Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/538

NEW ORLEANS. carrying raw cotton for manufacture. At present there are thirty steamship lines connecting New Orleans with the principal ports of the world. As soon as the Isthmian Canal is built a great impetus will be given to the commerce of the city. The foreign trade consists very largely of exports, the annual value of which is about $150,000,000. The imports, however, are increasing, being over $23,000,000 for the ten months ending April, 1903.

In 1890 the present charter of the city was granted by the Legislature. It is largely in accord with the suggestions of the Municipal Reform League of America, and is in many respects a radical departure from the previous charters. The executive powers are vested in a mayor, a controller, a treasurer, a commissioner of police and public works, and a city engineer. The first three are elected for four years, while the rest are appointed by the mayor with the consent of the council. As has been the custom in other great cities of late years, large appointive power is vested in the mayor, who is held responsible for his appointees. The only exception made is in the case of the keepers of the people's money. The council, which is unicameral, is elected for four years. By an unusual provision, each member receives a salary of $20 a month if he has attended all meetings. The granting of franchises, the usual pitfall of councils, is carefully safeguarded. Connected with the city government proper, but in some respects largely independent of it, are a number of boards, with various functions, such as the civil service commission, the board of liquidation of the city debt, the police board, the board of fire commissioners, the school board, the board of health, the New Orleans levee board, the port commission, the drainage commission, and the water and sewerage board. Besides the numerous city courts, the State Supreme Court, the United States District, the Circuit Court, and the Circuit Court of Appeals hold sessions in New Orleans.

The report of the city controller for 1902 gives the bonded debt of the city as $17,286,490, and the valuation of real and personal property as $147,201,984. The rate of taxation was 22 mills, consisting of: city expense tax, 10 mills; interest and redemption city bonds, 10 mills; special tax for water, sewerage, and drainage, 2 mills. To this tax of 22 mills should be added the State tax of 6 mills and the tax of 1 mill for the maintenance of levees, making the total rate 29 mills. There is also a poll tax of $1, which is devoted to the support of public schools.

The census of 1900 gave New Orleans a population of 287,104, making it the twelfth largest city in the United States. This total included 30,325 persons of foreign birth and 77,714 of negro descent. The increase in population, according to the censuses of former years, is shown as follows: in 1870, 191,418; 1880, 216,090; 1890, 242,039.

New Orleans was laid out in 1718 by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, then Governor of Louisiana, and it was named in honor of the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France. The centre of the new settlement was the old Place d'Armes, now called Jackson Square. In 1722, when New Orleans became the capital of the French territory in this vicinity,

its low, marshy site was visited by Père Charlevoix, who records in his journal that he found only a hundred barrack-like buildings, with a large wooden storehouse, and “two or three residences that would be no ornament to a village in France.” With prophetic eye, however, he added: “I have a well-grounded hope that this wild and desert place, which the reeds and trees do yet almost wholly cover, will be one day—and perhaps that day is not far distant—an opulent city and the metropolis of a great and rich colony.” In November, 1762, France ceded the whole of Louisiana to Spain, but the people in New Orleans, who first heard of the transaction in 1764, strenuously objected to the change and forcibly expelled the first Spanish Governor, who came in 1766. In 1769 (q.v.), who had just been appointed Governor of Louisiana, punished with unsparing severity those who had been prominent in the uprising. In the same year the census taken by Governor O'Reilly shows that the city possessed only 408 houses, with a population of 3191. Of these the free persons numbered 1901, the slaves 1230, and the domesticated Indians 60. During the rest of the Spanish period there was but slow growth, perhaps on account of the burdensome commercial restrictions of the Spanish régime. During the American Revolution New Orleans was the headquarters of the Spanish forces on the North American continent, and the place from which a number of expeditions were sent out by Governor (q.v.) against the British. In 1800, by the secret (q.v.), Louisiana was retroceded to France, but the French Government did not take formal possession until November 30, 1803, just twenty days before American deputies came to take possession for the United States in pursuance of the Louisiana Purchase. By this year the population had increased to a little over 8000. In 1802 the products shipped from New Orleans consisted of flour, 50,000 pounds; tobacco, 2000 hogsheads; cotton, 34,000 bales. Some 5000 casks of rum were produced in the distilleries around the city, but the manufactures were mostly confined to cordage, hair-powder, vermicelli, and shot.

As for the government during the French and Spanish régime, the whole province was nominally in the hands of a Superior Council, which was a judicial body and theoretically a legislative one. In truth, however, this body, which was appointive, not elective, had very little power. All laws for Louisiana were made in France. There was no self-government either under the French or the Spanish. Under the Spanish a Cabildo (assembly) was substituted for the Superior Council. It was composed of six perpetual regidores, two ordinary alcaldes, an attorney-general syndic, and a clerk. The Governor presided. By a curious provision, the offices of regidor and clerk were obtained by purchase, and in the first instance at auction. The ordinary alcaldes and the attorney were elected annually by the Cabildo. The ordinary alcaldes were judges within the city for criminal and civil cases. The regidores were the standard-bearer, the high sheriff, the receiver of fines, etc. There was an appeal from this tribunal to the Captain-General of Cuba, and from him to the Royal Audience in Santo Domingo, and thence to the Council of the Indies in Madrid. As under the French, the laws were issued by the