The Daily Crescent

We have frequently heard foreigners say that New Orleans was a very beautiful place, but that, dem it, it had no places of amusement. We throw back the remark, with the most excellent good humor, into their very teeth, and sincerely hope that they may never have any thing worse than the best tooth-brush that can be procured to clean their masticators with. New Orleans without places of amusement! Why the very idea, gentlemen, is absolutely absurd. If there be any individual in the community who has Santa Anna's favorite passion on the apex of his heart-which remark meaneth a furious desire to be present when the Gallic emblem of nationality spurs himself for the fight--he can at all times be accommodated in the lower municipalities. In certain locations he will be permitted to cry- " Crow, Chapman-Chapman, crow!" to the fullest extent of his lungs. Does the gentleman desire to see an Attakapas bull (just imported from Havana) speared by an artiste of celebrity? If so, his wish can be fulfilled by visiting Algiers and the Third Municipality, in the pleasant season of our Southern summer. As for masquerade Balls, we can only be beaten by gay, gallant, chivalrous Paris : and in the way of operas, we can't be beaten at all. There's the French opera at the Orleans Theatre, with its magnificent troupe; and occasionally we have those addicted to music from the " Father-land," who sing to our uneducated ears, strains of the most mysterious sweetness.- Again, once or twice in the course of the theatrical season, we have gems of genius in the way of vocalists from the "sunny skies of fair, classic Italy," who sing as if their very blood had been intermixed with the red currents that flow through the hearts of nightingales. Therefore, as Bombastes says- " Since Music is the food of love, Play Michael Wiggins once again!" If a person wishes to perforate his intimate friend or insolent enemy, he has only to go to some one of the numerous shooting-galleries in New Orleans, and by the joint aid of a few dimes and three days' practice, he can be taught to split a bullet against the edge of a pen-knife, at the distance of ten paces. Those, too, who are fond of playing with edged tools, will, by applying to some of our fencing-masters, be taught how to "pink" a gentleman in a manner that Chevalier Bayard would have wept at. More than this could not be desired. Now, as for our National Drama, we have all the materials necessary. Stars from Europe, from Britain, and, aye, sometimes from our own wild Western States, appear week after week at the different Theatres-which"temples of the drama" are, we suppose, better patronized than any others in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Those who come to visit us, albeit for a season, must never think that the Queen City of the South is deficient in amusements-for they can enjoy themselves at any thing in the way of drinking, from a glass of the waters of the muddy Mississippi, up to a golden goblet filled with Roman punch;in the way of eating, from a mouldy sea-biscuit with a slice of rusty bacon, up to broiled pompano with terrapin eggs and asparagus; and in the way of music, from the tooting of a penny whistle, up to a soul-entrancing strain of a silver bugle, in the still, solemn hours of night.
The fact is, that in this goodly city, we can go through the whole alphabet of enjoyment, and, as they say in the West, " not miss a letter from A to Izzard."