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 48
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The Home for Homeless Women was established in 1888, since which time it has given shelter to many hundreds of needy and friendless women. For the year ending 1898 there were admitted 122 adults and 34 children. The Home is located on Polymnia street, between St. Charles avenue and Carondelet street.
The Home for Homeless Men was instituted about 1896 for the purpose of giving men out of employment, but willing to work, an opportunity to earn food and shelter until steady work can be procured. The principal industry is the sale of wood and coal, the wood being sawed and split by the inmates, some of whom canvass for orders and collect outstanding accounts. There is also a printing estab- lishment on the premises conducted by practical printers, where various styles of cards, circulars, etc., are made to order. The institution is now self-supporting, and is doing much good.
It is situated at the corner of Chippewa and Toledano streets
Other homes for the indigent are:
Home for Aged and Destitute Women, Magnolia, corner Lafayette.
Home for the Aged and Infirm (city charity), Annunciation and Calliope.
Hospital de la Ste. Famille (for old colored people), 49 Saint Bernard avenue. House of Refuge (destitute colored girls), Annunciation.
Widows' Home, 352 Esplanade avenue.
Shakespeare Alms House, North Rampart and Arabella.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE AMUSEMENTS OF NEW ORLEANS.
BY B. R. FORMAN, JR.
`HE principal and most characteristic amusement in New Orleans is the Carnival, which will be treated under another head. The next most important and unique amusement is the French Opera. Then there are the theaters and racing and other sports. There is very little driving in New Orleans, although there is more than there used to be. Hunting and fishing has always been extensive.
The pleasure-loving character of the people, which takes its origin partly from their inherited tendencies from the French, which has leavened even that part of the population which is of English descent, and partly from the location of the city in the South, finds its vent principally in the Carnival, which is the most extensive and magnificent in all the world and in all history, and in the Creole cooking, which, both in private families and in the public restaurants, is absolutely unsurpassed.
SIGHT-SEEING.
One of the amusements which strangers always indulge in when they come to New Orleans, and in which residents of the city could follow them in as to many things, with no small degree of pleasure, on account of the number of curious things to be seen, is the amusement of sight-seeing. Most people are eager to see the sights of the old Creole quarter as the oldest and most historical part of the city ; but the American quarter also is well worth seeing, and can bear comparison with any of the other cities of the country. In attempting to see the sights of New Orleans one usually starts from Canal street and goes down Royal or Char- tres towards Jackson square. Along Royal street may be noticed in the first block at old No. 18, what used to be the famous gambling saloon, now Miller's Billiard Saloon. On Customhouse street, the first street from Canal, a few doors from Royal street, is the house where the celebrated Lopez, in 1851, organized his filibustering expedition against Cuba. A little further down, near St. Louis street, old No. 110, imbedded in the banquette on either side of a huge stone gateway, are two cannon
T'
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buried so deep in the earth as scarcely to be noticed by the ordinary passer-by on the street. Here were, in the old days, the Spanish barracks, and here were also quartered the soldiers of his most Catholic Majesty during the Spanish Colonial days. Opposite the old commanderia is the Hotel Royal, now the St. Louis Hotel, at one time the State House, one of the places of the most historical interest in New Orleans. Here the negroes were sold at auction, in slave days, at an exchange which was located in the building. Here was where the Radical authorities were besieged at the termination of the reconstruction days by the citizens, who formed themselves into an army of revolutionists to oppose them and had trained artil- lery upon the building. On Royal street are several second-hand stores which sell antiques, many of them very valuable and genuine, although some of them spurious -notably the beds in which Lafayette slept when he came to New Orleans, where he once passed a night, of which four are exhibited-beautifully carved four posters, with prices ranging from two to three hundred dollars on account of the historical interest.
