USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana, giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal and military history, mercantile and commercial interests, banking, transportation, etc. > Part 20
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" Another prevalent prejudice against the Creoles is, that as a class, they are ignorant, indolent, dull of intelligence and callous to progress. Thus, in our time we read from correspondents of the press, who are now describing the resources of Western Louisiana, the bold assertion that the tardy advancement of that section of the State is attributable to the character of its early settlers, who were typical Creoles and Acadians, and too indolent for the exigencies of a rising country.
" It is far from our purpose to deny that among the Creoles, as well as with all other races, there are ignorant and slothful people. On the contrary, one of the objects embraced in the programme is to awaken that very class of our people to the necessity of education and to the demands of progress. But at the same time we intend to demonstrate and to protest against the injustice of selecting the weakest element of a race, and to hold it up as a type of that race. Why should writers of romance and of contemporaneous history seek their models of Creoles from the wild and unimproved prairies of the Attakapas and of the Opelousas, while they turn their faces from the many representative Creoles of this city and of other portions of the State, who yield to none in intel- ligence, in patriotism, and in refinement ?
" In contrast with the benighted Creoles, who are unjustly described as types of our race, we turn our eyes to those same parishes, which have given birth to and reared the Moutons, de Blancs, de Clonets, Olivets, Grevembergs, Fuseliers, Delahoussayes, Lastrapes, Simons, Gerards, Debalions, Garlands, Dupres, De Jeans, Voorhies, Chretiens, LeBlancs, Martels, Dumartrats and a host of others, whose names are synonomous with intelligence, valor and honor in that region and throughout Louisiana.
"These and many other similar objects are the land-marks of our fields of labor, and we suggest that they are as foreign to the formation and promotion of a political party as science or political economy; and we respectfully submit that all insuniations to the contrary are as unfounded as they are unauthorized.
"By order of the Board of control,
"A. L. ROMAN, Recording Secretary."
Commenting upon the organization of the Creole Association, the Times- Democrat, of June 2Ist, had the following to say:
" Such a movement, so plainly indicated, should have been started long be-
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
fore this, for it appears fully time, now that the whole country is busy talking and inquiring about them (the Creoles), when writers pretending to say what they are, have stated that they are not, for themselves to rise to a point of per- sonal explanation, as it were, and let the world know something authentic. Owing to these and many other considerations, the meeting to-day, at which the ladies have been invited, will be of great interest, and we heartily wel- come this inaugural movement of our native-born."
In connection with the organiztion of the Creole Association, an effort was made to establish a paper, "Le Trait d'Union," which should be, in a way, the official organ of the body. The late A. L. Roman was director of this projected paper. It was to have been published by the Creole Publishing & Printing Company of Louisiana, of whom the following gentlemen composed the board of directors : A. L. Roman, Emile Rivoire, Alcee Fortier, John Augus- tin and Lamar C. Quintero.
The Creole Association proved to be a chimera and was short lived. It contained within it what was the inevitable germ of dissolution, to wit : political aspiration. The late Hon. P. F. Poché was spoken of as Governor, and an ef- fort was made to focus the influences of the Creole Association upon his can- didacy. Internal differences ensued, and in the course of a short while the Cre- ole Association had passed out of existence, and with it, the Trait d'Union, which was to have been its organ.
Among some old documents found in the archives of Charles T. Soniat, who was one of the prime movers in the establishment of the Creole Association, and the notary who drew up all the papers, I found upon a yellowed piece of paper an almost undecipherable scrawl which possesses a peculiar interest. It is much interlined and changed, and evidently represents the idea of Mr. Soniat and his friends as to the true meaning of the word Creole. It reads as fol- lows: " None but white Louisiana Creoles shall be admitted as members in this organization. The Louisiana Creole is one who is a descendant of the original settlers in Louisiana under the French and Spanish governments, or, more gen- erally, one born in Louisiana of European parents, and whose mother-tongue is French." Beneath this and on the same piece of paper, scribbled in lead pencil in another handwriting, is the foliowing in French: "Un natif descendant de parents Européens parlant la langue Française ou Espagnole."
