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Show AFTER TMRN1VAL The Commercial Side of a Fioturcsque and Important Event in the Cosmopolitan Cos-mopolitan Crescent City. HUNDREDS OF WEARY ROISTERERS Whst the Sonthorner Thinks Mardi Gra D:e for His Country Glimpse of Life Along the Flowery Gulf. Xtw Orleans. Feb. 21. Special correspondence TlMK 1 Carnival is over.' Tho lights are out,the flowers are faded, the night is ended, tho revelers have unmasked! The dawn of At.h Wednesday sees hundreds hun-dreds of weary roisterers returning from af Mardi Oras northern capital has leen introduced during the last ton years to Southern possibilities, the result being degree of development and prosperity in the states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi Mis-sissippi und Florida which almost passed belief. The beauty of all this is that it did not begin with the hardness of business busi-ness realism. It was the delicacy of a palm leaf fan and a rose, the subtle spirit of mirth and poesy, which gradually gradu-ally materialized intoanewand an amazing amaz-ing commercial bond between the north and the south. I admit that a wandering correspondent correspond-ent with a pad and a pencil, somewhat travel stained in apMarance, barren of letters of introduction and having no - extremo "views" on the question of the hour, is not exactly the person tho best ; men would 1) likely to open their hearts j and their doors to. And yet let mo put i on record that when I have caught a glimpse of the inner life of the true men and womeu of the south I have found it so gentle and sweet and lovable that one who has enjoyed it must forever Hwenr by the beauty of the clambering roues on the balconies, by the soft winter win-ter sunshine of the golden gulf, by the inexhaustible charm of gay and courtly New Orleans. One cannot wonder at the loyalty and love the people of the gulf towns have for their homes. Life appears to run so Plnoothly here; the fret and friction Si-em so slight that existence is a continual con-tinual apparent pleasure. And yet I supjKwe there is just as much pain and passion, sorrow and disappointment here as elsewhere. Of course there is. But the claws of the tiger of everyday struggle strug-gle are nicely cushioned, while life is set to the music of singing birds. I lodged for a few days in an entresol of the French quarter, a neighborhood flavored with Arcady and Bohemia. the grand balls, their line feathers a trifle liedrugglcd, their brave trappings a j tawdry picture in the light of garish ' duy. JUST BELOW HEW ORLEANS. While it lasted Mardi Oras was a wild, glowing, voluptuous picture, all color, beauty aud sparkle, but today it is as uncorked champagne, with the effervescence effer-vescence all gone, the enthusiasm and excitement prevailing throughout the city since Saturday morning being as completely a thing of the past as last summer's butterflies. New Orleans takes the Mardi Oras seriously. It is a feast ami a festival of proportions so extensive that its like is not known on this continent, and it cannot can-not be carried out successfully year after year without nice judgmeut and excellent excel-lent business ability. That the people never weary of Mardi Oras; that it is fresh and beautiful each succeeding season; that money is always ready for the project; that it is celebrated with pomp and glitter by all classes of society, show that it is a part and parcel of the local life. One feels that it could not be transplanted trans-planted to a northern city. It roast have the warm atmosphere, the French chic, the buoyancy of the existing population. popu-lation. Tho gondoliers of Venice would be aa much out of place in the waters of the Hudson river as a Mardi Oras pro cession iu the streets of New York. Tho pictures presented in the procession of Itex, Comus, et al., during the two days are of alluring beauty. They are gotten up at enormous cost, an much as sixty or seventy thousand dollars being annually spent upon tbem. Nothing more artistic can be imagined, and the opulence of the display is only equaled by the good taste shown. The humorous elornent is now and again apparent, but the fun is j delicious and pitched in a fine key. A riCTTRE OF BOCTHERN LIFE. All about me was a picture of typical light hearted southern life. There were curious shops with bizarre effects, picturesque pict-uresque human figures strolling through the streets, roses galore and lovely Creole Cre-ole women with luminous velvety eyes. The perfume of the jasmine was over all, and the senses were lulled into a luxurious dream life. "Oh, Fez!" says an Arabian historian, "all the beauty of the earth is concentrated concen-trated in thee." Were I a native Lon-isianan Lon-isianan I would proclaim as proudly for New Orleans. Fred'k W. White. i There is nothing low or coarse anywhere. any-where. The slang of the day is charmingly charm-ingly conspicuous by its absence. There i is no allusion to anyone being "in it," and cheap wit of all kinds is carefully expunged. The hand of the artist is , seen from one end of the procession to I the other, and the sumptuous balls i which bring to a close the feasts are J models of magnificence and careful man-: man-: agement. The whole city is redolent of the oc- casion, und tho tens of thousands of j Btrangers who bring a million dollars to I town each year seem saturated with the honest and exquisite current fun. Iu its way it is the equal of the greater Roman festivals, and the American who has not visited New Orleans and enjoyed its Mardi Gras has something to ljve for. The event is one too well knowu to re-i re-i quire description or comment in the pages of a letter. Enough that this year's festival equals any of its predecessors. WAITING FOR THE MARDI ORAS. Nothing is more interesting than humanity, hu-manity, and in a Mardi Gras mob, where the grotesque and the gorgeous mingle and are so closely ullied, it is interesting indeed to watch the wayside groups. Leaving out the stranger numbered, of course, by five figures these groups everywhere waiting for the procession are always negro. Your true southerner does not stand around and watch. If he is not part and parcel of the procession proces-sion he leaves it for the entertainment of the northerner, for the perennial pleasure pleas-ure of the black. "I have not seen a procession for half a dozen years," said a high niiuded New Orleans man yesterday. Yet no one in the Crescent City is more enthusiastic in it3 preparation, more alert aud eager for its success. And so with a large proportion pro-portion of the business community. They are the showmen giving the entertainment. enter-tainment. Perhaps like tha workers on tapestry, who see only the rough side of their labor, they fail to appreciate its final beauty. Or maybe they are too busy with the commercial aspect of the affair to relish the fun and folly about them. And Mardi Gras has a most decided de-cided commercial aspect. The great temporary addition to the population of New Orleans this week means new life and activity for the entire state. And pot only does he help the petty trades, the retailers and the caterers, but he gts a breath of the soft south wind, he falls in love quite frequently with the dreamy, odorous gulf states, and he brings his means and his influences this way for permanent investment. I am told ttfilHTiV-'ti' "!!? tHrtMl" w -dinn ' |