On Royal, at the corner of Hospital, is the famous "Haunted House," the decorations of which are remarkable; carved doors, carvings on the inside, bronzed imitation of an elaborate sort of the ancien regime. This is a house that is de- scribed by Mr. Cable in his Strange True Stories of Louisiana, as belonging to a lady who so maltreated her slaves that she was mobbed by the citizens whose moral sense was outraged by her wicked behavior. Turning into Chartres and coming down again towards Canal, at the corner of Ursulines, stands the old Ursu- lines Convent. It is now the Archbishop's palace. Still coming down Chartres, at the corner of St. Ann is the Jackson Square, the Plaza des Armas, under the Spanish, Place d'Armes under the French, where the Louisiana patriots were executed by Don O'Reilly when he took possession in the name of the Spanish Government, and where General Jackson triumphed after the Battle of New Or- leans. Jackson Statue is in the centre, by Clark Mills, a duplicate of the statue in Washington. On either side of the square are the Pontalba buildings, named for Madame Pontalba, a daughter of Don Almonaster y Roxas, one of the early celebrities of New Orleans, who founded the Cathedral and the Charity Hos- pital, and who lies buried in the Cathedral at the right of the altar, with the inscription over his grave of his name and titles, Chevalier of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, etc. In the railings of the galleries of the Pontalba buildings, are to be noticed the monogram, "A. P.," Almonaster-Pontalba. Facing the square stands the Cathedral St. Louis, the oldest church in New
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Orleans, and one of the buildings of the most historical interest in the city. On either side, stand what are now the Court House buildings-the building now oc- cupied by the Civil District Court on the north side, originally the presbytery building for the occupation of the priests, and on the south side, the building now occupied by the Supreme Court, which in ancient days was the Cabildo or City Hall. On the gallery of this building the officials stood when the territory was trans- ferred from Spain to France and from France to the United States. Upon the entablature near the roof, are cannon and cannon balls of ancient design with the American Eagle inserted after the cession to the United States, where in turn were the emblems successively of his most Christian majesty and his most Catholic majesty the Kings of Spain and France. Coming down Chartres street, opposite the Supreme Court building, at the corner of St. Peter, is what is now a barroom, which is one of the most ancient buildings in the city, originally the oldest hotel west of the Alleghany Mountains. On Chartres, at the corner of St. Louis, is an old building with a cupola, which was built for the occupation of Napoleon, by an enthusiastic admirer of his in New Orleans, who had planned an expedition to rescue the Emperor from St. Helena, and built the house for his occupation, upon his anticipated arrival in New Orleans. But the Emperor died before the expedi- tion set out. Between St. Louis and Canal streets, on Chartres, are the New Orleans bird stores, which are very curious, filled with all sorts of birds and alligators and snakes, tropical birds from Central and South America, and curious animals, such as fanciers collect.
There have been outlined above a very small number of the things that are to be seen in the exploration of New Orleans. In the ancient city the sights are inexhaustible. There are fan light transoms of the old regime and ancient archi- tecture-Spanish and French-with the dormer windows, batten shutters, and court yards and Spanish water jars of the most romantic description.
A stranger should not omit a visit to the chapel of St. Roch, which is an absolutely mediaeval institution, and to the Lugger Landing at the Picayune Tier at the head of Hospital street, with the Luggers with their red lateen sails, rocking at the moorings, and the lugger men squatting on the decks, a scene that the artists love to paint. The luggers come from the oyster beds of the South, and are laden with oysters. They have all sorts of queer names, too-San Remo, Three Brothers, The Admiral Techetof, The Josephine. It is one of the most picturesque sights in the city.
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OPERA AND THEATERS.
The beginning of the theatrical business in New Orleans dates back to 1791, when a company of French comedians was brought over and played in the city. According to the chronicles, this is the first theatrical engagement of any company in New Orleans.
The first theater in New Orleans was erected in 1808, the Theatre St. Philippe on St. Phillipe street. The building was afterwards turned into the Washington Ball Room. The St. Phillipe street school-house is now upon the same location. It was at this theater that Noah M. Ludlow, one of the celebrated of the early managers, first produced an English play, opening his season in 1807 with Tobin's comedy, "The Honeymoon."
The newspapers of 1810 make mention of a theater on St. Peter strcet, but very little is known of it, and the writers of the history of New Orleans upon that period make no mention of it.
The famous theater of the old days was the "Orleans Theater," at the corner of Royal and Orleans streets. In 1868 it was burnt and there is now only left a wing of it, which shows some of the ancient architecture. This wing is now the colored convent.
