CHAP. XXXIL] TRANSFER OF STATE-HOUSE. 211 



wealthy as to pay a third of all the taxes in Missis 

 sippi. It was a city to which the richest and best- 

 informed citizens resorted, representing both the 

 landed and monied interests of the State. It was, 

 moreover, a centre of communication, because it 

 commanded the navigation of the great river. That 

 the Houses of Legislature should meet here, was so 

 natural and convenient, so fitted to promote good 

 government, that the democratic party could not be 

 expected to put up, for many years, with an arrange 

 ment of affairs so reasonable and advantageous. 

 They accordingly decided, by a majority, that some 

 change must be made, and gave orders to a surveyor 

 to discover the exact geographical centre of the 

 State. He found it in a wilderness, about fifty miles 

 in a straight line east of Natchez, and pointed out 

 an old cypress tree, in the middle of a swamp, acces 

 sible only by a canoe, as the spot they were in search 

 of. This was welcome news ; all might now be placed 

 on a footing of equality, the spot being equally in 

 accessible and inconvenient for all. When the archi 

 tect, however, came to build the Capitol, he took the 

 liberty, instead of erecting the edifice on piles in the 

 centre of the swamp, to place it on an adjoining 

 rising ground, from which they had cleared away the 

 native wood, a serious abandonment of principle, as 

 it was several hundred yards from the true geo 

 graphical centre.&quot; 



When my auditors had done laughing at this Lou 

 isiana version of a passage in their history, they 

 said, the tale, after all, was not so exaggerated as it 

 might have been, considering the vexation under 

 which the New Orleans Whigs were smarting, in 



