New Orleans has altered, increased, and deteriorated, for it is an
established thing that cities which grow to such gigantic proportions
gain nothing in respect to the morals of their inhabitants. Here
drunkenness and gambling, two vices of which the Americans were
ignorant in the time of the founders of their great federation,
have taken very deep root. The decrease of the inflexible spirit of
religion, and the increase of vice and luxury, gnaw the powerful tree,
and are fearful enemies, which cannot be resisted by a structure that
might resist with scorn all foreign foes, and would have played a
mighty part in the world's history had the spirit of Washington and
Franklin remained with it. The annexation of Texas, the war with
Mexico, and now the gold of California, have transformed the United
States. A people which makes conquests, loses inward power in
proportion to the aggrandizement of its volume, and the increase of
its external enemies."

* * * * *

AN ARABIAN NEWSPAPER, with the title _Mobacher_. has lately been
commenced in Algiers, at the expense of the French Government. It
is edited in the cabinet of the Governor-General, issued weekly, and
lithographed, as less expensive than printing, which in Arabic types
would be quite costly. It contains political news from Europe and
Africa, the latest advices from Constantinople, all those laws and
decrees of the Government which in any way concern the Arabs, and
descriptions of such new discoveries and inventions as can be made
intelligible to the readers for whom it is designed. A thousand copies
are printed weekly and sent to the chiefs and headmen of all the
tribes that are under French rule or influence. At first it was not
read much, but now the vanity of the Arabs has been excited by it as a