In the early days, it was in this theater that the opera was introduced in New Orleans, which was the first opera in America. The citizens at that time were, as now, enthusiastic with regard to music, and the operatic performances were elaborate and from a large repertoire: Rosini, Meyerbeer, Auber, Mozart and other great composers were held in New Orleans long before the other cities of the country had obtained that degree of civilization. The audiences were fashionable, and so great was the love of the public for operas that the performances extended to a length which now seems extraordinary, the operas beginning at half past 6 and con- tinuing some times until 12 o'clock.
The first building upon the site of this theater was erected in 1813 by a joint stock company. This was burnt in 1816 and the Orleans Theater, bearing that name, was built in 1818 by John Davis, who had become the sole proprietor of the first theater. The cost was one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The architecture of the lower story is described as Roman Doric, although not pure, and the upper story is Corinthian composite. The finish inside was elaborate. There was a large pit or parquette and loges grillés, and all the accessories of a com- plete opera house. In 1819 the Orleans Theater was opened by the second dramatic company that was ever imported to America from France. The first has already been mentioned as having played in New Orleans in 1791.
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. THE NEW ST. CHARLES HOTEL.
The New St. Charles Hotel was builded on the site of the historic edifice of the same name in 1894. In 1895, A. R. Blakely, who had been successively in charge of the St. James Hotel, New York City; the West End Hotel, Long Branch; and the Windsor Hotel, New York City, left the latter hostelry to assume control of the New St. Charles, New Orleans. Under his able management the traditional excellence of the hotel has been maintained and its reputation extended abroad as an important factor in attracting tourists and others to New Orleans. The hotel has 450 rooms and is equipped throughout in the most sumptuous manner. Mr. Blakely has identified himself intimately with the business interests of New Orleans and as President of the Progressive Union, an organization which reflects his strong and vigorous personality. He has been, perhaps, the most prominent figure of latter days in all movements looking towards the improvement of the city.
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Connected with the Orleans Theater and forming part of it, was the Orleans Ball Room. Sometimes they boarded over the floor of the parquette and threw the whole into one dancing floor. The ball-rooms were built in 1817. It was here that the famous Quadroon Balls were given that figure so largely in the Romances of New Orleans and in the tales of the travelers who visited the city in the early days.
It seems strange that the theater and ball-room, in the changes of time, should have been transformed into a convent. No one now looking at its wide old façade of rusty brown, without adorninent, and seeing the colored religeuses pass- ing in and out the heavy door, would suppose that here used to be the most famous theater of ante-bellum days, and the ball-room where quadroon balls were given that are to be read of in the guide-books and the romances of Mr. Cable.
On Camp, near Poydras, where the Moresque building used to be, was the American Theater. It was burnt on the 20th of July, 1842, and then rebuilt and reopened on the 5th of December, 1842. There was another American Theater on Camp street-the "Old Camp," as it was affectionately called by the public and by the actors who played in it. It was erected in 1823-1824 by James A. Caldwell, Esq., who is famous as one of the most prominent of the New Orleans managers of the day.
The Gaiety Theater, which was, at one time, named the Varieties, was on Gravier street, behind the Cotton Exchange. Varieties Alley takes its name from the old theater.
The Bijou Theater, which was afterwards Werlein Hall, stood at the corner of Baronne and Perdido streets.
The old St. Charles Theater-"Old Drury"-was perhaps the most famous of all of the New Orleans theaters. It was erected by Noah M. Ludlow and Sol Smith. They built it in sixty days as a tour de force, in their rivalry with James M. Cald- well, who was the successful theatrical manager of the day and against whom they had entered into competition. The old St. Charles has been recently burnt and has not been rebuilt. For many years it was as famous as the St. Charles Hotel. It was the largest theater in town, one of the oldest, and the theater where the most famous actors and companies played. Here all the actors of celebrity in America played as long as the old house stood-Keene, Macready, Ellen Tree, Charlotte Cushman, Joseph Jefferson, Junius Brutus Booth, John Wilkes Booth, Edwin Booth, Buckstone, Fanny Ellsler, ctc.
