[120] Ibid., No. 51.
[121] House Deb., 1869, 266.
[122] “But why dwell further on a scheme the whole aim and purpose of which is to speculate, for individual or associate profit, at the expense of the people? What more need be said to demonstrate its impracticability—its utter disregard of the interests, the welfare, the health, and happiness of this community, and the unscrupulous motives and purpose of its designers and advocates.” Picayune, Jan. 7, 1869. Jan. 22, it advocated government aid to railroads and denounced the ship canal as an iniquitous project—wild and visionary.
“It is susceptible of proof that certificates of stock in this wildcat speculation have been freely distributed among members of the legislature and others, for the purpose of influencing their votes in favor of this impudent proposition. Not only this but the principal individual whose name heads the list of corporators has boasted of the cheap rate at which our new legislature hold themselves.” Bee, Jan. 27, 1869. See also the Picayune of Jan. 7 and Feb. 10, the Commercial Bulletin of Jan. 11, 25, Feb. 12, New Orleans Times, Jan. 23.
[123] House Deb., 1869, 106.
[124] The Assembly of 1870 granted further aid against great opposition in the form of drainage taxes, amounting to about $2,000,000 per year. Session Laws, 1870, No. 4. Extra Session. This law was passed despite the complaint that in two years not a spadeful of earth had been dug, nothing done but the purchase for cash or credit of a dredge-boat. Sen. Deb., 1870, 751.
[125] Session Laws, 1869, No. 147. It is interesting that even this early the wiser of the legislators were turning to the Federal government for help on their problem of bayous and levees.
[126] Ibid., No. 146.
[127] Ibid., No. 140. Its achievement was the removal of twenty stumps, people complained.
[128] It must have been this date because it vanishes from the record after the 12th and the record of this one day is missing in the files of the paper. For the record of the Senate for 1869 we are dependent on the report in the Commercial Bulletin, no journal nor Senate debates being extant.