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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 10, 5 September 1861, Page 6 (Supplement)

r : ■ Awful Eloquence of an American Oratoe.— |We give the following speech of General Eiley : from the New York Tribune , which states that it ; was delivered in the Missouri House of Representatives on February Bth. Mr. Eiley obtained the , floor, and addressed the House as follows:—“ Mr. Speaker,—Everybody is pitching into this matter, , like toad frogs into a willow swamp on a lovely evening in the balmy month of June, when the mellow light of the full moon fills with a delicious flood the thin, etherial atmospheric air [Applause]. Sir, I want to put in a word, or perhaps a word and a-half. There seems to be a disposition to i fight. I say, if there is any fighting to be done, come on with your corn-cobs. In the language , of the ancient Roman, i ‘ Come one, come all, this rock shall fly From its firm base—in a pig’s eye. Now, there as been a great deal of bombast here' to-day. Sir, the question to refer is a great and magnificent question. It is the all-absorbing question—like a sponge, Sir, a large unmeasurable sponge of globe shape, in a small tumbler of water —it sucks up every thing. Sir, the debate as assumed a latitudinosity. We have had a little black-jack buncombe, a little two-bit buncombe, bombast buncombe, and much other kind of buncombe. Why, Sir, just give some of ’em a little Southern soap and a little Northern water, and quicker than a hound can lick a skillet they will make enough buncombe lather to wash the golden flock that roams abroad the azure meads of heaven—(cheers and laughter)—l allude to the star--17 firmanent. I want to say to these carboniferous gentlemen, these igneous individuals, these detonating demonstrators, those pereginousvolcanoes, come on with your combustibles! If I don’t—well, I’ll suck the Gulf of Mexico through a goose quill (laughter and applause). Perhaps you think l am diminutive tubers, and sparse in the mundane elevation. You may discover, gentlemen, you are labouring under as great a misapprehension as though vbu had incinerated your inner vestment. Sir, we nave lost our proper position. Our proper position is to the zenith and nadir —our heads to the one, our heels to the other, at right angle with the horizon, spanned by the azure arc of the lustrous firmament, bright with the coruscations of innumerable constellations, and proud as speckled stud-horse on a county court day (cheers). Eut how have the mighty fallen!’ is the language of the poet Silversmith. We have lost our proper position. We have assumed a sloshindicular or a diagonological position. And what is the cause? Echo answers, ‘Buncombe,’ Sir, ‘Buncombe,’ The people have been fed on buncombe, while a lot of spavined, ring boned, hamstrung, wind-galled, swino-eyed, split-hoofed, distempered, poll-cviled, pot-belled pouticans have had their noses in thepublic crib until there ain’t fodder enough left to make a gruel for a sick grass-hopper—(cheers and . laughter). lam 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 ex-, pressed, that all the ‘grit’ is pretty, near worn off (applause). Mr. Speaker, you must excuse me for my latitudinosity and circumlocutoriness. My old blunderbuss scatters amazingly, but if anybody gets peppered, it ain’t my fault if they are in the way. Sir, these candadical, supersqnirtical, mahoganyfaced gentry, what do they know about the blessings of freedom ? These are the ones that have got our liberty polo off its perpendicularity. The ' high bird of Liberty sits perchod on the topmast branch, but there is no secession salt on his glorious tail. 1 fear he will no more spread his noble pinions to soar bevoud the azure regions of the boreal pole. But let not Missouri pull the Hast feather from his sheltering wings to plume a shaft to pierce his noble breast; or, what is the same, make a pen to sigh a secession ordinance (applause). Alas, poor bird, if they drive you- from the hemlock of the North, and the palmetto of the South, come ever to the gum-tree of the West, and we will protect your noble birdship, while water grows and grass runs (immense applause). Mr. Speaker, 1 subside for the present. It has been decided to construct a railway across the Alps. — Liverpool Albion.