File:Life and liberty in America; (1859) (14776963692).jpg

Identifier: lifelibertyiname00mack (find matches)
Title: Life and liberty in America;
Year: 1859 (1850s)
Authors: Mackay, Charles, 1814-1889
Subjects:
Publisher: New-York, Harper & brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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tained from seven hundred to sevenhundred and fifty guests, and its grand entrance-hall, wherethe gentlemen congregate from nine in the morning till elevenor twelve at night, to read the newspapers, to smoke, to chew,and, let me add, to spit, presented a scene of bustle and ani-mation which can be conii)arcd to nothing but the Bourse atParis during the full tide of business, when the agioteurs andthe agens de change roar, and scream, and gesticulate like ma-niacs. The Southern planters, and their Avives and daughters,escaping from the monotony of their cotton and sugar planta-tions, come down to New Orleans in the early spring season,and, as private lodgings are not to be had, they throng to theSt. Louis and the St. Charles Hotels, but principally to theSt. Charles, where they lead a life of constant publicity andgayety, and endeavor to make themselves amends for the se-Ilusion and weariness of winter. As many as a hundred la-dies (to say nothing of the gentlemen) sit down together to
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the crescent city. 171 breakfast—tlm majority of thciu in full dress as for au even-ing party, and arrayed in the full splendor both of their charmsand of their jewelry. Dinner is but a repetition of the samebrilliancy, only that the ladies are still more gorgeously andelaborately dressed, and make a still greater display of pearlsand diamonds. After dinner the drawing-rooms ofier a sceneto which no city in the world affords a parallel. It is thevery court of Queen Mob, whose courtiers are some of the fair-est, wealthiest, and most beautiful of the daughters of theSouth, mingling in true Kepublican equality with the chancewayfarers, gentle or simple, Avell dressed or ill dressed, cleanor dirty, who can pay for a nightly lodging or a days boardat this mighty caravansary. To rule such a hotel as this inall its departments, from the kitchen and the wine-cellar to thetreasury and the reception-rooms, with all its multifarious ax-ray of servants, black and white, bond and free, male and

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