The Louisiana Levees [pp. 469-473]

DEPARTMENT OF MISCELLANY.
469
England used to make brown cottons weighing about four ounces to the
yard, with cotton at 25 cents per pound, at the cost of 10 cents the yard, for
which for years they received at the mills from 30 to 40 cents. That is, a
profit of 500 per cent. at 30 cents. It was this fact which created seventy six cotton factories within the scope of thirty miles around Providence
Rhode Island.
The sum of one thousand dollars invested in a stock that pays 100 per
cent., and constantly reinvested at once, as all can see at a glance, becomes
over a million in ten years. Paying 200 per cent., the million is reached in
a little over six years; and at 300 per cent., within five years.
DEPARTAMENT OF MIISCELLANY.
1. THE LOUISIANA LEVEES.
The freshets and overflows of the past winter have been almost unparalleled; and the destruction of property from these causes in the South and
West incalculable. The State of Louisiana is again a heavy sufferer, and
while we write, thousands of acres of the most fertile lands the sun ever
shone upon, are submerged and their productiveness lost to the resources of
The State and country. From the memorial of the people of Louisiana to
Congress for relief we extract the following arguments and figures, which
will convey to the reader some idea of the wide-spread desolation of the scene
and the consequent impoverishment of the inhabitants. The memorial reads:
The people of the State of Louisiana, appealing to Congress for aid to enable the State to raise the means to rebuild and repair the broken and dilapidated levees on the banks of the Mississippl)i and other rivers of the State,
would most respectfully beg to call the attention of Cong(ress to the followi:ng statement on the subject.
The levees or dykes on the banks of the Mississippi and other rivers and
their outlets, in the State of Louisiana, which protect the lands of the most
valuable and fertile parts of the State, from the annual floods of those rivers, and render them cultivable and highly productive, have, during the
late unfortunate war, been in many places cut through and destroyed, whilst
nearly the whole of thema have become more or less injured and dilapidated
by neglect, to such an extent, that, during the last two years just past, a
large portion of the most productive and valuable lands of the State have
been submerged by water, so as to render them whloly unproductive, and to
a great degree uninhabitable, from the effects of which many millions of
dollars' worth of growing crops, cattle, and other property were destroyed,
and the inhabitants of large districts of country driven from their homes to
save their lives from the impending floods.
The extent of country in the State thus liable to overflow, as well as that
actually overflowed, with the destruction and loss of properly resulting
therefrom, can only be judged of by the annexed tables of statistics;
First. Statement A, showing the extent of lands in 1860, liable to overflow,
as well as the crops produced thereon, from which it will be seen that the
eighteen parishes th.erein enumerated, are of delta or recent alluvial formation, and subject to overflow through every portion of their territory, to wit:
Carroll, Madison, Tensas, Concordia, Point Coupee, West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Ascension, Assumption, Lafourche, Terrebonne, St. John the Baptist,
St. Charles, Orleans, St. Bernard, Plaquemine and Jefferson.
Estimating the entire territory at 45,000 square miles, or 28,800,000 acres,
they comprise one fourth of the whole State. By the census of 18S5, the
total population of the State was 708,002; that of the eighteen parishes
enumerated over 391,816-being more than one-half. In 1859, 362,29i hogsheads of sugar were produced by the State, and these parishes yielded 241484 hogsheads-about twvo-thirds of the whole amount. They produced also,
a proportionate quantity of molasses. They grew, also, one half of the