Yesterday evening at about 5 o'clock, Joseph A. Quintero, for many years attached to the editorial staff of the Picayune died at his home in this city.

Mr. Quintero was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1829. His father, Antonio Quintero, was a tobacco planter. His mother, whose maiden name was Anna Woodville, was a lady of English birth and parentage. When only 12 years old he was entered as a student at Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass. While at that institution he received tidings of his father's death, and, the family estates being much involved, he was thrown entirely upon his individual resources. Instead of returning at once to his native land, he resolved to continue his studies at Harvard, and found means to do so by giving lessons in Spanish. Handsome, accomplished, genial, the boy-teacher was a favorite in society, and made many friends among the litterati of Boston and its vicinity.

Somewhere about the year 1848, Mr. Quintero returned to Cuba, and graduated at law in Havana. Becoming much interested in the cause of the Cuban patriots he entered journalism in that behalf, and his bold and eloquent pen made him so obnoxious to the authorities that he was three times arrested, and during the ill-fated expedition of Narciso Lopez, he was confined in Castle Moro and condemned to death, after trial by court martial. By some means, however, he contrived to make his escape and then for the first time visited New Orleans. Shortly afterward he went to Texas, and there once more engaged in journalism. At one time he was the editor of the Ranchero, then a Democratic paper of great influence, in San Antonio. In 1857 he was again in New Orleans, and in 1859 we find him editing a Spanish illustrated paper, published by Frank Leslie, in New York.

Mr. Quintero was devotedly attached to the South, and at the beginning of the late war of secession he abandoned his situation in New York to cast in his lot with the Southern people. He took this step at great personal sacrifice, with characteristic generosity of impulse, despite the protests and warnings of his Northern friends and employers. After enlisting in the Quitman Guards in Texas he went with that company to Virginia. In Richmond he made the acquaintance of President Davis, who on the 4^th of September, 1861, commissioned him as a confidential agent of the Confederacy and detailed him for service in Mexico, where he remained to the close of the war. Mr. Quintero then decided to establish himself permanently in New Orleans, and after reading for some months in the office of the well known firm of Semmes & Mott he graduated in the law school of this city. Although meeting with a fair degree of success in the practice of the legal profession, he soon drifted again into journalism, and attached himself to the Picayune. In 1867 he was appointed Consul for Belgium, at which time he had already been for some months Consul for Costa Rica, a post which he retained up to his death. He was also a notary public and a United States Commissioner.

Mr. Quintero's death was not unexpected. For more than a year his health had been obviously failing, and for some months it had been but too evident that his once powerful constitution could not much longer resist the inroads of disease. His two sons were with him to the end, and faithful friends attending him lovingly until he had breathed his last.

We have thus given a brief abstract of an eventful and romantic career-a life devoted to noble labors, to the service of patriotism and friendship. In New Orleans no man was more widely known or more generally beloved. We who knew and loved him most of all cannot yet realize that he has indeed gone forever beyond the reach of earthly companionship; but we know that in the days to come many a word in kindness spoken, many a gentle, unobtrusive deed of charity, will recall to us "the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still," to keep his memory fadeless and precious to our hearts. To his bereaved relatives we offer a sincere and tender sympathy.