Glued, undated, into an old scrap book lent me by a sweet-eyed Creole lady, is the tribute to Creole women, which follows. It is the truest and most sym-
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
pathetic appreciation of the inspiring subject I have seen. No alien pen could have written what is at once so modest and so faithful, so I make sure it was written by one of themselves. The article is signed simply E. P., and I would I knew who wrote it, that the name might be here set down :
" Not obvious nor obtrusive, but retired, and with but few traces of archi- tectural display, the Creole's home is, nevertheless, the Creole's delight, and the pleasantest realization he has had of the poet's dream of Arcadia. It is so, as well to others than its merry-hearted inmates who may have been so fortunate as to be welcomed within its guarded penetralia, whether they find it located near the whispering waters of one of the beautiful bayous of Louisiana, on the skirts of the waving grass of its prairies, by the music-haunted shores of the Gulf, or scarcely seen through the foliage of oaks and magnolias overshadowing quiet, out-of-the-way villages, or in some of the quaint old streets of the almost deserted quartier Français of the ancient city of the Creoles. As these old Creole homes have been, from father to son, inhabited by persons similarly educated and endowed with the same peculiar tastes, the only changes which they have undergone are such as were adapted to the needs of each successive occupant, without materially altering the original design of the homestead. Their reverence for it as the home of their fathers has prevented them from making such additions even to its immediate surroundings as might offend the genus-loci of it, or disturb the repose of the sequestered, unsuspected paradise. The old trees-venerable centenarians of the forest-remain to this day where they were planted, untouched and unchanged only in their pendant moss-growths which hang from limb to limb like so many gray beards. The same expansive parterres, with curiously ornamental beds, in which flower the prolific vegeta- tion of southern climes; the same shell garden walks, bordered with trailing ivy and violets, are still there as they were arranged by the cunning hands of their ancestors. Winds, dews, and sunshine, indeed, seem to have leagued with each generation, as it came, against such influences as would mar the beauties of the old homestead, or steal from the revered demesne any of its wealth of flower or foliage, or in any way disturb the peaceful harmony of form and color which have been so pleasantly preserved in the long lapse of years.
" And so the charming old Creole homstead comes down to its occupants of to-day one of the few memorials of olden times, worth preserving, that has been well preserved. There are so many pleasant things all about its rooms and gal- leries and gardens that one wonders if there be any nook or corner to stow a
HOME OF FELICIEN WAGUESPACK-BUILT OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
new one in. There comes a time, however, during the warm summer months, when an added charm is bestowed upon the old homestead that comes to its neighborhood almost as a spell of enchantment. The pretty Creole maiden, born to it some dozen happy years before, returns to it, from the convent, where she had gone for her education, to spend the summer vacation at home. Like all delicately-reared Creole children, the little demoiselle is such a creature as Vesta and Venus would have moulded, had they been asked to form a petite model which could be expanded in a given time into mature beauty. One looks at the pretty and playful, yet sedate girl, and realizes in her budding beauties of form and feature the assured expectancy of future loveliness as one may, looking at the well-formed and healthful bud, predict the beautiful flower, or in the blossom anticipate the golden fruit that is sure to come in due season. Although she may not have crossed the flowery borders of young maindenhood, one can realize the fascination slumbering in her dark eyes, as their richly-fringed lids droop timidly over them, softening, but not diminishing their brilliance. Already her petite figure is formed with the subtle grace and lightness of a fairy, and her voice is as musical as the song of a bird, the rustle of forest leaves, or the rippling of waters, touched by aerial fingers. Of course, the little Creole maiden takes kindly to music. Life and melody were twin-born with her. She has been, as it were, cradled into song. It is mother's milk to her. Her earliest lullabies were operatic airs. She comes of a musical family, and, as in infancy, its essence supplied her inward feelings, it has quickened her outward observa- tion as she has grown up. She would be untrue to the traditions of her family, the female portion of it at least, if she were not a lover of the art musical. She is fond of the flowers of every hue that decorate the old garden-walks, which in their delicate loveliness, seem akin to her, and of the feathered songsters of the woodlands, who cease their song to listen to hers, when in the long summer vacation she visits their haunts, and feeds them with her own hands.
" Although the Creole maiden is naturally merry and vivacious, there is none of that wild rompishness about her for which others of the same age, but of different training, are often distinguished. Though, at the sound of her voice, Sisyphus would rest upon his stone and pause to listen, there is none of that boisterous merriment which, in other households, defy the rules of etiquette and the frowns of mothers. And yet in all the merry-makings of the neighborhood demoiselle seems at the summit of girlish felicity. In the gay parties given her as she is about to return to her stud'es in the convent -- the feast which ushers in
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
the fast-she is the merriest of all the demoiselles assembled, and in the livelier measures of the gay cotillion her tiny feet are scarcely visible in the mazes of the dance, fluttering indistinctly in the air like humming bird's wings.
