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W00176
i*
Kany of the fine summer boarding-houses are kept open in the vlnter to accommodate the hundreds of Northern people v/ho have found this such a pleasant -winter home. If all the vacant rooms and residences, utilized in the accommodation of a surplus population of several thousand during the summer, vere available during the vinter, the number of the inhabitants of Bay St. Louis might be kept permanently between 7,000 and 8,000.
They might be easily made available, as both summer and vinter visitors could frequent the place, and live at a very low cost for rents, rooms, and board, vhich would result from residences, boarding-houses, and hotels being occupied and enjoying a full business during twelve months of the year.
The times of the two classes of visitors vould harmonize exactly The excess of summer population resides here from the beginning of June to the middle of October. The Northern tourists usually remain in the South from November to Kay.
Thus, it is easily seen that Bay St. Louis, vith only its present accommodations (and they are certainly most excellent), can accommodate every vinter, from 2.000 to 3»000 Northern tourists. The day must come when it will find itself subjected to the demand of entertaining even a much more numerous throng from the North than that; and it seems that the people have it in their power to make the date of that day early.
Suppliers Visit Cust omers
The long pierheads projecting out into the bay and Sound, built on pine posts, and ending in oriiamental kiosks, pagodas, or plain bath rooms, indicate the fact that sea-bathing is one of the most popular of summer luxuries indulged in by the population.
Groups of big-hatted urchins, with bare legs, faces as solemn as if they thought life was but a serious business at best and they deemed the price of both hard and soft-shelled crabs was at a figure that vould justify an immediate strike, carry baskets of crabs on their arms and inform the stranger that crustacean delicacies are a perfect drug in the market and now is the time to buy.
Fish-dealers, oyster-men, vegetable-venders, and butchers' men here come to the homes and hotels of the people. Living is so cheap here, or its means are, that one need not bow down to his butcher and his baker as to his lord and master.
Roving is Popular
The aquatic diversions of yachting and rowing are participated in by both"sexes, though the young ladies seem to prefer to row, or be rowed, in the Bay of St. Louis rather than in the more open Sound, as in the former sheet the water is smoother.