The first ordinance for the establishment of a board of health in this city, (so far as known,) was passed by the general council in June, of 1841.[4] The board consisted of nine members—three aldermen, three physicians, and three private citizens. It was invested with ample powers to adopt and enforce such sanitary regulations as were thought conducive to the health of the city. This board performed all its functions well during the first year of its existence. The second year there was a falling off; but a dissolution did not take place till 1843. In 1844, the board of health having ceased to officiate, the general council invited the medico-chirurgical society to take charge of this duty. This proposition was accepted, and a committee of nine members appointed, with full power to act as a board of health. If this body do their duty, as there is no reason to doubt they will, much benefit may be expected to result. Their advice to citizens, and strangers who were unaclimated, on the approach of the warm weather of 1844, was certainly marked with a great degree of good sense and seasonable caution. They will now be looked up to as the great conservators of the health of the city; and, it is to be hoped that public expectation will not be disappointed.
The following abstract of a Meteorological Journal for 1844 was obligingly furnished by D. T. Lillie, Esq., of New Orleans, a gentleman, whose scientific acquirements are a sure guaranty for its accuracy. The thermometer (a self registering one) used for these observations, is not attached to the barometer, and is placed in a fair exposure. Hours of observation, 8 A. M., 2 P. M., and 8 P. M. The barometer is located at an elevation of 28 feet above the level of the ocean; and is suspended clear of the wall of the building. The rain gauge is graduated to the thousandth part of an inch, and the receiver of it is elevated 40 feet from the ground.
METEOROLOGICAL TABLE.
| Thermometer. | Barometer. | ||||||||||
| 1844. | Max. | Min. | Range, | Max. | Min. | Range, | Rainy days. | Prevailing Winds. | Force of Winds, | Quan. of Rain. | |
| Months. | 0 tenths | 0 tenths | 0 tenths | 0 hund. | 0 hund. | 0 hund. | ratio 1 to 10. | Inches. | Thousands. | ||
| January, | 79.5 | 36.5 | 43.0 | 30.38 | 29.73 | 0.65 | 11 | S. E. | 2.4 | 4 | 966 |
| February, | 81.0 | 40.0 | 41.0 | 30.40 | 29.91 | 0.49 | 5 | S. E. | 2.4 | 0 | 879 |
| March, | 83.0 | 38.0 | 45.0 | 30.40 | 29.83 | 0.57 | 9 | N. W. | 3.0 | 3 | 031 |
| April, | 85.0 | 40.0 | 45.0 | 30.46 | 29.98 | 0.48 | 3 | S. E. | 2.5 | 1 | 797 |
| May, | 88.5 | 66.0 | 22.5 | 30.31 | 29.83 | 0.48 | 9 | S. W. | 2.7 | 4 | 847 |
| June, | 91.0 | 69.0 | 22.0 | 30.18 | 30.03 | 0.15 | 12 | S. | 2.3 | 5 | 789 |
| July, | 92.5 | 73.0 | 19.5 | 30.22 | 30.01 | 0.21 | 16 | S. W. | 2.2 | 9 | 801 |
| August, | 92.5 | 69.0 | 23.5 | 30.26 | 29.93 | 0.33 | 14 | S. W. | 2.4 | 5 | 199 |
| September, | 91.5 | 61.0 | 30.5 | 30.23 | 29.95 | 0.28 | 8 | E. | 2.5 | 1 | 080 |
| October, | 85.5 | 46.0 | 39.5 | 30.31 | 29.89 | 0.42 | 4 | N. E. | 2.5 | 2 | 180 |
| November, | 74.0 | 40.0 | 34.0 | 30.34 | 29.94 | 0.40 | 9 | N. | 2.2 | 7 | 754 |
| December, | 74.5 | 32.5 | 42.0 | 30.44 | 29.83 | 0.61 | 4 | N. | 2.4 | 1 | 077 |
| Ann'l Mean, | 84.9 | 50.9 | 33.9 | 30.33 | 29.90 | 0.42 | 104 | 2.5 | 48 | 400 | |
Society, as at present constituted in New Orleans, has very little resemblance to that of any other city in the Union. It is made up of a heterogeneous mixture of almost all nations. First, and foremost, is the Creole population. All who are born here, come under this designation, without reference to the birth place of their parents. They form the foundation, on which the superstructure of what is termed "society," is erected. They are remarkably exclusive in their intercourse with others, and, with strangers, enter into business arrangements with extreme caution. They were once, and very properly, considered as the patricians of the land. But they are not more distinguished for their exclusiveness, and pride of family, than for their habits of punctuality, temperance, and good faith.
Till about the commencement of the present century, the period of the transfer of Louisiana to the United States, the Creoles were almost entirely of French and Spanish parentage. Now, the industrious Germans, the shrewd and persevering Irishmen, are beginning to be quite numerous, and many of them have advanced to a condition of wealth and respectability.
Next come the emigrants from the sister States, from the mighty west, from the older sections of the south, and (last not least) from the colder regions of the north, the enterprising, calculating, hardy Yankee. To the latter class this emporium is indebted, for many of those vast improvements which, as if by magic, have risen to the astonishment and confusion of those of the ancient regime, who live in a kind of seclusion within the limits of the city proper—to whom beautiful and extensive blocks of buildings have appeared in the morning, as though they had sprung up by enchantment during the night.
Then come the nondescript watermen. Our river steam navigation, averaging, during half the year, some three hundred arrivals per month, furnishes a class of ten thousand men, who have few if any parallels in the world. The numberless flat-boats that throng the levees for an immense distance, are peopled and managed by an amphibious race of human beings, whose mode of living is much like that of the alligator, with whom they ironically claim relationship, but who carry under their rough exterior and uncouth manners, a heart as generous and noble, as beats in any human breast. They are the children of the Mississippi, as the Arabs are of the great desert, and, like them, accustomed to encounter danger in every shape. Combining all the most striking peculiarities of the common sailor, the whaleman, the backwoodsman, and the Yankee, without imitating, or particularly resembling any one of them, they are a class entirely by themselves, unique, eccentric, original, a distinct and unmistakeable feature in the floating mass that swarms on the levees, and threads the streets, of the Crescent City.
Among them may be found the representatives of nearly all the states. Some are descendants of the Pilgrims, and have carried with them the industrious habits, and the strict moral principles, of their Puritan forefathers, into the wilds of the West. They are all active, enterprising, fearless, shrewd, independent, and self-sufficient, and often aspiring and ambitious, as our halls of legislation, and our highest business circles can testify. They are just the stuff to lay the broad foundations of freedom in a new country—able to clear the forest, and till the soil, in time of peace, to defend it in war, and to govern it at all times.
Of the one hundred and thirty thousand souls, who now occupy this capital, about twenty thousand may be estimated as migratory. These are principally males, engaged in the various departments of business. Some of them have families at the North, where they pass the summer. Many are bachelors, who have no home for one half the year, and, if the poets are to be believed, less than half a home for the remainder. As these two classes of migratory citizens, who live at the hotels and boarding houses, embrace nearly, if not quite, one half the business men of the city, it may serve to some extent, to account for the seemingly severe restrictions by which the avenues to good native society are protected. Unexceptionable character, certified beyond mistake, is the only passport to the domestic circle of the Creole. With such credentials their hospitality knows no limits. The resident Americans are less suspicious in admitting you to their hospitality, though not more liberal than their Creole neighbors, when once their confidence is secured.