Jim Bradshaw: When the organ grinder brought civilization to La.
The Lake Charles Commercial carried a little item in 1882, noting that, “the first organ grinder who ever came to Lake Charles .., made his appearance. … We are approaching civilization.”
They were not there yet, in the editor’s estimate, but the grinder was a sign the town was getting more civilized.
This seemed to be part of a happy trend for the town. Only the year before the newspaper had been pleased to report, “The Fourth of July passed off very quietly. Not a cannon fired, not an arm or leg blown off, and not a man shot.”
In Franklin in 1853, a new barber pole was the mark of an unrivaled aesthetic. The Banner reported: “Our enterprising fellow-citizen, Mr. James May, has erected in front of his shop … the most magnificent barber’s pole now standing in the great valley of the Mississippi. [It had been] evident … that his teeming brain was busy in elaborating some great design, but the most sanguine were not prepared for the stupendous miracle which greeted their gaze on Monday last, when that pole, resplendent with various dyes, first bathed in the glories of the morning sun. … May’s pole [is] without … a parallel in the annals of any people, barber or savage.”
The state of the churches was also cause for some optimism in Franklin, because “a number of ladies … resolved that the Methodist Church … should be in future kept in good order, [and were] … having the tobacco stains removed from the floor.” They asked that “tobacco chewers … will in future spare the floor, and save them a great deal of trouble in keeping the house clean.”
But there was still some work to be done. The newspaper also complained, “St. Mary appears to be making fine advances in a moral point of view, but in some respects, she is vastly behind the times. How do the people of the parish spend the Sabbath day? … We have five churches in the parish, while we have seven grog-shops and gambling houses, every shop being to all intents a gambling house. Are our churches or our grogshops more resorted to on the Sabbath day? … Our ministers starve while the proprietors of grog shops get rich.”
There were other problems in the churches a few decades later, when the priest in St. Martinville decreed that weddings had become so rowdy that only invited guests could attend them. According to its newspaper:
“The Messenger has more than once remonstrated with the ladies who in their wild curiosity block and impede the entrance of the church. … If the guests would remain in the pews they would have a better view of the bridal party, than to gather mob-like crowds at the entrance of the church.”
This abuse, according to the story, was “coupled with the wild going and coming from … the church, … laughter, etc.,” so that the priest had no other choice.
“This decision, we believe is just and proper,” the newspaper said “The contracting parties have a right to invite only the persons they desire, and not have the church full of [the] curious.”
And there was a definite challenge to civility on Christmas Day 1910, when, according to the Crowley Signal, “The country tough whose badness finds express in carrying a bottle of ‘squirrel’ whiskey in his hip pocket was in evidence everywhere. Pinetop whiskey imported from
Lafayette in jugs flowed like water. … All day Friday Agent Airy of the Wells Fargo worked to distribute the packages of Christmas booze that started coming in on Thursday. He and his forces worked nearly all night and were hard at it by daylight Friday morning. … Early on Friday the express company stopped accepting any more packages at Lafayette.”
Cutting off packages at Christmas seems like going to an extreme, but what are civilized people to do?
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.