river-rail-sea traffic-handling agencies that rates have been greatly reduced.  Upon these, and related enterprises, upward of a hundred millions are being spent, and the vast plan is working out with such promise that one almost begins to fear lest New Orleans become too much enamored of her new-found materialism—­lest the easy-going, pleasure-loving, fascinating Creole belle be transformed into the much-less-rare and much-less-desirable business type of woman:  a woman whose letters, instead of being written in a fine French hand and scented with the faint fragrance of vertivert, are typewritten upon commercial paper; whose lips, instead of causing one to think of kisses, are laden with the deadly cant of commerce; whose skin, instead of seeming to be made of milk and rose leaves, is dappled with industrial soot.

Lord Chesterfield in one of his letters to his son, intimated that beautiful women desire to be flattered upon their intelligence, while intelligent women who are not altogether ugly like to be told that they are beautiful.  So with New Orleans.  Speak of her individuality, her picturesqueness, her gift of laughter, and she will listen with polite ennui; but admire her commercial progress and she will hang upon your words.  Gaiety and charm are so much a part of her that she not only takes them as a matter of course, but seems to doubt, sometimes, that they are virtues.  She is like some unusual and fascinating woman who, instead of rejoicing because she is not like all other women, begins to wonder if she ought not to be like them.  Perhaps she is wrong to be gay?  Perhaps her carnival proves her frivolous?  Perhaps she ought not to continue to hold a carnival each year?

Far to the north of New Orleans the city of St. Paul was afflicted, some years since, by a similar agitation.  It will be remembered that St. Paul used to build an ice palace each year.  People used to go to see it as they go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.  Then came some believer in the standardization of cities, advancing the idea that ice palaces advertised St. Paul as a cold place.  As a result they ceased to be built.  St. Paul threw away something which drew attention to her and which gave her character.  Moreover, I am told this mania went so far that when folders were issued for the purpose of advertising the region, they were designed to suggest the warmth and brilliance of the tropics.  Had St. Paul a bad climate, instead of a peculiarly fine one, we might feel sympathetic tolerance for these performances, but a city which enjoys cool summers and dry, bracing winters has no apologies to make upon the score of climate, and only need apologize if she tries to make us think that bananas and cocoanuts grow on sugar-maple trees.  However, in the last year or two, St. Paul has perceived the folly of her course, and has resumed her annual carnival.