Girardey thanks McMaster for his letter and for the $17. which he has given to Mother Mary Austin. She wrote a note of acknowledgement, which Girardey encloses not present, just before she left for a short journey in the interests of her community. He suspected that McMaster had a hand in the $1,000 donation which J. Pierrepont Morgan sent to the Sisters of Mercy and ow his suspicions are confirmed by the letter. That was the only donation from that source to the Sisters of Mercy although several persons were induced to send donations by the articles in the Journal. Many donations were received from all over the country to aid the poor and the orphans, without which the asylums would not have been able to function. These donations were the chief support from August 1, 1878 until Jan. 1, 1879, and the fact that the remainder of the country did aid this section so charitably partly restores one's confidence in humanity and makes one believe that there is still room for Christianity and that modern paganism has not entirely pervaded the people. The people are making a slow recovery from bad government and the late epidemic. This recovery would be better if the city and state were not so near to bankruptcy. Since the war millions of dollars have been spent without benefit to anyone except the unscrupulous men who are filling their purses from public money. The laws are so nicely framed that, while the perpetrators of these swindling schemes cannot be brought to justice by a fair trial, innocent men are seized by apparently legal processes and brought from far distances to appear in sham court trials before judges and juries packed for the sole purpose of condemning them. While these men wait for weeks until this farcical trial takes place, their families are reduced to want and starvation and the most fertile parts of the state remain uncultivated. The best business men aim merely at meeting current expenses scarcely able to realize any profit. Those who have money idle fear to invest it lost they lose it all. Twenty per cent of the people are unemployed now and still more workers flock in from the country where the work is plentiful but the laborers scarce. In nearly all of these points New Orleans is merely a miniature copy of New York City. The Archbishop of New Orleans, Napoleon J. Perche , in debt. Many people are longing for a change in ecclesiastical administrations. The saintly Bishop William Henry Elder of Natchez, Mississippi, is rumored to be on the point of going to California as Coadjutor of the Archbishop of San Francisco Joseph S. Alemany. His diocese will sadly miss him since he is very much beloved. Girardey still uses the cane made of vine which McMaster gave him in 1868. He will recommend Colonel James to the prayers of the Sisters and orphans and will continue trying to find new subscribers for the Freeman's Journal although there is not great love of reading there. :: I-2-c A.L.S. 4pp. 12mo.