the sneak, the bully, the fop-the man who don't take a newspaper (or, taking it, don't promptly pay for it)-the politician, that thinks all people wrong who don't stand on his narrow platform-Ah! give a plentiful supply of motley to them all, for they could truly wear it."

A sympathetic description of the morning docket of the police court enlivened one issue of the Crescent. "Even as one step is above or below the other, so sink we down or rise in the estimation of the public. Life has its steps— its days are but the rounds upon the ladder, like that seen by Jacob-which must carry the true and just to happiness and heaven." The old drunkard who had sunk to the depths excited Whitman's sorrow, and the faded beauty descended to the vilest degradation, a police court, found a friendly pen in the hands of the journeyman journalist.

It was his delight, his biographers inform us, to wander about the levees and to mingle among the crowds of the old French Market in New Orleans. In one of the numbers of the Crescent he relates a tramp about town. "Got up early from my bed and my little room near Lafayette. The sun had scarcely risen, and every object seemed lazy and idle. On some German ships moored at the levee, I saw about a dozen sailors with bare legs, scouring the decks. They seemed to be as happy as lords, although their wages are not more than six dollars month. Saw a negro throw a large stone at the head of his mule, because it would not pull an empty dray-wished I owned the negrowouldn't treat him as he treated the mule, but make him a present of a cow-skin, and make him whip himself. Saw a poor longshoreman lying down on a bench; had on a red shirt and blue cottonade pantaloons; coarse brogans, but no stockings. He had spent all his money in a tippler's shop the night previous for grog, and when his last picayune was discovered to be gone, he was kicked out of the house. Thought there were some landlords who deserved to be bastinadoed. Saw a shipping master riding at full speed upon a small pony. He would have been willing

to have freighted every ship in port if he could have been 'elected.' Saw him go on board a vessel and come off again, with, in all probability, a flea in his ear. He kicked the pony in its sides, and after dismounting went to the nearest grog-shop. How he kept 'his spirits up by pouring spirits down.' He didn't get the freight of that ship. The sun had just showed his golden face above the grey clouds of the horizon, and bathes with lustre the distant scenery. Now come the bustle and business of the day. Shopkeepers are opening their stores; stevedores are hurrying on board their respective ships. Those stevedores! They are for the most part honest men, and physically speaking, work harder than any other class of the community. Many of them have little tin kettles on their arms which contain their simple dinner repast. When their work is over they get to their 'bones,' and then separate for their different homes to woo 'tired nature's sweet restorer'-sleep; or mayhap to spend their day's earning in a grog-shop. There's a big red-faced man walking hastily up the levee. He's a custom's officer, and is hurrying on board his vessel for fear that if not there by sunrise, the captain may report him to the collector. Went into St. Mary's market; saw a man, a good old man in a blue jacket and cottonade pantaloons, with a long stick of sugar cane in his hands. Wondered who he was, and much surprised to find he was a lawyer of some repute. At the lower end of the market there was a woman with a basket of live crabs at her feet. Although she loved money she had no particular affection for a press from the claws of the ungainly creatures which she handled with a pair of iron tongs. Saw the 'cat-fish man,' who declared that his fish were just caught, and were as tender as a piece of lamb. Went up the Market and saw rounds of beef, haunches of venison and legs of mutton, that would have made a disciple of Graham forswear his hermit-like appetite. Came down town-shops all openand heard two boys calling out the names of the different papers they had for sale. These boys are 'cute' as foxes

and as industrious as ants. Some of them who now cry out 'ere's ye, here's the-, here's the,' may in time be sent to Congress. Went down town further-all was business and activity-the clerks were placing boxes on the pavements-the persons employed in fancy stores were bedecking their windows with their gaudiest goods, and the savory smell of fried ham, broiled beef steaks, with onions, etc., stole forth from the half unshut doors of every restaurant. Passed down Conti street and looked at the steamboat wharf. It was almost lined with steamboats; some were puffing up steam and throwing up to the sky huge columns of blackened smoke some were lying idle, and others discharging sugar, molasses, cotton and everything else that is produced in the great Valley of the Mississippi. Came to the conclusion that New Orleans was a great place and no mistake. Went still further downvisited the markets and saw that every luxury given to sinful man by sea and land, from a shrimp to a small potato, were there to be purchased. Came home again and took breakfast-tea, a radish, piece of dry toast, and an eggread one of the morning papers, and then went about my business."

