For a time, so great was the increase of the class of vagrants, that
the common council was forced to pass a law requiring the police to
arrest every such person on “suspicion” of having no regular calling,
and if no one will vouch for his ability to gain an honest living, his
doom is the work-house without further ceremony.
To be sick and die, and disposed of after death in New Orleans, is
_more_ than a fearful scene to be presented for the contemplation of
any one away from his kindred, his home and friends; and there is
not a place in the wide world where a man would have so many fearful
forebodings in passing these ordeals, from the sick chamber to the
tomb, as would come upon him while alone, and in the silent watchings
of the night he could feel his strength gradually giving away as the
hour of his dissolution drew nigh. And when he takes his sick bed, in
almost every individual, the impression is almost certain to come upon
him that recovery is very doubtful; and every thing by which he is
surrounded, and all the circumstances under which he is placed, have a
strong tendency to make the impression change to certain conviction;
and the longer he is sick the more clearly can he anticipate the day of
his death. These convictions come upon him more firmly, from the fact
that if he has been long in the city, he learns that it is the most
sickly and dying place on earth. Hence he looks forward with dread and
fear to the approach of the morrow. And what renders the sick room more
fearful and terrific in this city to the stranger--to the individual
without a family--to one alone and without kindred and near friends,
is all that he requires, all his wants, and all that is done for him,
come from those who have an eye single to his purse, and upon that the
nurse, the attendants, and physician lay hold, as if “to the victor
belong the spoils.” The charge per day for nursing is usually from two
to four dollars, attending physician from four to eight dollars, and
prescriptions for medicine at apothecaries, from ten to twenty dollars
a week. Cupping and bleeding and incidental expenses at least twenty
dollars more; and thus, if he can get through a course of sickness for
less than one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars a week, he may
think he has had his day under a very lucky star indeed. And then if
he should die, whatever amount of means he may have, it will all be
consumed, for every bill will be made out with special reference to the
amount which he may possess. Such is the _fashion_ in this city, and
few there are who do not follow it to the letter.