The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-24 00:00:00

A SCENE IN CONGRESS.

Dignity, as everybody knows, is not the character-
istic of our own House of Commons ; but we feel'quie
self-complacent after reading in the. New York Herald
the account of what its editor calls " an intensely in-
teresting scene," which " can never be forgotten by
those who were so fortunate as to witness it," in the
Congress of the United States. It is possible that the
proceedings of ,that eminent body may have exhibited
many such exciting spectacles.
" Sed omnes illacrymabiles,
" Urgentur ignotique longs
" Nocte, carent quia vate sacra."
This alone has found a fitting historian—a very
Shakspeare for versatility—of the' true poetical breed
which alone could deal with such a scene.
" —Meum qui peetus inaniter angit,
" Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet,

" Ut magus, et modo me Thebis mod° ponit A thenis."
It requires an unusual kind of power to shoot like
our American reporter with unembarrassed velocity
from the heights of religious pathos and sentiment to
the depths of coarse and offensive blasphemies—frem
Attic delicacy to Bceotian slang—but our Transatlantic
Contemporary is equally at home in both regions.
Nay, we cannot perceive that he recognises any
vital difference between the two. Like a revolving
Scaramouch, painted after the likeness of Grimaldi
on the one side, and his Royal Highness Prince
Albert on the other, he spins about to his
own entire satisfaction, and to the infinite amazement
and disgust of all sober spectators—alternately grave
and gay—solemn and comic—fool and philosopher—
kicking about his legs and arms with equal energy
in each capacity, and, as far as human eyes can judge,
wholly unconscious of any trifling contrast between
his somewhat inconsistent aspects. Mr. Quincy Adams
is the hero of his drama. That gentleman, as every-
body knows, is an abolitionist—" an abolitionist," he
himself adds, " in the same way that Thomas Jeffer-
son was an abolitionist ;" a very small way, we should
conjecture, seeing that Thomas Jefferson is princi-
pally renowned as having in the way of business sold
his own children. But let that pass. Mr. Q. Adams
is, we say, an abolitionist, and having, on the pre-
ceding day, presented some abolitionist petitions front
Massachusetts, had well nigh undergone an operation
described among the higher circles of America as
that of being " catawampously thawed up" by the
" southern chivalry"—the gentlemen from Carolina
and Virginia. The next day Mr. Adams demanded
permission to reply—he had been misrepresented in
the journals of the House :—" Sir, the journal says I
was called to order for offensive remarks—Sir, I was
called to order for irrelevancy ; I wish that corrected."
The vindication reminds us a little of an old Joe
Miller about " carrying tripe" (it is a coarser
word in the original) to a bear,"—but let that too
pass. It is the debate which ensued to which our
attention is demanded. "Isn't he a great old horse ?"
demanded one member of the deliberative body.
" He's a bitter old scorpion," interjected• another,
"and I wish the chaplain would put up daily prayers
that he may speedily be taken to Abraham'a bosom."
" Here there were 20 or 30 members on the floor, cry-
ing out' Mr. Speaker,' and all wanting to make motions ;
and some did make very grotesque motions."
" Mr. Speaker," said Preston King (" a short,, fat,
good-natured man"), " what is the business before
the House ?" " The disposal of the Massachusetts
resolutions." "Is that debateable ?" " No, Sir."
King—" Then I object?' The little old scorpion re-
monstrated. King —" I object, Sir." Cam Johnson
expressed a wish to proceed. King—" I object, Sir."
Davis (of New York) " wished to say something.'
King—" You do ? very well! I object." Confuion
—laughter, screams ,of laughter. Mr. Adams up
again. Cries of " Oh, for heaven's sake, let the old
man go on ; he'll worry us out." "Oh :no! that
won't do." " Good; go it." " Question." Ayes—
noes ; ayes have it-123 to 46. And so the rules
were suspended to allow Mr. Adams to proceed.

And now hear the reporter :
" Upon this, the eloquent old man rose in his might,
calm, but most imposing in his manner, his venerable
form dilating with honest pride, and his lightning like
eye, grey hair, and bold forehead, presenting a most
picturesque appearance, whilst the members of the
house, young and old, crowded into the arena in front to
listen to him.

