still adorn the old town), and went to Barataria, became nothing more nor less than a "fence" for pirates and privateers, taking their booty, smuggling it up to New Orleans, and selling it there on commission.

But if the fact that he was not a gory-handed freebooter is against Lafitte, there is one great thing in his favor. When the British were making ready to attack New Orleans in 1814, they tried both to bribe and to browbeat Lafitte into joining forces with them. As the American government was planning, at this very time, a punitive expedition against him, it would perhaps have seemed good policy for the pseudo-pirate to have accepted the British offer, but what Lafitte did was to go up and report the matter at New Orleans, giving the city the first authentic information of the contemplated attack, and offering to join with his men in the defense, in exchange for amnesty.

A good many people, however, did not believe his story, and a good many others thought it beneath the dignity of the government to treat with a man of his dubious occupation. Therefore poor Lafitte was not listened to, but, upon the contrary, only succeeded in stirring up trouble for himself, for an expedition was immediately sent against him; his settlement at Barataria—on the gulf, about forty miles below the city—was demolished and the inhabitants driven to the woods and swamps.

But in spite of this discouraging experience, Lafitte would not join the British, and it came about that when the Battle of New Orleans was about to be fought, Andrew Jackson, who had a short time before referred to Lafitte and his men as a band of "hellish banditti," was glad to accept their aid. Dominique You—with his fine pirate name—commanded a gun, and the others fought according to the best piratical tradition. After the battle was won, the Baratarians were pardoned by President Madison. Incidentally it may be remarked here that the American line of defense on the plains of Chalmette, below the city, had been indicated some years before by the French General Moreau, hero of Hohenlinden, as the proper strategic position for safeguarding New Orleans on the south.

Even after he had been pardoned, Lafitte felt, not without some justice, that he had been ill-used by the Americans, and because of this he determined to leave the country. He set sail with a band of his followers for other climes, but what became of them is not known. Some think their ship went down in a storm which crossed the Gulf soon after their departure; others believe that they reached Yucatan, and that Lafitte died there. Whatever his fate, he did not improve it by departing from New Orleans, for had he not done so he would, at the end, have been given a handsome burial and a nice monument like that of Dominique You—which may be seen to this day in the old cemetery on Claiborne Avenue, between Iberville and St. Louis Streets.

Having disposed of literary men and pirates, we now come in logical sequence to composers and actors. Be it known, then, that E.H. Sothern first raised, in the house at 79 Bienville Street, the voice which has charmed us in the theater, and that Louis Gottschalk, composer of the almost too well-known "Last Hope," was also born in New Orleans.

The records of the opera and the theater might, in themselves, make a chapter. As early as 1791 a French theatrical company played in New Orleans, using halls, and in 1808 a theater was built in St. Philip Street. It is said that the first play given in the city in English was performed December 24, 1817, the play being "The Honey Moon," and the manager Noah M. Ludlow; but it was not until some years later that the English drama became a feature of the city's life, with the establishment of a stock company under the management of James H. Caldwell. Edwin Forrest appeared, in 1824, with Mr. Caldwell's company at the Camp Street Theater, which he built on leaving the Orleans Theater. The former was, when opened, out in the swamp, and people had to walk to it from Canal Street on a narrow path of planks. It was the first building in the city to be lighted by gas.

The annals of the old St. Charles theater, called "old Drury," are rich with history. Practically all our great players from 1835 until long after the Civil War, appeared in this theater, and an old prompter's book which, I believe, is still in existence, records, among many other things, certain details of the appearance there, in 1852, of Junius Brutus Booth, father of Edwin Booth, and mentions also that Joseph Jefferson (Sr.) then a young man, was reprimanded for being noisy in his dressing-room.

New Orleans was, I believe, the first American city regularly to support grand opera and to give it a home. For a great many years before 1859 (in which year the present French Opera House on Bourbon Street was built) there was a regular annual season of opera at the Orleans Theater, long since destroyed.

In the days of the city's operatic grandeur great singers used to visit New Orleans before visiting New York, as witness, for example, the debut at the French Opera House of Adelina Patti. Since the time of the Civil War, however, the city has suffered a decline in this department of art. Opera seasons have not been regular, and in spite of occasional attempts to revive the old-time spirit, the ancient Opera House, with its brave columned front, its cracking veneer of stucco, and its surrounding of little vari-colored one story cafes and shops (which are themselves like bits of operatic scenery), does not so much suggest to the imagination a home of modern opera, as a mournful mortuary chapel haunted by the ghosts of old half-forgotten composers: Herold, Spontini, Mehul, Varney; old conductors, long since gone to dust: Prevost, John, Calabresi; old arias of Meyerbeer, Auber, and Donizetti; and above all, by the ghosts of pretty pirouetting ballerinas, and of great singers whose voices have, these many years, been still.