In the annals of the St. Charles are many anecdotes of the famous players who played there ; the story of Joe Jefferson's being fined when he was a young man for
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disorderly conduct in his dressing room, and Mr. George Vanderhoff, who used to be very famous in the old days of Hamlet and as Claude Lorraine in the Lady of Lyons. When Mr. Vanderhoff was performing the latter part he was interrupted, as he was carrying Pauline up stage when the lady had fainted in the play, by an unmannerly man in the audienee who shouted out to him, "Kiss her!" So great was the chivalry of the audience in those days that the offender was bodily taken up by the audience and passed from hand to hand and incontinently ejected from the house. In his "Leaves From the Actor's Notebook," where he records the anecdote, Mr. Vanderhoff remarks that the next lines of the play were, "There! We are strangers now." They were received by the audience with checrs and laugh- ter.
Then there are stories of the daring of John Wilkes Booth, who, when the eity was occupied by General Butler, during the war, would eross from the St. Charles Theater to the bar aeross the way, yelling out cheers for the Confederacy and hal- loaing for the Bonny Blue Flag, a proceeding which was, in those days, considered a feat as much as a man's life was worth.
The Academy of Musie, elose adjoining the St. Charles Theater, was for many years a favorite play-house in New Orleans. While a small theater, the companies that played there were good, and until in its later days, when music hall attrac- tions were brought there, the audiences were refined. It was at the Academy of Musie that the farewell production of Bidwell's Stock Company was given. They played Victor Durand and the house was packed from pit to gallery, and the eom- pany, which was one of the best stock companies that ever played in New Orleans, or any other city, was given an enthusiastic farewell. It must be remembered that all of the notable aetors played in that splendid company. It was from the stage of the Academy of Music, during the civil war, the actor Harry McCarthy first sang "The Bonny Blue Flag," which became one of the national songs of the Con- federaey.
The Grand Opera House, which was at first the Varieties Theater, is still owned by the Varieties Association. It is celebrated for one of the most magnificent en- tranees in America. With Messrs. Klaw & Erlanger's new Tulane and Crescent Theaters, it is one of the three theaters in New Orleans.
The French Opera House was erected in 1860 and designed by Gallier, one of the celebrated architeets of the time. It is situated on Bourbon street, at the corner of Toulouse, and while the exterior is not particularly prepossessing, except with regard to its size, it is equipped in every respeet as an opera house should be, with
STANDARD HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS. 469
a parquette, loges, secondes, troisièmes, quatriemes, loges grillés, baignoires grillés, dress eircle and boxes and foyer, all decorated to a high degree and of the most magnificent kind. Here the fashionable gather on opera nights and grand opera is given as elaborately as in Paris. The artists are singers of high priee and great merit, and there are trained choruses and ballets. The companies are capable of performing opera bouffe, as well as grand opera. The choruses are carefully trained, consisting of a number of people who make a livelihood by singing in the ehoruses, and who are singers of a marked degree of ability. In the audienees, besides the fashionable, there are some who are genuinely musieal. Among the population of New Orleans are many people who are musical by habit and by inheritance. For many years the opera has been established in New Orleans, and before that it existed in France, whence the ancestors of many of the opera choruses eome. Both grand opera and opera bouffe existed in New Orleans long before it was established in any other eity of America. The opera is one of the features which distinguishes the eity and of which it is proud. It would render it remarkable among American eities even if it had no other unique feature.
LOTTERY.
During the reconstruction days, Mr. Charles Howard and Mr. John A. Morris, the latter of whom eamc to New Orleans from the North, established the Louisiana State Lottery, which for many years had a renown throughout the country. It was, perhaps, the largest lottery that ever existed in the United States. The profits were enormous and the proprietors amassed immense wealth, becoming multi-millionaires and being known as lottery kings.
