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 quite
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 Lthat eminent body may have exhibited
many such exciting spectacles.
" " Sed omnes illacrymabiles,
Urgentur ignotique longs
• " Nocte, carent quia vate sacro."
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 modo ponit Athenis."
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—from
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 graves.
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 Adatrs
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 from
Massachusetts, had well nigh undergone an operation
described among the higher circles of America as
that of being " catawampously chewed 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's 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." Confusion
—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 scats."
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 But bethre six lines are
over, we find ourselves amidst " roars of laughter"
again, into which a religious ejaculation is inter-
pqlated, which produces instantaneous and " tre-
iniendous sensation"—then laughter again—immo-
delrate, 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
svyallows 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
Ainerican Congress L-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 corn-
pany as merry as grigs again. But this is the
very thing which bewilders us • that the re-
pester, John Quincy, and the whole Congress seem
wholly indifferent whether they laugh or cry—
dance or groan—quote Scripture or swear—"all's
ore to Dandle." They have tears on demand from
111. 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
cases of laughter in the course of his oration, to say
nothing of what accompanied the dialogue.
We shrink from transferring into our columns all
thCse 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)
fi*n the peroration of Mr. Adams' speech, with the
reporter's historical comment. It needs no remark
frvn 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 em
which I have stood in this House, and upon which I will
evir stand, for the few short days or 'months which it may
ph'ease the Almighty to allow me to exert the poor abilities
and faculties which Ile has bestowed upon me—it is the
grbund upon aliich I desire to stand on this earth after
my death ! upon the page of my country's history ! 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
"Language fails to describe the extraordinary eflect
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, when
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 Con-
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 deliberation*"—that
" interchange of thought and mind"—that " harmony
between brothers of one blessed family," of which, as
Mr. Adams informs us, Congress is the allotted scene ?
If thin 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

FEVER AND SMALL PDX IN SOCTIIIVARK.—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 Coro:4er
asked if vaccination had been resorted to? The juror re-
plied that it had, I).t he supposed that the oFeration of it had
been imperfectly performed. Another juror said that in some
parts there were above half the inhabitants affected by small-
pox or fever, which was attributed to the present unseasonab y
close state of the weather.

A FREAK OF NATURE.—On Friday night last, a
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 th,
other leg should be presenting a perfect arm,
fingers being attached to the hand. The
tootst.
parents
as
tvraeea another
and perfect child, and are living at No. (3,
has
D been visited by
George's in the Eait. The, lusus naturcebut only three;
several eminent members of the faculty.
oniiipe
,riscrarnanpgaopue
tr,
of, v‘i
11
eio
enr
was a passenger
A very modest lbandayr,d
berth, and jumped overboard, on hearing the captain,
during a storm, order the crew to haul down the sheets.
saapyisl ere t-1•1
A GIGANTIC YOUTH.—A clergyman in this county
has a son only fourteen years of age, who is six feet three inehn9Apthro;p_onrteiotnh,hhiisspfloroetrams
aeraseu.bretinogwtthliret.e7 anit
inchesahilli
iannedifes:oi
jai tiei
at er ago
stature.—Essex Herald,