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                <title level="m" type="main">Walt Whitman to the Editors of <hi rend="italic">The Daily Crescent</hi>, 9 December 1848</title>
                <title level="m" type="sub">a machine readable transcription</title>
                <author>Walt Whitman</author>
                <editor>Kenneth M. Price</editor>
                <editor>Ed Folsom</editor>
                <respStmt>
                    <resp>Transcription and encoding</resp>
                    <persName xml:id="ss">Stefan Schoeberlein</persName>
                    <persName xml:id="zt">Zachary Turpin</persName>
                    <persName xml:id="smb">Stephanie Blalock</persName>
                    <persName xml:id="jh">Jeff Hill</persName>
                </respStmt>
                <sponsor>Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of
                    Nebraska-Lincoln</sponsor>
                <sponsor>University of Iowa</sponsor>
                <funder>National Historical Publications and Records Commission</funder>
            </titleStmt>
            <editionStmt>
                <edition>
                    <date>2023</date>
                </edition>
            </editionStmt>
            <publicationStmt>
                
                <distributor>The Walt Whitman Archive</distributor>
                <address>
                    <addrLine>Center for Digital Research in the Humanities</addrLine>
                    <addrLine>319 Love Library</addrLine>
                    <addrLine>University of Nebraska-Lincoln</addrLine>
                    <addrLine>P.O. Box 884100</addrLine>
                    <addrLine>Lincoln, NE 68588-4100</addrLine>
                </address>
                <availability>
                    <p>Copyright © 2023 by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price, all rights reserved.
                        Items in the Archive may be shared in accordance with the Fair Use
                        provisions of U.S. copyright law. Redistribution or republication on other
                        terms, in any medium, requires express written consent from the editors and
                        advance notification of the publisher, Center for Digital Research in the
                        Humanities. Permission to reproduce the graphic images in this archive has
                        been granted by the owners of the originals for this publication only.</p>
                </availability>
            <idno>med.00986</idno></publicationStmt>
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                    <analytic>
                        <author><choice>
                                <orig>Manahattan</orig>
                                <reg>Walt Whitman</reg>
                            </choice></author>
                        <title>Walt Whitman to the Editors of <hi rend="italic">The Daily Crescent</hi>, 9 December 1848</title>
                    </analytic>
                    <monogr>
                        <title level="j">The New Orleans Crescent</title>
                        <imprint>
                            <date when="1848-12-21">21 December 1848</date>
                        </imprint>
                        <biblScope unit="page">[1]</biblScope>
                    </monogr>
                </biblStruct>
                <bibl>
                    <author>Walt Whitman</author>
                    <title>Walt Whitman to the Editors of <hi rend="italic">The Daily Crescent</hi>, 9 December 1848</title>
                    <date cert="high" when="1848-12-09" xml:id="dat1">December 9, 1848</date>
                    <orgName xml:id="med">The location of the original manuscript is unknown.
                        Whitman's letters to Alexander Hamilton Hayes (1806–1866) and John Eliot
                        McClure (ca. 1809–1869)—the editors of <hi rend="italic">The Daily
                            Crescent</hi> (New Orleans, Louisiana)—were published in that newspaper.</orgName>
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                <person role="sender">
                    <persName key="Whitman, Walt">Walt Whitman</persName>
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                <person role="recipient">
                    <persName key="Editors of The Daily Crescent">Editors of <hi rend="italic">The Daily Crescent</hi></persName>
                </person>
            </particDesc>
        </profileDesc>
        <revisionDesc>
            <change when="2023-08-11" who="#smb">edited notes</change>
            <change when="2023-02-16" who="#smb">final check, corrected</change>
            <change when="2022-12-09" who="#jh">checked, corrected</change>
            <change when="2022-09-17" who="#smb">encoded</change>
            <change when="2020-11-01" who="#zt">transcribed</change>
            <change when="2020-11-01" who="#ss">transcribed</change>
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            <opener>
                <dateline>
                    <name type="place"><handShift rend="printed"/>New York,</name>
                    <date when="1848-12-09"><handShift rend="printed"/>Saturday</date>
                    <date when="1848-12-09"><handShift rend="printed"/>Dec. 9.</date>
                </dateline>
                <salute><handShift rend="printed"/><hi rend="italic">Eds.