An old lady who knew Louisiana in the forties and fifties, has left record of the fact that plantation negroes used to know and sing the French operatic airs, just as the Italian peasants of to-day know and sing the music of Puccini and Leoncavallo. But if opera no longer reaches the negro, it cannot be said that it has failed to leave its stamp on the French quarter. From open windows and doors, from little shops and half-hidden courtyards, from shuttered second story galleries, there comes floating to the ears of the wayfarer the sound of music. In one house a piano is being played with dash; in another a child is practising her scales; from still another comes a soprano voice, the sad whistling of a flute, the tinkle of a guitar, or the anguished squeal of a tortured violin. Never except in Naples have I heard, on one block, so many musical instruments independently at work, as in some single blocks of the vieux carre; and never anywhere have I seen a sign which struck as more expressive of the industries of a locality, than that one which I saw near the house of Mme. Lalurie, which read: "Odd Jobs Done, and Music."

The reason for this musical congestion is twofold. Not only is the Creole a great lover of good light music, but the whole region for blocks about the Opera House is populated by old musicians from the opera's orchestra, and women, some middle aged, some old, who used to be in the ballet or the chorus, and who not only keep alive the musical tradition of the district, but pass it on to the younger generation. Indeed there are almost as many places in the French quarter where music may be heard, as where stories are told.

In one street may be seen a house where the troubles with the Mafia began. On a corner—the southeast corner of Royal and St. Peter—is shown the house in which Cable's "'Sieur George" resided. This house is, I believe, the same one which, when erected, caused people to move away from its immediate neighborhood, for fear that its height would cause it to fall down. It is a four story house—the first built in the city. At the southeast corner of Royal and Hospital Streets stands that "haunted" house of Mme. Lalaurie, who fled the town when indignation was aroused because of devilish tortures she inflicted on her slaves. This house is now an Italian tenement, but even in its decay it will be recognized as a mansion which, in its day, was fit to house such guests as Louis Philippe, Lafayette, and Ney. A guest even more distinguished than these, was to have been housed in the mansion at the northeast corner of St. Louis and Chartres Streets, for the Creoles had a plan to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and bring him here, and had this house prepared to receive him.

And are we to forget where Andrew Jackson was entertained before and after the Battle of New Orleans—where General Beauregard, military idol of the Creoles, resided—where Paul Morphy the "chess king" lived—where General Butler took up his quarters when, in 1862, under the guns of Farragut's fleet, the city surrendered—? Shall we fail to visit the curious old tenements and stables surrounding the barnyard which once was the remise of the old Orleans Hotel? Shall we neglect old Metaire cemetery, with its graves built above ground in the days when drainage was less perfect? Shall we fail to go to the levee (pronounced "levvy") and see the savage flood of the muddy Mississippi coursing toward the gulf behind the embankment which alone saves the city from inundation? Shall we ignore the French Market with its clean stalls piled with fresh vegetables, sea food, and all manner of comestibles, including file for the glorious Creole gombo. Shall we not view the picturesque if sinister old Absinthe House, dating from 1799, with its court and stairway so full of mysterious suggestion, and its misty paregoric-flavored beverage, containing opalescent dreams? Shall we not go to Sazerac's for a cocktail, or to Ramos' for one of those delectable gin-fizzes suggesting an Olympian soda-fountain drink? Are we to ignore all these wonders of the city?

Yes, for it is time to go to luncheon at Antoine's!



CHAPTER LIX

ANTOINE'S AND MARDI GRAS

Antoine's is to me one of the four or five most satisfactory restaurants in the United States,—two of the others being the Louisiane and Galatoire's. But one has one's slight preferences in these things; and just as I have a feeling that the cuisine of the Hotel St. Regis in New York surpasses, just a little bit, that of any other eating place in the city, I have a feeling about Antoine's in New Orleans. This is not, perhaps, with me, altogether a culinary matter, for whereas I remember delightful meals at the Louisiane and Galatoire's—meals which, indeed, could hardly be surpassed—I lived for a week at Antoine's, and felt at home there, and became peculiarly attached to the quaint, rambling old restaurant, up stairs and down.

Antoine's has never been "fixed up." The cafe makes one think of such old Parisian restaurants as the Boeuf a la Mode, or the Tour d'Argent. Far from being a showy place, it is utterly simple in its decorations and equipment, but if there is in this country a restaurant more French than Antoine's, I do not know where that restaurant is.

Antoine Alciatore, founder of the establishment, departed nearly forty years ago to the realms to which great chefs are ultimately taken. Coming from France as a young man he established himself in a small cafe opposite the slave market, where he proceeded to cook and let his cooking speak for him. His dinde a la Talleyrand soon made him famous, and he prospered, moving before long to the present building. His sons, Jules and Fernand, were sent to Paris to learn at headquarters the best traditions of the haute cuisine, doing service as apprentices in such establishments as the Maison d'Or and Brabant's. Jules is now proprietor of Antoine's, while Fernand is master of the Louisiane.