" A year or two elapses-probably more, as fortune smiles or frowns upon the family. One day there comes into this old Creole homestead, with its oasis of verdure, a young girl, pretty as its flowers, happy as its birds. It is our little demoiselle of the vacation. She has finished her education at the convent, and enjoyed a brief but gay season at home or with some of her schoolmates. Orange blossoms shine like stars in the midnight of her hair, and a single rose- bud nestles in the white wonder of her bosom. She returns to her home with the benedictions of Holy Church, a Creole bride. One who had known her when she conned her lessons in the convent's shadowy aisles, realizes that she has not disappointed the promise of her girlhood. And seeing her now, the pretty bud expanded into the consummate flower, surely it is treason to any of the higher forms of beauty to regret the maturity of that which was so beauteous in its bud- ding glories, and wish
The flower to close, And be a bud again.
"Travel where you will, you will not meet with one so fair, so fresh, so smiling, so graceful, merry, and easily contented as she. See her once, whether in the happy family circle or in the dancing throng, and it is a picture framed in memory's halls, undimmed forever. The sun of a Southern clime has mel- lowed and matured what the graces of nature, art and fortune assisted in form- ing. Hers the charm that gives brilliancy and play to every feature. Hers the manner that purifies and exalts all who come within the reach of its influence. Hers the features that delight the eyes, and gladden the hearts of poets, artists and sculptors. She is a special providence to the little world she moves in.
"Of course hers is at once one of the brightest names of the illuminated page of society. In accordance with the law and custom of her peculiar circle, she selects her acquaintances and makes up her list of visiting friends, and is fastidious in her selection. She could not be more so if the destiny of the re- public were at stake. None but the select are to be found at her receptions, and to be admitted at her reunions is a much coveted honor. All of the surround- ings of her home, even down to the little bits of porcelain of rare 'Faience de Diana de Poitiers'-the heirlooms of honored ancestors-are comme il faut, elegant and refined. Her days are passed in fêtes and entertainments of every description.
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
"Is the fair Creole bride given over to the gauds and fopperies of fash- ionable life ? Nay. The brighter parts of her character, which shine with in- creasing lustre with each passing year, have had their source in another school. Her unbounding generosity, her true nobility of thought and feeling, her cour- age and her truth, her pure, unsullied thought, her untiring charities, her devo- tion to parents and friends, her sympathy with sorrow, her kindness to her inferiors, her dignified simplicity-where could these have been learned save at the altars of her faith ? At matins and vespers the profane eye that would disturb her devotions might see la belle Creole kneeling at the Prie dieu of her oratory, before the Holy Virgin, of unblemished Carrara, with as much aban- donment of spirit as others display before shrines where cardinals officiate, and scores of acolytes fling their censers.
"As the years pass the family tree has added branches to it. And as the family increases does the Creole matron give up her pleasant receptions and bals dansants? And has the fashionable world only left to it a memory and a tear for what was so brilliant and recherche ? Not so. Not for her the recluse life of the household cypher or the nursery drudge-
Retired as noontide dew, Or fountain in the noonday grove.
" It would be pitiable-worse, it would be false to all family tradition. Be- side that, society would rebel. Emeutes would prevail. Madame gracefully re- sumes the throne she had only temporarily vacated, and the social circle con- tinues to be distinguished for its elegance and refinement. She unites the duties of home with the charms of social life. Her graceful influence is felt in both, pleasantly reminding one of the orange tree of her own sunny groves, which bears in its beautiful foliage in the same month the golden fruit of ma- turity with the fair blossoms of its spring.
"With all her wealth of maternal affection, the Creole matron is not im- prisoned in her nursery to be devoured by her children. She has renewed her youth in her children. With her maternity
Another morn Has risen upon her mid-noon.
"Born of one, she is in her own person that masterpiece of nature's work -a good mother. Her motherly virtue is her cardinal virtue. Care for her chil- dren seems to have contributed indeed to the number and the sensibility of the chords of sympathy and affection. These tender offices of maternal affection
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
are, as it were, her field duty, while the other and manifold cares of the house- hold are her repose.
