Of mud, editors and wise counsel

The muddy season of the year prompted a writer to the Abbeville newspaper in 1877 to explain an editor's duties to his or her readers -- including the duty to use the power of the press to get something done about sidewalks and steps that were dangerous, dilapidated, or in disrepair.

Abbeville was not the only town with a problem. Muddy streets and the lack of dry footing was common in communities across south Louisiana in the days when sidewalks -- banquettes -- were made of wood and when streets were turned to mud in wet weather or dust when it was dry. 

Some towns did little more than lay boards down to try to keep pedestrian feet dry, but it didn't take long for the boards to simply sink into the slush.

In places that had proper banquettes, it was usually the town's responsibility to maintain them in front of public buildings, but merchants and businessmen were supposed to keep up the ones in front of their establishments. 

It was the editor's duty, the anonymous letter writer said, to point out --forcefully when necessary -- when the mud began to take over, as well as to give wise counsel on all sorts of other things.

"A real Christian editor," the anonymous letter writer to the Meridional suggested, "must devote a portion of his time to kissing the little girls he meets for the satisfaction of their mothers, give a genteel spanking to the boys avoiding school to the confusion of their fathers, praise and please the world generally -- the fool and the wise equally, the growlers and their wives particularly, the young women and their babies occasionally, and the old women and their old men besides."

But especially, the writer continued, the editor "should remind the town council, and persevere in doing so, until you can inculcate in their minds that [Abbeville's] main banquettes and bridges ... are in a perfect state of dilapidation.

"Is the proprietor of a lot bound to fix the banquette?" the writer asks. "Make him do it. Is the town council bound to fix them? Make them do it, even if you have to resort to compulsory means to do so."

The wooden sidewalk in front of the church was one of the worst offenders, in the writer's estimation.

The pastor offered $75 toward fixing the "impassable" banquette, provided that the town came up with the rest of the money -- which was a good deal for everyone, in the writer's estimation.            

Even if laborers were paid a generous $2 per day, the work could be done for $140, "and with sound cypress, exempt of sap ... [it] would last fifteen years without any repair and would be an ornament to the town."

Shoppers had to negotiate three steps at the store across the street from the church "and if the ladies are not very particular in descending they will break their back bones, and in ascending they will break their noses," according to the letter. Worse, "in descending these steps the ladies and gentlemen get in a perfect mud-hole."

These beat-up  banquettes "should be strictly condemned and the proprietor or the town council rigidly censured for their inaction," the writer continues, suggesting that good examples might be "the best plank banquette in town" in front of Mr. Frank's coffee house and a "good one" in front of Martin's store.

The citizenry was also confronted with bridges "in a worse condition than the banquettes," but, the writer found "no use to say anything about them" because everybody was aware of their deplorable condition.

The writer put everything onto the back of the newspaper editor, urging the newspaper to "constantly harass the parties concerned to make them fulfill their duties."

Editors used to do a lot of that sort of prodding. Sometimes it actually worked.

 

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You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jhbradshaw@bellsouth.net or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589