Through its wealth and through the corruption which existed in Louisiana polities during the early reconstruction days, the lottery company secured from the Legislature a charter which gave it a monopoly and the prestige of being the State Lottery, and rendered its position, for a time, impregnable. The prizes werc large, tiekets were sold throughout the country and throughout the world. Besides the grand drawings, for the poor people who could not afford the price of the tick- ets to the grand drawings, the company established daily drawings, at which tickets were sold for small sums, thus adding to their clientele the poorest classes of people, as well as those who were better to do, who could better afford the indulgenee. The political influcnee of the lottery was great, and necessarily so, inasmuch as to seeure its monopoly it was necessary for it to control every Legislature. It was this, to- gether with the reassertion of the moral sense of the people, which was shoeked by
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the bad repute to which Louisiana was brought in other parts of the country where lotteries had been abolished and were prohibited, that finally brought the lottery to an end. A vigorous campaign was started against the renewal of its charter, and in spite of the most strenuous efforts on the part of the lottery people in the campaign in which Governor Foster was first elected, the lottery was destroyed and no longer has an existence in Louisiana. It is said that at the last Legislature at which the charter of the company was considered, as much as one hundred thousand dollars was offered and paid for the votes of the members of the Legisla- ture in favor of the company. It is to the credit of the people of Louisiana that, in spite of its immense wealth and its unscrupulous use of it, and its entrenched political position, the lottery was finally destroyed. While the Honduras lottery; which has succeeded the Louisiana lottery, still exists, and its tickets as well as the tickets of other petty foreign lottery companies, in violation of the law, are still sold in New Orleans, compared to what the business once was, the lottery business in New Orleans is now a mere bagatelle.
When the history of New Orleans, during the existence of the lottery, comes to be written, the extent to which the evil spread will be found to have been enor- mous. Immense numbers of people patronized it in all positions and in all walks of life. It spread even to the domestic servants, whom, it was said, filched the mar- ket money from their employers to invest in the daily drawings. Business men regularly every month set apart a portion of their profits to invest in lottery tickets. Clerks on small salaries took one or more tickets as regularly as pay-day came around. The anxiety of the lottery ticket holder at the time of the drawings, the scenes at the policy shops, where the tickets were sold, the stories of the fortunes that were drawn in prizes and the fortunes that were expected during weary years and never drawn, would form a fit theme for the writer of fiction.
GAMBLING.
In the early days New Orleans was regarded as an El Dorado by the gamblers, who flocked to the city from all parts of the country and of the world. It was partly on account of the cosmopolitan character of the people, who were French and Span- ish, with an admixture of foreigners from other parts of the country, and partly because gambling was more universal in the early days all over the world than it is now. The moral sense of civilized countries has been developed to an extent that has diminished the practice to a considerable extent, although it is not entirely suppressed. The early Creoles were very fond of gambling, and the Americans who
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came to this city were not far behind. It is related of an old Creole planter that he named two streets that were laid out in his plantation, which became part of the city, "Craps" and "Bagatelle," on account of the two fortunes which he had lost at those games. Faro, roulette and vingt-et-un were played at the gambling house at the corner of Orleans and Bourbon streets. Another famous ranch was on Bayou St. John.
Very large sums were said to have been lost in these early days, and the most distinguished people played. Colonel Grymes and Edward Livingston, who were leaders of the bar, were said to have been very heavy plungers. John Davis, the theatrical manager, is said to have made a considerable fortune in various sorts of gambling games, and besides his theatrical ventures, opened gambling rooms, which were the sources of the capital he used in his theatrical business. In 1832 there were not less than fourteen large gambling establishments; and the evil grew to such an extent with the public games and the encouragement of private games, brag and ecarté, which followed upon the great indulgence in public gambling, that the Legislature in 1832 passed a law to suppress gambling. At the time of the Mexican war it broke out again, and rondeau and loto were added to the old games which had made New Orleans the famous center for gentlemen of the green cloth. At old No. 4 Carondelet street there was a famous establishment, where now the Louisiana Club is located, for many years the domicile of the Boston Club. This was run by McGrath & Company, and was visited by prominent gamblers from all over the country, where the pools on the Metarie races were sold. It was elegantly fitted up and the business done was positively enormous. It afterwards became Sherwood & McGratlı's. It is said that the losses in one night's play at McGrath's amounted to as much as cighty thousand dollars.
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