My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the YoungCox, James
History
My Native Land: The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the Young
Cox, James
Indians of North America; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
Structurally, the French Market is very well preserved. There are
evidences of antiquity and of the ravages of time and weather on every
side, but for all that the market seems to have as its special mission
the reminding of the people that when our ancestors built, they built
for ages, and not entirely for the immediate present, as is too often
the case nowadays. The market also serves as a link between the present
and the past. It is only of late years that the bazaar, which used to be
so prominent a feature, has fallen into insignificance. Formerly it
retained the importance of the extreme Orient, and afforded infinite
fund for reflection for the antiquarian and the lover of history.
The cemeteries of New Orleans are of exceptional interest, and are
visited every year by thousands of people. Owing to the proximity of
the water mark to the surface of the ground, the dead are not buried as
in other cities, and the vaults are above instead of under ground. They
are well arranged, and the antiquity of the burial grounds, and the
historic memories connected with the tablets, combine to make them of
more than ordinary interest. The local custom of suspending business on
the first day of November of each year for the purpose of decorating
graves in all the cemeteries, is also worthy of more than a passing
notice. Not only do people decorate the last resting places of their
friends and relatives on this specially selected day, but even the
graves of strangers are cared for in a spirit of thankfulness that the
angel of death has not entered the family circle, and made inroads into
bonds of friendship.
A few years ago a young woman died on the cars just as they were
entering the world-renowned Creole city. There was nothing on the body
to aid identification, and a stranger's grave had to be provided. In the
meantime the friends and relatives of the missing girl had been making
every effort to locate her, no idea having occurred to them that she was
going South. A loving brother finally got hold of a clew, which he
followed up so successfully that he at last solved the mystery. He
arrived in New Orleans on November 1st, and when taken out to the grave
that had been provided for the stranger who had died just outside the
gates, he was astounded to find several handsome bouquets of flowers,
with wreaths and crosses, lying upon it. Such a sight could hardly have
been met with in any other city in the world, and too much can hardly be
said in praise of the sentiment which suggests and encourages such
disinterested kindness and thought.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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