                    Crescent</hi>—</salute>
            </opener> 
            <p><handShift rend="printed"/>Your friends here—and you may be satisfied you have
                "some" in these diggings—are delighted at beholding such an evidence of prosperity
                as the advent of your large and beautiful Weekly—which I submitted this morning, to
                the inspection of a knot of our craft, and of journalists, who all pronounced it a
                model newspaper. I hope you will keep up the character of <hi rend="italic">variety</hi> which appears in
                it, and which is as much the spice of a newspaper, as of life. You needn't blush
                when I tell you that among good judges here, the Crescent is considered to be the
                best Daily in the south-west. Moreover, you know, print people are not over-fond of
                praising their contemporaries; and don't do it without strong cause.</p> 
            <p><handShift rend="printed"/>The great topic
                of interest here (since the election is settled) appears to proceed from the
                existence of the cholera,<ptr target="med.00989_n5"/> which has arrived at last, sure enough. Thus far it has
                been kept at the Quarantine station on Staten Island, about seven miles below the
                city. Some three of four cases were landed from the Liverpool liner New York, a week
                ago; they were bedded in a large room, where there were several other sick persons.
                As others were landed, they went in the same room. But not many hours elapsed before
                some of the other sick persons exhibited symptoms of cholera too. The doctors,
                however, (who, as a class, are the most self-opinioned creatures under the sun,)
                wouldn't separate the original patients, till the spread of the disease threatened
                alarming consequences. They <hi rend="italic">did</hi> separate them, though, at last, and put the 
                cholera patients in an isolated place, by themselves. Since that time, the disease has
                spread little or none. From the best information, there have been about twenty
                cases; and half of these have resulted fatally. It must be borne in mind, at the
                same time, that most of these cases were of persons who were in all likelihood
                debilitated by disease or dissipation, and their systems sank under the exhausting
                drain of cholera. The weather, too, has been remarkably bad, for health. For the
                last three days—during Wednesday, Thursday and Friday—the air has been filled with a
                heavy, stagnated, foggy wetness, and the streets with mud and filth, and every object
                covered with clammy moisture. Of course, too, nearly every disease is now, through
                the popular alarm, converted into cholera.</p> 
            <p><handShift rend="printed"/>We shall soon see how all this will
                change when there comes a dry, keen frost. I know the cry is that weather makes no
                great difference in the spread of the dreaded disease; but that is nonsense. When
                the nature of the atmosphere is completely changed, and exhalations are not
                developed, it looks likely that the same effects will ensue as from totally
                different causes!</p> 
            <p><handShift rend="printed"/>Our young men are in some commotion, induced by the golden
                realities of California;<ptr target="med.00984_n10"/> and there is talk of fitting out ships, and much people
                going in them, to hoe up the gold. What splendid visions! and how much more
                reliable, too, than splendid visions usually are! <choice><sic>Havn't</sic><corr>Haven't</corr></choice> <hi rend="italic">you</hi> 
                felt a "call" toward
                those shores which so</p>
            <p><handShift rend="printed"/><q><floatingText><body><lg><l>"Pour down their golden sands,"<ptr target="med.00986_n3"/></l></lg></body></floatingText></q></p> 
            <p><handShift rend="printed"/>that people gather them by the
                tin cup-full? 
                I must say <hi rend="italic">I</hi> should have no sort of objection to go if I <choice><sic>were'nt</sic><corr>weren't</corr></choice> "tied
                down," in New York. Let us hope that the yellow tide will have to set this way,
                (through New Orleans, <hi rend="italic">of course</hi>,) and that editors and printers and newspaper
                correspondents, may get some of it, with the rest.</p> 
            <p><handShift rend="printed"/>As the river continues navigable,
                and the canals ditto, produce of all kinds remains low in price and plentiful in
                quantity. The latter part of yesterday afternoon was oppressively <hi rend="italic">warm</hi>—and this on
                the 8th of December! One of the papers wittily says the telegraph has brought on a
                dispatch of Southern weather....The Simpson<ptr target="med.00958_n2"/> benefit was very largely attended on
                Thursday night; I am informed it will yield $1400 or $1500 profit. The play and
                performances generally were well sustained.....Exhibitions of various kinds—pictures
                and other works of art among the rest—are now very well patronized in New York. The
                proprietors of nearly all these places are making money....It is every way likely
                the plan of the "Battery enlargement" will be favorably decided upon before long.
                You won't know the old spot, then, it will be so much bigger.</p> 
            <p><handShift rend="printed"/>Brooklyn, where it was
                burnt up—and that was about five acres of its best part—is being rapidly rebuilt
                again, with wider streets, and more substantial houses.</p>
            <closer>
                <signed><handShift rend="printed"/>M<hi rend="smallcaps">ANHATTAN</hi>.</signed>
            </closer>
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