If any misapprehension as to whether a Creole is a white person does still exist, that misunderstanding is, I believe, to be traced to the doors of an old-time cheap burlesque theater in Chicago, where the late impresario, Sam T. Jack, put on a show in which mulatto women were billed as “a galaxy of Creole beauties.”  This show traveled about the country libeling the Creoles and doubtless causing many persons of that class which attended Sam T. Jack’s shows, to believe that “Creole” means something like “quadroon.”  But when the show got to Baton Rouge the manager was waited upon by a committee of citizens who said certain things to him which caused him to give up his engagement there and cancel any other engagements he had in the Creole country.

True, one frequently hears references in New Orleans to “Creole mammies,” and “Creole negroes,” but the word used in that sense merely indicates a negro who has been the servant of Creoles, and who speaks French—­“gombo French” the curious dialect is called.  Similarly one hears of “Creole ponies”—­these being ponies of the small, strong type used by the Cajan farmers.  According to the Louisiana dialect Longfellow’s “Evangeline” was a Cajan, the word being a corruption of “Acadian.”  About a thousand of these unfortunate expatriates arrived in New Orleans between 1765 and 1768.  Within a century they had multiplied to forty times that number, spreading over the entire western part of the State.

Much of the temperament, the gaiety, the sensitiveness of New Orleans comes from the Creole.  He was Latin enough to be a good deal of a gambler, to love beautiful women, and on slight provocation to draw his sword.

The street names of New Orleans—­not only those of the French Quarter, but of the whole city—­reflect his various tastes.  Many of the streets bear the names of historic figures of the French and Spanish regimes; Rampart Street, formerly the rue des Ramparts marks, like the outer boulevards of Paris, the line of the old city wall.  Other streets were given pretty feminine names by the old Creole gallants:  Suzette, Celeste, Estelle, Angelie, and the like.  The devout doubtless had their share in the naming of Religious Street, Nuns Street, Piety Street, Assumption Street, and Amen Street.  The taste for Greek and Roman classicism which developed in France at the time of the Revolution, found its way to Louisiana, and is reflected in New Orleans by streets bearing the names of gods, demi gods, the muses and the graces.  The pronunciation given to some of these names is curious:  Melpomene, instead of being given four syllables is called Melpomeen; Calliope is similarly Callioap; Euterpe, Euterp, and so on.  This, however, is the result not of ignorance, but of a slight corruption of the correct French pronunciations, the Americans having taken their way of pronouncing the names from the French.  The Napoleonic wars are commemorated in the names of Napoleon Avenue, and Austerlitz and