Of the Past one may know at every turn. North of Canal street--that broad thoroughfare which ranks as a dividing path with Market street in San Francisco--the city has changed but little since the Civil War. South of Canal--still called the "new" part of the city--there has been some really modern development. Prosperous looking skyscrapers have lifted their lordly heads above the narrow streets and the compactly built "squares" which they encompass; there are several modern hotels with all the momentary glory of artificial marbles and chromatic frescoes, department stores with show windows as brave and gay as any of those in New York or Chicago or Boston. But even if the narrow streets were to be widened, New Orleans would never look like Indianapolis or Kansas City or St. Paul--any of the typical cities of the so-called Middle West. Too many of her stout old structures of the fifties and the sixties still remain. And hung upon these, uncompromising and triumphant, are the galleries. The galleries of New Orleans! They are perhaps the most typical of the outward expressions of a town whose personality is as distinct as that of Boston or Charleston or San Francisco. They must have been master workmen whose fingers and whose ancient forges worked those delicate and lacelike traceries. And it has been many thankful generations who have praised the practical side of their handicraft. For in the long hot summer months of New Orleans these galleries furnish a shade that is a delight and a comfort. On rainy days they are arcades keeping dry the sidewalks of the heart of the town. And from the offices within, the galleries, their rails lined with growing things, are veritable triumphs. Once in a great while some one will rise up and suggest that they be abolished--that they are old-fashioned and have long since served their full purpose. That some one is generally a smart shopkeeper who has drifted down from one of these upstart cities from the North or East. But New Orleans is smarter still. She well knows the commercial value of her personality. There are newer cities and showier within the radius of a single night's ride upon a fast train. But where one man comes to one of these, a dozen alight at the old French town by the bend of the yellow river. "Give J---- a few French restaurants, some fame for its cocktails or its gin-fizzes--just as New Orleans has--and I will bring a dozen big new factories here within the next three years," said the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of a thriving Texas town the other day. He knew whereof he spake. And now, we shall know whereof we speak. We shall give a moment of attention to the little restaurants and the gin-fizzes.