In placing the following pages before the American public, no apology
is necessary by the writer, to excuse himself for the plain-spoken
manner in which he has given, in detail, the living character of “LIFE
IN NEW ORLEANS.” The design has been, from the beginning, to draw a
faithful picture of the heterogeneous mass of human beings, who mingle
together in this great charnel house, and to delineate, as near as
possible, the demonstrations of human passion, which, to a very great
degree, lead on the devotees of pleasure, unchecked by moral force, or
example, or precept, such as is brought to bear upon the evils that
exist here. When the time for the redemption of New Orleans will come,
judging from present appearances, no prophet, with any reputation as
such, I am sure, would undertake to predict. The difficulty to be
encountered, in beginning a work of reform, would be, a starting point;
for you would not know where to begin or to find one, who would not
first be obliged to “pull the beam out of his own eye.” Hence, the man
who would undertake the task, must be a brave one indeed, who would
have the daring to tell the whole truth, and in such manner as to
appeal to the moral sense of this people. To awaken that, by any means,
would be as fatal to the one who should attempt it, as would be to the
mirror, held before the fierce rage of the goaded bull.
A portrait of the city of New Orleans is a living picture of the world,
and in this particular, it differs from every other city; for here the
world is concentrated, in a living spectacle of almost every nation,
kindred, and tongue, and from whom are poured out the baser passions
that dictate the actions of men, in all the variety of shade and color,
that can come up from the dark recesses of the human soul. And it is
here we find the great mass of human beings, moved upon by impulses as
strange and mysterious and incomprehensible, as is their own future
destiny.
To the virtuous and good in the city of New Orleans, I have only to
say, that if I have drawn a faithful picture of “NEW ORLEANS, AS IT
IS,” you only are made to suffer by these pages, in the same degree as
the poor dog was, when caught in bad company. And to those who can see
themselves, “as in a glass,” I have only to refer:--
O wad some pow’r the giftie gie us,
To see ourselves as others see us.