Such establishments, ruinous and detestable under whatever guise or in whatsoever place they are permitted, become doubly dangerous when placed under the same roof and carried on in obvious connexion with what should be at all times an innocent recreation, and which ought and might be one of a refined and moral tendency.
The scenes of desperation and distress which gambling yearly gave rise to in this place amongst a people whose temperament is peculiarly excitable, coupled with a recent and terrible _exposée_, have at length roused the legislature of Louisiana to release themselves from the stigma of owing any portion of their revenue to a tax which legalised this worst species of robbery and assassination. This very session I had the gratification of seeing a bill brought into the House, and promptly carried through it, making gambling felony, and subjecting its followers to corresponding punishment.
The French Theatre will henceforward, I hope for ever, be freed from the disgrace which such an association necessarily reflected upon the drama and all concerned with it.
I had the pleasure of meeting at a large dinner-party at my hospitable friend's, Col. D----'s, the gentleman who brought this bill into the House, and never did I drink to any man's health with more perfect sincerity: may he live to see his bill render gambling unknown in his country, and to be looked upon as its greatest benefactor!
From the 6th of January till the 29th, the weather continued uniformly fine, but very hot; the mercury in our drawing-room ranging from 70 to 75 degrees, whilst in the sun the heat precludes violent exercise.
_29th._--The morning sultry to a degree; continued so until noon, when the wind suddenly rose until it blew a perfect hurricane from about S.W., the rain meantime descending in a deluge; the streets were quickly changed into the beds of rivers, whilst peals of thunder kept rolling from one quarter of the heavens to another, heralded by incessant flashes of red lightning of the most vivid kind. I had promised to dine with a family whose dwelling was in the next street; but to have gotten thither without a canoe was out of the question. About six o'clock P.M. it cleared off, the wind veering round to the north-east, when it became cold; the glass falling to 45 degrees.