This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

wott #	^
Committed No Crs nal Act
And I did not commit a single criminal or immoral act during all my stay in the United States. I did not drink a drop of liquor or ever taste it then, and never learned or knew how to clay a single game of cards, or have anything whatever to do with prostitutes, although I was surrounded by Drinking, gambling, prostitution and every form of vice. It all disgusted and repelled me.
I say my feading' before that, and during that time, gave a high tone to my mind. fc£ood*novels^wllL„do~ihat:and-d-ir my case I did not stop at novels. They'give the first taste for reading and as the mind improves and becomes stronger they will lead on to and give a desire for strongest reading, as they did in my case. The main thing is to first create a taste for reading and novels give that. Hea v.ifo.res4ing. rep.elsJ:'a.Ly.oung^mind;^ If they have capacity of mind, novels^will create an appetite for heavier reading as the mind becomes stronger. "hULllc^ oitfdBab.es,
S txong..jne at., Sor, men."
Winter Pleasures at New Orleans
For those with means seeking pleasure I know of no place where they can enjoy a winter so much as in New Orleans. Everything can be had there for money.
The climate is so warm. No snow, seldom ice forms at all. There is a haze or sheen in the atmosphere. The firmaments appear more expansive and the sky deafer, and distances appear greater in thos tropical countries than in our cold cloudy north.
Fan Is the Evil
But "man" there is nothing and I don’t want to see any one belonging to me go there.
. There is more chance in the North for everyone, more equal conditions and liberty and humanity.
The Anglo Americans there were more oppressive, rapacious, heartless and crushing than the Creole French Catholics, then a large element of the population. The Fj&enchswera-kinder masters to their Slsrves who also talked French. They had founded Hospitals etc. and many poor sick Boatment had a blessing for the kind "Sisters of Charity" the Catholic nurses there.
Worked on Fort St. Philip
After two months of enforced idleness there I found work with Col. Barnard of the Engineers, U. S. Army (I lately saw of his death this year in the newspapers (1883)— h to work on the New Fortifications at Fort Jqckson and Fort St. Philip for the U. S. Gov. 60 miles below New Orleans and 30 miles above the Balize or mouth of the Mississippi, and below the site of the Battle of New Orleans in 1812 (181^-15).