The dwelling houses in New Orleans, at least seven-tenths of them,
are the most miserable apologies for the comfort and convenience of a
family that can be imagined, and there are but very few modern built,
and well arranged, and completed, with a view to make a house desirable
for a residence. The reason for this, doubtless, is the excessively
_high price for building lots_; and the enormous expense of building
obliges those who build, to erect as cheap buildings as possible. A
house designed for renting, also, is built as cheap as can be done,
for such an one will command nearly as much rent as the most splendid
mansion, if it has equally as much room and as favorable location.
Hence you will find, in every part of the city, in the best locations,
the miserable old Spanish house, only one story high, renting from
eight to twelve hundred dollars a year, and the building is not worth
twenty dollars. And yet these buildings will remain where they are
until swept away, either by fire or water. The excessively high price
of rents for buildings, for any purpose, together with the enormous
expense of living, will very much retard the rapid improvement, and
permanent advancement of New Orleans.
“GOING SOUTH TO SEEK A FORTUNE.”
The impression prevails very generally, in almost every section of this
country, that wealth can be accumulated with great ease, and quite
rapidly here, and this has caused a great excess of business men, and
much competition. Consequently profits are small, and but very few make
annually more than enough to meet expenses, and many very soon become
satisfied with the experiment of “going South” to make a fortune.
You will not, therefore, find but very few “_old merchants_,” in New
Orleans. And with this view also, “to seek their fortunes,” will you
find hundreds of young men, in the fall of the year, wending their way
South, to look up a way of business for themselves, and yet not one in
every fifty obtain employment, or meet with any thing to do. I have
seen many such come into New Orleans, with letters of introduction and
recommendation of the highest character, and failing to get business,
and too proud to return home, and being on expense, and without any
income, would soon spend all their means in hand, and finally, from
necessity as it were, would drop into the floods and whirlpools of
dissipation, and be taken as straitway down to ruin and destruction,
as if they were forced by the irresistible laws of gravitation. I
have also watched the bright hopes and cheerful countenance of many a
young man when he first looked in upon the wild and animating scenes
which are here presented. He feels at once a new impulse stealing
over him, and the bright visions of his fancy, which have led him on,
he imagines will be more than realized, for the _substance_ and the
_life_ before him he believes to be real, and in which he will soon
participate. But little does he dream that all he witnesses is as
false and groundless as the baseless fabric of his own wild fancy.
I have thus followed him, a few short months, moving among the busy
throng that fill up these streets, and finally night after night have
left him in the low roofless hovel, feeding at the table with the most
miserable and degraded herd of Slaves in human form. This is no sketch
of scenes drawn out in vivid colors of fancy, for it is stern, living
reality, and language contains no power to embellish them, for they are
before you, in the history of thousands, who have been buried here,
and gone down to a premature grave. And here let me say to the young
man of the north, if you should have a desire, or an idea come up, of
“_going South_,” check it at once,--crush the thought, ere it brings
before you treasures of a golden harvest, which you may imagine is in
store for you there; for let me assure you that the day has long since
passed when fortunes can be easily gathered at the “_South_,” or in New
Orleans; and no other place in this widespread country can be found,
where so few realize the anticipations which urge them on to engage in
the pursuits and business of the day and when the hour of trial comes,
and blasted hopes gather thick around, so many sink away into the
vortex of irretrievable ruin, and if ever known again it is amid the
scenes of vice and dissipation, herding with vagabonds and gamblers.
And this is the fate of hundreds of the business men of New Orleans.
And this too is no fancy sketch, but the reality of every day life. And
yet these men are worthy of a better fate.