A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of AmericaFerrall, S. A. (Simon Ansley)
History
A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America
Ferrall, S. A. (Simon Ansley)
United States -- Description and travel
There are two public schools established at New Orleans, which are
supported out of the fund arising from five gaming-houses, they paying a
tax of 25,000 dollars per annum. These schools are conducted on the
Lancastrian system, each having a Principal and a Professor, and the
studies are divided into daily sessions. The morning session is devoted to
reading, spelling, arithmetic, and English grammar; commences at nine
A.M., and closes at one P.M. The evening session commences at three, and
ends at five o'clock; and is devoted to penmanship, geography, and the
French language. This is the arrangement of the English primary school,
which is kept in the Old Poydras House, Poydras-street, in the upper part
of the city; and is called the Upper Primary School, to distinguish it
from the French establishment, which is kept in the lower part of the
city. The English school has an English principal, and a French professor;
and the French school, a French principal and an English professor. Dr.
Kinnicutt, the principal of the Upper Primary School, is a gentleman of
considerable ability, and to his friendly politeness I am indebted for the
above information.
The ravages of the yellow fever in New Orleans are immense; but I am
credibly informed that many deaths occur here from neglect after the fever
has subsided, when the patient is in a totally debilitated condition,
incapable of affording himself the slightest assistance. Orleans is
generally crowded with strangers, who are most susceptible to the
epidemic; and it is decidedly the interest of persons keeping hotels and
boarding-houses that such guests should give up the ghost, for in that
case their loose cash falls into the hands of the proprietor. I do not
mean to insinuate that a knife is passed across the throat of the
patient; but merely that it is the opinion of physicians, and some of the
most respectable people of the city, that every _facility_ is afforded
strangers to die, and that in many cases they actually die of gross
neglect.
The wealthy merchants live well, keep handsome establishments, and good
wines. The Sardanapalian motto, "Laugh, sing, dance, and be merry," seems
to be universally adopted in this "City of the Plague." The planters' and
merchants' villas immediately in the vicinity are extremely tasteful, and
are surrounded by large parterres filled with plantain, banana, palm,
orange, and rose trees. On the whole, were it not for its unhealthiness,
Orleans would be a most desirable residence, and the largest city in the
United States, as it is most decidedly the best circumstanced in a
commercial point of view.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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