I live in the "Sunny South" too, and here are some of the signs most often heard here:
Peacocks' feathers bring bad luck.
A black cat brings good luck.
Watch a person out of sight, and you will never see him again.
If you point at a grave, a member of your family will die.
Bring a hoe or other garden tool into the house, and it will bring bad luck.
A good fire-maker will always have a smart husband.
A hard storm is often a sign of the death of some rather unpopular man.
I don't know as these are strictly local, but all of them are very common here.
Carolyn Sherman.
Ash Grove, Va.
Queer New Orleans Customs.
New Orleans has some customs peculiarly its own. One of them, the decorating of the cemeteries on All-Saints day, is not done in any other place in the United States. On that day the cemeteries are beautifully decorated with all kinds of flowers. The fronts of the great white tombs (for there are few underground graves in New Orleans) are often so covered with flowers that you can hardly read the inscription. This is lovely while it lasts; but when the flowers are faded and dead, it is rather pathetic than otherwise to wander through the streets of the silent cities of the dead. Metaire and Greenwood are the most beautiful cemeteries, and the old St. Louis the most interesting. Here are buried the old French people who died over a hundred years ago.
Another queer custom, but which is dying out, is the giving of "lagniappe" (pronounced lan-yap) in the stores and markets. That is, they give you an apple, an orange, or a few pieces of candy in the grocery stores, in addition to what you have bought. They used to do it in the old French Quarter more than anywhere else, and often gave lagniappe of coffee, tea, sugar, or rice. But now they give hardly any, except to children, and sometimes even they have to ask for it.
Then the street-criers, too, are amusing. A familiar sight is a dilapidated wagon and horse loaded with sacks of charcoal, while an extremely dirty-looking individual screams, "Charcoal, two bits a sack—charcoal!" "two bits" being used invariably, instead of twenty-five cents, among this class of people, and even among the better classes.
New Orleans has a most excellent system of street railway, although it is but lately that it has had it. Before, there were only small cars with one mule attached; so you can imagine the electric cars are a great improvement on the old style of transportation, which was both slow and uncertain. But it has taken away a good deal of the quaintness from the city. There are only two mule lines left, and these will soon be replaced by electric ones.
The city lost one of its old buildings by fire two years ago, which has been replaced by a handsome modern structure seven stories high. I refer to the St. Charles Hotel. There are very few handsome public buildings here; about the finest are those of the Tulane University. The soil of New Orleans does not admit of very heavy buildings being built, although they now drive piles of sixty feet for foundation.
New Orleans is fast coming to the front as a grain-exporting point, the Illinois Central having recently finished an immense elevator and dock. It has been for many years the largest cotton-exporting port in the world.
The two public parks, Audubon and the City Park, could be made very beautiful if they were improved. Their natural beauty is so great that one does not mind their somewhat wild state. Little by little they are being improved, but, both being large tracts, it takes a long time. The trees in both are immense live-oaks, and under those at the City Park many of the duels of the earlier Louisiana days were fought.
West End, the one nice resort of New Orleans, is situated on Lake Pontchartrain, about six miles from the centre of town. Here, in summer, there is music every evening by a fine band, and trains run at intervals of fifteen minutes. It is a most delightful way to spend an evening, as there are no mosquitoes, and the breeze off the water is always cool. The mosquitoes are a great pest here, and even in winter they are quite bad, we being compelled to sleep under bars a good share of the time.
This is a very easy place for visitors to find their way alone, as the streets are all plainly marked and numbered. All the cars start from Canal Street, and it is almost impossible to lose one's way.
As Canal Street is the starting-point for all the cars, it is quite a feat to cross without risking your life. Policemen are stationed on every corner, and it is very rarely that an accident occurs.
Sophie Eleanor Clark.
What do You Think They Weighed?
Don't you think the following pretty good? I got it from an old man who says he won $5 for answering it years ago.
A man had an article weighing exactly forty pounds. He let it fall, and it broke into four pieces. But it was such a fortunate fall that the pieces were afterwards available for sale weights, and with them he could weigh any number of pounds from one to forty. How much did each piece weigh?
J. Lurie.
New York.