" Speaker—Gentlemen will please to take their seats."
- --And—so we have Mr. Adams fairly afloat, who,
after having elicited a due repetition of laughter in
all its degrees of comparison, proceeded to enunciate
the following, under the circumstances, rather as-
tounding sentiments :—" Sir," he said, " the gentle-
man from Virginia was right." " Sir, this place," he
had the face to proceed,
"is not the place for the battle. Sir, this is not the
'place for a battle of any kind. It is a place for solemn
deliberation—for the interchange of thought and mind, in
harmony between friends and brothers ; for we are all
brothers of one blessed family, having no interest at heart,
no desires to attain, no objects to achieve, but the common
good of our common country."
" Great sensation," adds our marvellous reporter,
"and the members noiselessly drew up around the-old
man." Inimitable indeed I But before six lines are
over, we find ourselves amidst " roars of laughter"
again, into which a religious ejaculation is inter-
polated, which produces instantaneous and " tre-
mendous sensation"—then laughter again—immo-
derate, agonizing, "screaming' laughter then
another six lines of evangelical rhapsody, which,
with no greater loss of time than before, took an
effect upon the varieties of Jonathanism who
whittled around the orator, as " impossible to de-
scribe" as it would have been to foretell. " The
tears actually stood in the eyes of many of the
members, and all were intensely silent." Strange
things, we know, were accomplished in the middle
ages, when fishes crowded to hear sermons, and
swallows reported them—but, upon 20 seconds'
warning—by a mere " hey, presto,"—a verse and a
half from the Old Testament turned up with a
sentiment from John Quincy Adams, to draw tears
from such a mixed multitude of alligators as the
American Congress—is clean beyond any feat of
monk or eremite which has ever found its way to
our limited knowledge. True, the crocodile part
of the performance was soon over, and the com-
pany as merry as grigs again. But this is the
very thing which bewilders us ; that the re-
porter, John Quincy, and the whole Congress seem
wholly indifferent whether they laugh or cry—
dance or groan—quote Scripture or swear—"all's
one to Dandie." They have tears on demand from
Air. Adams, not once or twice, but as often as he
chooses to draw for them—while we are able to count
three roarings, one screaming, and twelve ordinary
cakes of laughter in the course of his oration, to say
nothing of what accompanied the dialogue.
We shrink from transferring into our columns all
these most offensive alternations between the would-
be-pious and the would-be-comical, though without
them our readers can scarcely form a notion of what
an American audience, an American speaker, and an
American reporter can do; but we may, perhaps.
venture to give one extract in full (ex pede Herculem)
from the peroration of Mr. Adams' speech, with the
reporter's historical
.comment. It needs no remark
from us. Mr. Adams has lately left Ohio; where
he says the people
"Took leave of me as of a child going to the home of
his fathers—because they said I was the champion, upon
this floor, of the right of petition! Sir, it is the ground en
which I have stood in this House, and upon which I will
ever stand, for the few short days ormonths which it may
please the Almighty to allow me to exert the poor abilities
and faculties which He has bestowed upon me—it is the
ground upon which I desire to stand on this earth after
my death I upon the page of my country's history I and
I will stand upon that ground (the • right of petition)
hereafter before the judgment seat of the God of Mercy,
for my sins I may have committed in the flesh I'
"Language fails to describe the extraordinary effect
which this speech had upon the members. All listened
with intense admiration, the House was as still (except
his voice) as the grave, and the tears trickled down the
cheeks • of- many an old and young member ; and one
southern man, worked up to a pitch of enthusiasm, u hen
Mr. Adams closed, as above, cried out—' By —, he's a
noble old scoundrel after all !' "

At all this we have only to confess ourselves wholly
astounded, and the more so because there is no appa-
rent intention, on the part of Mr. Adams, the Cult-
gress, or the New York _Herald, of being peculiarly
profane. In fact, they seem to think it, imprecation
and all, rather religious than otherwise. Can anything
be a caricature of their social habits when this is a
friendly account of those" solemn deliberations"—that
" interchange of thought and mind"—that " harmony
between brothers of one blessed family," of which, as
Mr. Adams informs use Congress is the allotted scene ?
If this is truth, what can be a libel ? It is, indeed,
squeamish to quarrel with Trollope or Dickens while
the reporter of the New York Herald walks abroad in
his land of liberty a bipes implumis.—Times.

FEVER AND SMALL PDX IN SOUTHWARK:At an
inquest which was held yesterday before Mr. Payne, it was
stated that small-pox and fever was very prevalent in the lower
parts of Southwark, particularly at Bankside. A juror said
that in one locality, Williams-court, there were three in one
family lying dead, and that nine had recently died there,
though there were but few inhabitants in it. The Coroner
asked if vaccination had been resorted to? The juror re-
plied that it had, but he supposed that the operation of it had
been imperfectly performed. Another juror said that in .ome
parts there were above half the inhabitants affected by small-
pox or fever, which was attributed to the present unseasonah y
close state of the weather.

A FREAK OP NATURE.—On Friday night last, to
poor woman named Tye, aged 38, who is married to a sawyer•
upwards of eighty years of age, was safely delivered of a female
child with three arms, and only one leg, the place where the
other leg should be presenting a perfect arm, but only th.rro
fingers being attached to the hand. The parents:have another
and perfect child, and are living at No. 6, Duke-street, St.
eorr
agle 's
eminentin the
several the -faculty.
A very modest lady, says an American paper, who,
lusus nohow has been visited by
Emaesmt.herlsloef
was a passenger en board a packet-ship, sprang out of her
his
parents
who
is
ares ~x b
feete l
ln
ow this
three
the
a,ot inches , ue
rn
berth, and jumped overboard, on hearing- the captain,
pyoera tirosn, o
f age,
his foot measuring thirteen and
during a storm, order the crew to haul down the sheets.
A GmArrric YOUTH.A clergyman
-hhiasghst,4oanndosntloyuftosin proportion,
a half inches in length. Beth
stature.—Essex Herald, - - • -

MRS. GRANT OF LAGGAN.
Published this day, 3 vols. post Svo., with Portrait, 31s. bound,
MEMOIR and CORRESPONDENCE of the
late Mrs. GRANT, of Laggan, Author of " Letters
from the Mountains," "Memoirs of an American Lady,' &c.,
Sec. Edited by her Son, J. P. GRANT, Esq.
London : Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman!.

Now ready, price 10s. 6d.,
PART H. OF MR. BURKE'S HISTORY
OF THE LANDED GENTRY.

Tn noticing the first Part of this work, we spoke of the
extraordinary labour and diligence which had been bestowed
upon it, and its consequent value as an accurate history of the
untitled aristocracy of England. It is, indeed, a remarkable
monument of industry and research, and contains a mass of
curious heraldic and genealogical information, that can be
found no where else. We have had an opportunity of testing
its extreme correctness."—John Bull.
Henry Colburn, Publisher, 13, Great Marlborough-street.