A YANKEE ORATOR.

Auckland Star, Issue 536, 28 September 1871, Page 3

A YANKEE ORATOR.

An Australian paper says—" The subjoined 'lieat speech' of General Jiiley, a member of the American House, may be ■use-ttl to some of the brainless idiots yfho write thmsrlves M.L.As in Ausj/dia s"—"After a long aud heated disA Vision on the reference of a bill arnend- \ g the character of the city of Carondelet fj a standing committee of the House, Mr. Biler said : Mr. Speaker, everybody is a pitching into this matter like toad frogs iuto a willow swamp on a lovely evening in the balmy month of June, when the mellow light of a new moon fills with a delicious flood the thin, ethereal air. (Applause). Sir, I want to put in a word, or perhaps a word and a half. There seems to be a disposition to fight. I say, if there is any fighting to be done, come on with your corn-cobs and lightningbugs ! JSoir, there has been a good deal of bombast here to-day. I call it bombnßt, from ' Alpha' to ' Omega.' Sir, the debate has assumed a latitudinosily. We have had a little blackjack bunkum, a little two-bit bunkum, bombast bunkum, bunghole bunkum, and the devil and his grandmother knows what other kind o/ bunkum. (Laughter). Why, sir, just give pome on 'em a little Southern soap and a little Northern water, and quicker than a hound pup can lick a a skillet, they will make enough bunkum lather to wash the golden flock that roams abroad the azure meads of heaven. (Cheers and laughter). I allude to the starry firmament. [Speaker: The gentleman is out of order. He must confine himself to the question]. Mr. Biley: I'll stick to the text as close as a pitch plaster to a pine plank, or a lean pig to a hot jam rock. (Cries of 'Goon ; you'll do.') I want to say to these carboniferous gentlemen, these igneous individuals, these detonating demonstrators, these pereginous volcanoes, come on with your combustibles ! If I dou't—well, I'll suck the Gulf of Mexico through a goosequill. (Laughter and applause). Perhaps you think I am diminutive tubers, and sparse in the mundane elevation. In the language of the noble bard— " I wa3 not born In a thicket To be scared by a cricket." (Applause^. Sir, we have lost our proper position. Our position is to the zenith and nadir —our heads to the one, our heels to the other, at right-angles with the horizon, spanned by thai azure arc of the lustrous firmament, bright with the coruscations of innumerable constellations, and proud as a speckled stud-horse on county court day. (Cheers.) ' Uut how have the mighty fallen!' in the language of the poet Silversmith. We have lost our proper position. We have assumed a sloshingdicular or adiagono-logical position. And whatis the cause ? Echo answers,bunkum, sir, bunkum. The people have fed on bunkum ; while a lot of spavined, ringboned, hamstrung, wind-galled, swinueyed, split-hoofed, distempered.pill-eviled, pot-bellied politicians have had their noses in the public crib until there ain't fodder enough to make gruel for a sick grasshopper. (Cheers and laughter). Sir, do ■they think they can stuff such bunkum down our craw ? No, sir! you might as well try to stuff butter into a wild cat with a hot awl! (Continued laughter) The public grindstone is a gr'.-ai institution, sir—yes, sir, a great institution—one ol the greatest perhaps that ever rose, reigned, or fell. But, sir, there is too much private cutlery ground. The thing won't pay. Occasionally a big axe v brought to be fixed up, ostensibly for the purpose of hewing down llie gnarled trunks of error, and clearing out the brushwood of ignoiance and fully that obstruct the public highway of progress. While the public stare in gaping expectancy of seeing the road cleared, the implement is slily taken off'to improve the private acres of some ' faithful friend of the people.' The time will come when the nasal promontories of these disinterested grinders will be put to the stone instead of their hardware. I am mighty afraid the machine is going to stop. The grease is giving out thundering fast. It is beginning to creak on its axis. Gentlemen.it is my private opinion, confidentially expressed, that all the ' grit' is rrett}' near worn off. (Applause). Mr. Speaker, you must excuse me for my latitudiuosity and circumlocutorines3. My old blunderbuss scatters amazingly, but if anybody gets peppered it aiu't my fault if they are in the way. Sir, these candadical, supersquirtical, mahogany-faced .aentry, what do they know about the blessings of freedom ? About as much, sir, as a toadfrog does of high glory. Do they think they can escape me ? I'll follow them through Pandemonium and high water. (Cheers and laughter). 'Ihcse are the ones that have got our liberty pole off its perpendicularity. 'Tis they who would, rend the stars and stripes, that noble flag—the blood of our revolutionary fathers embalmed in its red; the purity of the cause for which they died denoted by the white ; and blue the freedom they obtained, like the azure air that wraps their native hills and lingers on their lovely plains. (Cheers). The high Bird of Liberty sits perched on the topmost branch, but there is no secession salt on his glorious tail. I fear he will no more spread his noble pinions to soar beyond the azure regions of the boreal pole. But let not Missouri pull the last feather from hb sheltering wing to plume a shaft to pierce his noble breast; or, what is the same, make a pen to sign a seccession ordinance. (Applause). Alas ! poor bird, if they drive you from the branches of the hemlock of the North, and tlie palmetto of the South, come over to the gum-tree of the West, and we will protect your noble birdship while grass grows and water rnns. (Immense applause). Mr. Speaker I ) subside for the present." 1