The slight suggestion we have of Whitman's love affairs in New Orleans is a scarcely serious account of his visit to a ball. On a Saturday night he and some choice companions went to a ball in Lafayette. Gazing about the dancing room he chose a most charming woman for a partner. She seemed an ideal one for a wife, and after a few muttered introductions he devoted his attentions to her for the remainder of the night. The courtship progressed splendidly, only to reach the summit of an anti-climax. "Just at this moment where, in any other place I would be on my knees, the gentleman who introduced me came up to us and said, 'wife, ain't it time to go home?' 'Yes, my dear,' she responded. So taking his arm, casting a peculiar kind of look at me, and bidding me good night, they left me like a motionless statue on the floor. I wish them both happiness, altho' I am the sufferer by it."

This account was published in the issue of May 18, 1848. On Friday, the 26th, Whitman and his brother were bound Northward on the Pride of the West, which left on its monthly trip that day at four o'clock. His stay had lasted exactly three months and was rather a pleasant sojourn to him than one of permanent value to the world. His literature was still in its elemental stage, and his membership of the Crescent staff was productive of little good save to serve as a basis for an insight into his life at that time. While some of his pet abominations such as the duel, cruelty to animals, and a kindred feeling for the working man were refected in his labors on the paper, as a whole an investigation of his New Orleans career disappoints those who seek to discover innermost habits of his young manhood. His prose versification was not then even in a crude state, and the style of his prose was careless and hardly valuable in thought. Yet as a matter of curiosity and as a matter of being able to link together the broken chain of his antebellum career the labor spent upon it is not wasted. It merely shows the early formation of his mind and the gradual shaping out of the more pronounced ideas of his later days.

(By George Fox Martin, A.M. University of Pennsylvania, Member of Louisiana Historical Society.)

Last winter your lecturer (spare his blushes at such a dignified term for a talker of his sort) was told by Miss Kate McCall, when he spoke of visiting the Cabildo, to find ⚫the Librarian of Museum and Society, Miss Freret. He did. Was introduced instantly to Father Biever, Prof. Fortier, Mr. Thompson, later to Mr. Hart, Mr. Glenk, Mr. Dymond, Judge Renshaw, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Cusachs. He was made to feel at home immediately, and given many, many happy hours in the Museum and in the meetings of Historical Society. That Society is an eager conservator of old curios, among other rarities the nice use of language and customs French and English. He was not surprised (strange as it may seem) when Messrs. Cusachs and Glenk suggested his talking to you to-night. He was approached as one of the home folk honoured to be the understudy of a great Creole teacher, Prof. Fortier, alas awfully ill when this was written and since gone to his reward. "Emigravit (be) the inscription on the tombstone where he lies 'Dead he is not, but departed, For the artist never dies" (Longfellow.) It may cheer his many, many friends to know that the stranger, the speaker, the subordinate teacher, he treated so cheerfully, so kindly, proudly and reverently does his possible.

The speaker will make no Fortierlike claim to deep and accurate historical research or exposition. Just grateful impressions.

To read Miss Grace King had been recommended by Miss McCall and read she appreciatively and gratefully was; and so, from Carrollton to the Barracks, and from Algiers to Spanish Fort a series of jaunts had filled the mind with appreciation of Creole ideas. When he went back to his beloved birthplace and life long home, Philadelphia, he stayed for some time in the old quarter of the town.