Steam power for crushing the cane was
introduced--an economy of labor which enhanced the profits of the
production--and a new and national interest was developed, rendering
more and more independent of foreign supply, at least that portion of
the Union most difficult of access to foreign commerce--the great and
growing West.
The Americans, or those Americans speaking English alone, immigrating
into these sections of Louisiana, so far as the language, manners, and
customs of the people were concerned, were going into a foreign land.
The language of the entire population was French, or a patois, as the
European French term it--a provincialism which a Parisian finds it
difficult to understand. The ignorance and squalid poverty of these
people put their society entirely out of the question, even if their
language had been comprehensible. They were amiable, kind, law-abiding,
virtuous, and honest, beyond any population of similar character to be
found in any country. Out of some fifty thousand people, extending over
five or six parishes, such a thing as a suit for slander, or an
indictment for malicious mischief, or a case of bastardy was not known
or heard of once in ten years.
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