thousand people, who run hither and thither at certain hours of the day as though time were the essence of the contract, and no delay of any kind could be tolerated.  As soon, however, as the pressing needs of the moment are satisfied, a period of luxurious idleness follows, and rest seems to be the chief desideratum of the average habitue or employe.  The children, who are sitting around in large numbers, vie with their elders in matters of idleness, though they are occasionally aroused to a condition of pernicious activity by the hope of securing donations or compensation of some kind from newcomers and guests.

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.