“Mr. Speaker,” says I, “this is a subject of vital importance. The question is, Mr. Speaker, on the amendment. I have a decided opinion on that subject, Mr. Speaker. I’m altogether opposed to the last gentleman, and I feel bound in duty to my constituents, Mr. Speaker, and the responsibility of my office, to express my mind on this subject. Mr. Speaker, our glorious forefathers fought, bled, and died for glorious liberty. I’m opposed to this question, Mr. Speaker—my constituents have a vital interest in the subject of cart-wheels.
“Let us take a retrospective view, Mr. Speaker, of the present condition of all the kingdoms and tribes of the earth.
“Look abroad, Mr. Speaker, over the wide expansion of nature’s universe—beyond the blazing billows of the Atlantic.
“Behold Buonaparte going about like a roaring thunderbolt! All the world is turned topsy-turvy, and there is a terrible rousing among the sons of men.
“But to return to this subject, Mr. Speaker. I’m decidedly opposed to the amendment: it is contrary to the principles of freemen and the principles of responsibility. Tell it to your children, Mr. Speaker, and to your children’s children, that freedom is not to be bartered, like Esau, for a mess of potash. Liberty is the everlasting birthright of the grand community of nature’s freemen. Sir, the member from Boston talks of horse-shoes, but I hope we shall stand up for our rights. If we only stand up for our rights, Mr. Speaker, our rights will stand up for us, and we shall all stand uprightly without shivering or shaking. Mr. Speaker, these are awful times; money is hard to get, whatever the gentleman from Rowley may say about pumpkins.
“A true patriot will die for his country. May we all imitate the glorious example and die for our country. Give up keeping cows! Mr. Speaker, what does the honourable gentleman mean? Is not agriculture to be cultivated? He that sells his liberty, Mr. Speaker, is worse than a cannibal, a hottentot, or a hippopotamus. The member from Charlestown has brought his pigs to a wrong market. I stand up for cart-wheels, and so do my constituents. When our country calls us, Mr. Speaker, may we never be backward in coming forward; and all honest men ought to endeavour to keep the rising generation from falling. Not to dwell upon this point, Mr. Speaker, let us now enter into the subject.”
Now it happened, that just at this moment the little fat, bald-headed, round-faced man wriggled himself round just in front of me, so that I could not help seeing him; and just as I was saying, “rising generation,” he twisted the corners of his mouth into a queer sort of pucker on one side, and rolled the whites of his little, grey, twinkling eyes, right up in my face. The members all stared right at us, and made a kind of snickering cluck, cluck, cluck, that seemed to run whistling over the whole house.
I felt awfully bothered, I can’t tell how, but it gave me such a jerk off the hooks, that I could not remember the next words, so that I felt in my pocket for the speech, it was not there; then in my hat, it wasn’t there; then behind me, then both sides of me, but lo! and behold, it was not to be found. The next instant I remembered that I had taken it out of my hat in a shop in Dock Square that morning, while I was comparing the four corners of my check handkerchief with a bandanna. That was enough—I knew as quick as lightning that I was a gone goose. I pretended to go on with my speech, and kept saying “rising generation,” “my constituents,” “enter into the subject, Mr. Speaker.” But I made hawk’s-meat of it you may depend; finally, nobody could stand it any longer. The little fat man with the round face, put his thumb to the side of his nose, and made a sort of twinkling with his fingers; the Speaker began to giggle, and the next minute the whole house exploded like a bomb-shell. I snatched up my hat under cover of the smoke, made one jump to the door and was down stairs before you could say, “second the motion!”
II.
HOSS ALLEN, OF MISSOURI.
This celebrated gentleman is a recognised “hoss” certainly; and, we are told, rejoices as much at his cognomination as he did at his nomination for the chair gubernatorial, last election. He did not run well enough to reach the chair, though it appears, from his own account, that his hoss qualities, “any how,” fall considerable below those of the sure-enough animal. This is his story, which he is very fond of relating up by Palmyry.