"The Creole matron, however, does not squander upon the infancy of her children all the health necessary to their youth and adolescence, nor does she destroy their sense of gratitude and her own authority, and impair both their constitution and temper by indiscriminate and indiscreet indulgence. She is a good little mother, and bestows her maternal eare in quality, rather than in quantity. She economizes her own health and beauty as she adds both to her offspring.
"The Creole matron is all the fonder of what her sterner sisters of the North deem frivolities because of her children. For them the gay reception, and the graceful danee are pleasant and harmless pastime, and reereation even ac- ceptable methods of education. In such indulgences her children learn that ease of manner, grace of movement, and the thousand little prettinesses which are so adorable in after years. She has nursed her babies, prepared them for their studies in the convent school, and she thus finishes an important branch of their education which the school books have neglected to furnish.
"And thus la belle Creole grows up almost to womanhood under her loving eye. She is not permitted to form intimaeies outside of home, nor yet with the first eome friends, the ordinary associates of the family, however good and respectable they may be, unless they are in manner and feeling acceptable. She is a brilliant little gem; one, however, possessing only the brillianey with- out the hardness of the diamond, but soft and yielding, and too apt to receive impression from eoarser materials. The watchful care of the Creole matron may be somewhat relaxed as the mind of demoiselle becomes more perfectly formed though the invisible rein is still held with a firm, though gentle hand.
"The Creole mnatrou is the inevitable duenna of the parlor, and the con- stant attendant chaperone at all public assembles. Outside of the sanctuary of demioselle's chamber as important a factor in all her movements as the air she breathes, this, her guardian angel, is at her side, an ever-vigilant guide, and protector against aught that may offend the fine feeling, the noble pride, or the generous heart of demoiselle. And when the time comes for la belle to marry she does not trust her own unguided fancies, although she may have read in story books of gallant knights, and had many pleasant dreams of such heroes as live only in the pages of poetry and romance. The Creole matron saves her all the trouble in the perplexing ehoiee of a husband, and manages the whole affair
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
with extreme skill, tact and ability, exactly as such things should be managed. The preliminaries arranged, the selected husband in futuro is invited to the house, the drawing-room cleared of all superfluities, and the couple left to an agreeable tete-a-tete, during which they may behave like sensible children and exchange vows and rings. The nuptial mass at the church follows, as there is no breaking of engagements or hearts in Creole etiquette, and a series of honey- moons also follow of never ending
Delicious deaths, soft exhalations, Of Soul, dear and divine annihilations ; A thousand unknown rites Of joys and rarefied delights.
" In the Creole matron's matrimonial experience there are neither marriage automatons, nor unpitied wrecks on folly's shore.
" The Creole matron grows old, as she does everything else, gracefully. She has not been shaken by the blasts of many passions, or enervated by the stimu- lants of violent sensations. There is no paled reflex of her youthful warmth in the glance she gives to the past, with its buried joys, or the present, with its all-pervading contentment and happiness. She defies care, determines that the torch of friendship shall be inextinguishable, and demonstrates, in her own ex- perience, that the loves of capricious youth can be perpetuated in frozen age.
" Although the vile spirit of avordupois has added magnificence to her em- bonpoint, and her waltzing days are over, her pretty well-shaped feeet still beat time in unison with the spirit of its music. Although hers is stateliness to the very summit of humble pride, it is yet softened by the taste of its display. She is an artiste of conversation, and her bon mot is uttered with such natural avoid- ance of offense, and the arch allusion is so gracefully applied that she gives one the idea of a new use of language, and yet she is a marvelous listener. Her complaisance is ever ready ; words come of themselves upon your lips merely from finding themselves so obligingly listened to; and whilst others seem to follow the conversation, it is she who directs it, who seasonably revives it, brings it back to the field from which it has strayed, restores it to others without show- ing it, stopping at the precise point where they can resume it, and never going beyond it, lest her marvelous tact in its skilful management should betray it- self. And thus, without perceiving it, she has led the thoughts of others, helped to elicit them, guessed them before they were expressed, supplied them with words, and gathered them on the lip, as they come into happy utterance. And
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STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
the gay world may not know how much of the stately dignity the polished ease, the refined elegance that reign supreme in her household is the inspiration of its gay mistress, who remains, in age as in youth, the life and ornament of it.
