AMERICAN CONGRESS.
We hasten to lay before our readers the following authentic reports of the latest debates in the United States’ Congress, which have been forwarded to us by our peculiarly and especially exclusive Reporters.
New York.—The greatest possible excitement exists here, agitating alike the bosoms of the Whites, the Browns, and the Blacks; a universal sympathy appears to exist among all classes, the greater portion of whom are looking exceedingly blue. The all-absorbing question as to whether the “war is to be or not to be,” seems an exceedingly difficult one to answer. One party says “Yes,” and another party says “No,” and a third party says the above parties “Lie in their teeth;” and thereupon issue is joined, and bowie-knives are exchanged—the “Yes” walking away with “No’s” sheathed in the middle of his back, and the “No” making up for his loss by securing the “Yes’s” somewhere between his ribs. All the black porters are looking out for light jobs, and rushing about with shutters and cards of address, bearing high-minded “Loco-focos” and shot-down “democrats” to their respective surgeons and houses. This unusual bustle and activity gives the more political parts of the city an exceedingly brisk appearance, and has caused most of the eminent surgeons, not attached to either party, to be regularly retained by the principal speakers in these most interesting debates.
In Congress great attention is paid to the comfort of the various members, who are all provided with spittoons, though they are by no means compelled to tie themselves down to the exclusive use of those expectorant receptacles; on the contrary, much ingenuity is shown by some of the more practised in picking out other deposits; a vast majority of the Kentuckians will back themselves to “shoot through” the opposition member’s nose and eye-glass without touching “flesh or flints.”
The prevailing opinion appears to be, that should we come to a fight they will completely alter the costume of the country, and “whop us into fits.” Their style of elocution is masterly in the extreme, redolent with the sagest deductions, and overflowing with a magnificent and truly Eastern redundancy of the most poetical tropes. I will now proceed to give you an extract from the celebrated speaker on the war side—“the renowned Jonathan J. Twang.”
“I rather calculate that tarnal, pisoned, alligator of a ring-tailed, roaring, pestiferous, rattlesnake, that critter ‘the Old Country,’ would jist about give up one half its skin, and wriggle itself slick out of the other, rayther than go for to put our dander up at this present identical out-and-out important critical crisis! I conceit their min’stry have got jist about into as considerable a tarnation nasty fix, as a naked nigger in the stocks when the mosquitoes are steaming up a little beyond high pressure. I guess Prince Albert and the big uns don’t find their seats quite as soft as buttered eels in a mud bank! Look here—isn’t it considerable clear they’re all funking like burnt Cayenne in a clay pipe; or couldn’t they have made a raise some how to get a ship of their own, or borrow one, to send after that caged-up ’coon of a Macleod? It’s my notion, and pretty considerable clear to me, they’re all bounce, like bad chesnuts, very well to look at, but come to try them at the fire for a roast, and they turn out puff and shell. They talk of war as the boy did of whipping his father, but like him, they daresn’t do it, and why not? why, for the following elegant reasons:—Since they have been used to the advantages of doing their little retail trade with our own go-ahead and carry-all-before-it right slick-up-an-end double-distilled essence of a genuine fine and civilised country, the everlasting ’possums have become habituated to some of the manners of our enlightened inhabitants. We have nothing to do but refuse the supply of cottons, and leave them all with as little shirts to their backs as wool on a skinned eel. Isn’t it the intercourse with this here country that enables them to speak their very language with something rayther like a leetle correctness, though they’re just about as far behind us as the last jint of the sea-sarpent is from his eye-tooth?
“Doesn’t all international law consist in keeping an everlasting bright look-out on your own side, and jamming all other varments slick through a stone wall, as the waggon-wheel used up the lame frog? (Hear, hear.) I say—and mind you I’ll stick to it like a starved sloth to the back of a fat babby—I say, gentlemen, this country, the United States (particularly Kentucky, from which I come, and which will whip all the rest with out-straws and rotten bull-rushes agin pike, bagnet, mortars, and all their almighty fine artillery), I say, then, this country is considerable like a genuine fac-simile of the waggon-wheel, and the pretty oneasy busted-up old worn-out island of the bull-headed Britishers, ain’t nothing more than the tee-totally used-up frog. (Hear, hear.)
“I expect they’d have just as much chance with us as a muzzled monkey with a hiccory-nut. Talk of their fleet! I’ll bet six live niggers to a dead ’coon, our genuine Yankee clippers will whip them into as bad a fix as a flying-fish with a gull at his head and a shark at his tail. They’re jist about as much out of their reckoning as the pig that took to swimming for his health and cut his throat trying it on.
“It’s everlasting strange to me if, to all future posterity coming after us, the word ‘Macleod’ don’t shut up their jaws from bragging of British valour just about as tight as the death-squeeze of a boa-constrictor round a smashed-up buffalo!
“If it wa’n’t for the distance and leaving my plantation, I’d go over with any on you, and help to use up the lot myself! Let them ‘come on,’ as the tiger said to the young kid, and see what ‘I’ll do for you.’ They talk of sending out their chaps here, do they; let them; they’ll be just about as happy as a toad in hot tar, and that’s a fact.” Here Jonathan J. Twang sat down amid immense cheers; at the conclusion of which, Mr. Peter P. Pellican, from the back-woods, requested—he, Peter P. Pellican, being from Orleans—that Mr. Jonathan J. Twang would retract certain words derogatory to the state represented by Peter P. Pellican. Mr. Jonathan J. Twang replied in the following determined refusal:—“I beg to inform the last speaker, Mr. Peter P. Pellican, from the back-woods, that I’ll see him tee-totatiously tarred, feathered, and physicked with red-hot oil and fish-hooks, before I’ll retract one eternal syllable of my pretty particular correct assertions.”
This announcement created considerable confusion. The President behaved in the most impartial and manly manner, indiscriminately knocking down all such of both parties who came within reach of his mace, and not leaving the chair until he had received two black eyes and lost two front teeth. The general mêlée was carried on with immense spirit; the more violent members on either side pummelling each other with the most hearty and legislative determination. This exciting scene was continued for some time, until during a short cessation a member with a broken leg proposed an adjournment till the following day, when the further discussion could be carried on with Bowie-knives and pistols; this proposition was at once acceded to with immense delight by all parties. If well enough (as I have two broken ribs, my share of the row) I will forward you an authentic statement of this interesting proceeding.
EPITAPH ON A CANDLE.
A wicked one lies buried here,
Who died in a decline;
He never rose in rank, I fear,
Though he was born to shine.
He once was fat, but now, indeed,
He’s thin as any griever;
He died,—the Doctors all agreed,
Of a most burning fever.
One thing of him is said with truth,
With which I’m much amused;
It is—That when he stood, forsooth,
A stick he always used.
Now winding-sheets he sometimes made,
But this was not enough,
For finding it a poorish trade,
He also dealt in snuff.
If e’er you said “Go out, I pray,”
He much ill nature show’d;
On such occasions he would say,
“Vy, if I do, I’m blow’d.”
In this his friends do all agree,
Although you’ll think I’m joking,
When going out ’tis said that he
Was very fond of smoking.
Since all religion he despised,
Let these few words suffice,
Before he ever was baptized
They dipp’d him once or twice.
SIBTHORP ON BORTHWICK.
Our Sibthorp, while speaking of the asinine qualities of Peter Borthwick, remarked, that in his opinion that respectable member of the Lower House must be indebted to the celebrated medicine promising extreme “length of ears,” and advertised as
PARR’S SPECIFIC.