, and beginning to rain.
Under the hill at Natchez, forty-five years ago, was a terrible place.
The road up the bluff was precipitous and muddy. There were no
accommodations for decent people under the hill. The dance-houses were
in full blast. Boisterous and obscene mirth rang from them; men and
women were drunk; some were singing obscene songs; some were shouting
profanity in every disgusting term; some, overcome with debauchery,
were insensible to shame, and men and women, rushing from house to
house, gathered a crowd to meet us as we landed. One tremendous
slattern shouted, as she saw us come on shore: "There are the
show-folks; now we'll have fun!" If Mrs. Farren--the daughter of
Russell--still lives, I will say to her that this was her advent to
Natchez. Up that hill, through mire and rain, I bore her in my arms,
on that terrible night. Caldwell alone was cheerful; Sol. Smith joked,
and Russell swore.

"How many, many memories
Sweep o'er my spirit now!"

It was a peculiarity of James H. Caldwell to do whatever he did with
all his might. No obstacle seemed to deter or impede the execution of
any public or individual enterprise of his. Beside being a splendid
performer, he was an accomplished gentleman, and a fine, classic
scholar. His reading was select and extensive. At a very early day, he
was impressed with the future importance of New Orleans as a
commercial city, and commenced to identify himself with the American
population, and to make this his future home. His ideas on this
subject were in advance of those of many whose business had always
been commerce, and they were generally deemed Utopian and extravagant;
but his self-reliance was too great to heed any ridicule thrown upon
any thought or enterprise of his. He invested his limited means in
property in the second municipality, and lent himself, heart and soul,
in connection with Peters, to its development into the proportions his
imagination conceived it was ultimately capable of attaining, should
the extent of its commerce reach the magnitude he supposed it would.
Immediately upon the amendment of the city charter, creating the
municipalities, and making independent the second, Caldwell conceived
the idea of lighting the city with gas, and, at the same time, of
building a city hall, and the establishment of a system of public
schools.

Edward York, a merchant of the city, gave this idea his special
attention, and co-operated with Peters and Cald