William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

Chapter 10: carpet-baggers.

William P. Kellogg's private secretary comes to the hotel to say that if we will pay a visit to the Legislature and Executive, Speaker Hahn and Governor Kellogg will be happy to receive us at the State House. In company of our consul, as before, we start for Royal Street, the entrance in St. Louis Street being still closed.

After some parley with Negro soldiers and police we pass the door. A rush of foul air, the reek of bad cigars and worse liquors, drives us back. Phew! The hall is nearly dark, and gas is burning in one corner. Windows and doors are planked, and the floors strewn with corks, broken glass, stale crusts, and rotting bones. A crowd of loafers and officials throngs the hall, most of them Negroes, all of them smoking, jabbering, pushing. Here, a cotton picker wants to go upstairs and see “ dat legislating show. ”