CHAP. XXVII.] SALUBRITY OF NEW ORLEANS. 97 



uniform, drawing their engines dressed up with flowers, ribbons, 

 and flags, and I never saw a finer set of young men. We could 

 not help contrasting their healthy looks with the pale, sickly 

 countenances of &quot; the crackers,&quot; in the pine-woods of Georgia 

 and Alabama, where we had been spending so many weeks. These 

 men were almost all of them Creoles, and thoroughly acclima 

 tized ; and I soon found that if I wished to ingratiate myself 

 with natives or permanent settlers in this city, the less surprise 

 I expressed at the robust aspect of these young Creoles the better. 

 The late Mr. Sydney Smith advised an English friend who was 

 going to reside some years in Edinburgh to praise the climate : 

 &quot; When you arrive there it may rain, snow, or blow for many 

 days, and they will assure you they never knew such a season 

 before. If you would be popular, declare you think it the most 

 delightful climate in the world.&quot; When I first heard New Or 

 leans commended for its salubrity, I could scarcely believe that 

 my companions were in earnest, till a physician put into my 

 hands a statistical table, recently published in a medical maga 

 zine, proving that in the year 1845 the mortality in the metrop 

 olis of Louisiana was 1-850, whereas that of Boston was 2-250, 

 or, in other words, while the capital of Massachusetts lost 1 out 

 of 44 inhabitants, New Orleans lost only 1 in 54 ; &quot;yet the 

 year 1845,&quot; said he, &quot; was one of great heat, and when a wider 

 area than usual was flooded by the river, and exposed to evapor 

 ation under a hot sun.&quot; 



It appears that when New Orleans is empty in the summer 

 in other words, when all the strangers, about 40,000 in number, 

 go into the country, and many of them to the north, fearing the 

 yellow fever, the city still contains between 80,000 and 100,000 

 inhabitants, who never suffer from the dreaded disease, whether 

 they be of European or African origin. If, therefore, it be fair 

 to measure the salubrity of a district by its adaptation to the 

 constitutions of natives rather than foreigners, the claim set up 

 for superior healthiness may be less preposterous than at first it 

 sounded to my ears. I asked an Irishman if the summer heat 

 was intolerable. You would have something else to think of in 

 the hot months,&quot; said he, &quot; for there is one set of musquitoes who 

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