" And so with the snows of many winters on her head and the sunshine of many summers in her heart, surrounded by three or four generations of children, blessing and blessed, the Creole matron is at length gathered to her fathers. And the beautiful flowers of the earth tell where she, the still more beautiful flower-in life-lies buried in the consecrated ground of the Holy Church, and sunlight and starlight are not the only visitors to its ever fragant and welcome shade."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MEDICAL HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
BY DR. GAYLE AIKEN.
HE gradual development of medicine in the city of New Orleans is a subject of peculiar interest. We see before us a battlefield, on which a gallant little army of devoted men contended with gigantic forces of disease, pestilence and death. To trace the unselfish and heroic lives of some of the physicians of the past and of the present, to describe the environment in which they labored, the successive visitations of epidemic maladies which they combated, and thus to give some idea of their tremendous life work, will be the purpose of the present chapter. T
The city of New Orleans, situated in latitude 29 degrees, 57 minutes and 15 seconds, and in longitude 13 degrees, 5 minutes and 45 seconds from Washington, with an elevation of 0 to 17 feet, possesses a semi-tropical climate, and the preva- lent moisture of the atmosphere is clearly shown by the following table :
.
TAKEN FROM THE WEATHER BUREAU RECORDS EXTENDING BACK TO 1870.
Partly Mean Prevailing Clear Cloudy Cloudy Rainy Rain in Hygrom-
Months.
Temp.
Winds.
Days. Days.
Days. Days. Inches.
etry.
January
54.0
N.
9
12
10
11
5.44
74ª
February
58.7
N.
9
10
9
10
4.68
715
March
62.3
S.E.
11
11
9
10
5.46
71ª
April
69.0
S.E.
11
12
7
6
4.96
714
May
74.8
S.E.
12
14
5
9
4.95
717
June
80.6
S.E.
9
15
6
14
6.49
742
July
82.6
S.E.
9
17
5
16
6.88
744
August
81.8
S.E.
8
17
6
14
6.20
752
September
78.2
E.
12
12
6
11
5.05
743
October
70.1
N.
16
10
5
7
3.21
72
November
61.2
N.
12
9
9
9
4.26
72°
December
55.9
N.
9
11
11
11
4.63
74ª
204
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS.
On February 13, 1899, the temperature fell to 6.8 above zero, the coldest weather known in this city during the century. The river presented a remarkable spectacle, being full of floating ice. In spite of this intense cold the yellow fever germ survived, and quickened into life in the following summer.
It will be seen that for six months of the year the prevailing winds are from the southeast, and during those six months we have the heaviest rainfall. The air is saturated with moisture and the penetrating power of the solar rays is obstructed. In consequence of this the extremes of heat so often felt in more northern latitudes are rarely experienced here, and sunstrokes and prostrations from heat are of in- frequent occurrence. For this reason, also, radiation takes place very slowly, and the summer nights are almost as warm as the days; but the winds which prevail during this season, being from the southeast, and passing over the Gulf of Mexico, bring healthful influences, chlorine and other antiseptic properties, and thus render our summers generally healthy, with a smaller death rate than in the winter.
In such an environment, tropical and malarial diseases found a ready foothold, and the early settlers were decimated by these maladies and by small-pox. The first appearance of yellow fever is lost in the obscurity of a past, the records of which have been almost obliterated. This was due to various circumstances. The unsettled, nomadic, and yet monotonous life of a struggling colony presented little that seemed worthy of record, and the transference of Louisiana from France to Spain, from Spain to France, and from the latter to the United States, resulted in the loss of documents of public interest, since they were written in foreign tongues, and have long been hopelessly entombed in the archives of distant lands. The early physicians, too, who came to the colony, often had in view the sole object of acquir- ing a fortune and returning to their European homes, and while in Louisiana had no thought of collaboration or organization for scientific research and record. It is, therefore, wisest to acknowledge that the introduction of yellow fever is still an unsolved problem, and has been attributed to many different sources. Dr. Dowler avers that yellow fever did not appear in New Orleans for nearly a century and a half after the Northern States had been devastated by many epidemics. Noah Webster, in his work on "Pestilence," says that when white men arrived in New England in 1620, some of the Indian tribes had been reduced in numbers from thirty thousand to three hundred, by a terrible fever two years previously. The sur- vivors asserted that those affected "bled from the nose and turned yellow, like a garment of that color, which they pointed out as an illustration."
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