circumstances, and many of the poor suffered and died for want of
food. For a whole year, while the Rebel flag floated over the city,
the business of New Orleans was utterly suspended.

With the passage of the forts and the capture of New Orleans by
Admiral Farragut, the Rebel rule was ended. Very slowly the business
of the city revived, but in its revival it fell into the hands of
Northern men, who had accompanied our armies in their advance. The old
merchants found themselves crowded aside by the ubiquitous Yankees.
With the end of the war, the glory of the city will soon return, but
it will not return to its old channels. More than any other city of
the South, New Orleans will be controlled by men of Northern birth
and sentiments. The day of slave-auctions in the rotunda of the St.
Charles has passed away forever.

New Orleans has a class of men peculiar to the South, whose business
it is to sell cotton for the planters. These gentlemen are known
as "factors," and, in former times, were numerous and successful.
Whatever a planter needed, from a quire of paper to a steam-engine,
he ordered his factor to purchase and forward. The factor obeyed the
order and charged the amount to the planter, adding two and a half per
cent, for commission.

If the planter wanted money, he drew upon the factor, and that
individual honored the draft. At the end of the season, it often
occurred that the planter was largely in debt to the factor. But the
cotton crop, when gathered, being consigned to the factor, canceled
this indebtedness, and generally left a balance in the planter's
favor.

The factor charged a good commission for selling the cotton, and
sometimes required interest upon the money he advanced. In the happy
days before the war, the factor's business was highly lucrative. The
advances to the planters, before the maturity of the cotton crop,
often required a heavy capital, but the risk was not great. Nearly
every planter was considerably indebted to his factor before his
cotton went forward. In many cases the proceeds of the entire crop
would but little more than cover the advances which had been made.

In New Orleans nearly all cotton is sold "by sample." Certain men are
licensed to "sample" cotton, for which they charge a specified sum per
bale. A hole is cut in the covering of each bale, and from this hole
a handful of cotton is pulled. Every bale is thus "sampled," without
regard to the size of the lot. The samples