Republican vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1857, 1850-06-03
From the Kentucky Chamr
TIE BARNBURNING.

/
and Barnburners.
From the Kentucky Champion
TIE BARNBURNING,
CONFEDERATION OF HDNKERDOM
A VISION.
The-peopie having in their might
Resolved to have Reform, SIR,
dreamed dream one stormy night,
About another storm, sir,
Methougfh dense and moving mass
OF fierce and angry people
Were swarming thick as swallows round
Some village court house ,steep!e.
They came from where young Clinton joins
The Fentress county line, sir;
From Carroll, by whose waying bank
The fair Ohio winds, sir;
From Ballard, Perry, Hast--in fact,
There was no county lacking,
Through all KentucSy's length and breadth
Fiom. Greenup to McCracken-
They came from hill, from plain, from glen,
From city, town and village,
Fierce as a gang Of wild wolves, when
They lea, e their lairs 10 plage.
Before them ran in furious haste,
Some hundred score at least, sir,
OF fat, sleek men. whose scope OF waist
Bespoke them men of Grease, sir.
Clerks and Judges, great and small
Ran on with haste ridiculous;
And twenty yards ahead OF all,
Ran one they called Old Nicholas.
Father and son ran might and man-
Hard was tito determine
Which soonest would the out. come gain,
The goose quill or the ermine.
But, reader stay-that outcome was
A house Of ancient air, sir,
Whose hundred open door ways stood
Most lazily ajar, sir,
Behind them yelled the furious crowd
Before them gaped the door, sir;
And as the noise behind waxed loud,
The faster they did go, siI
AS hares beleagured by the flames
OF some old broom sedge field sir,
Go plungng headlong to their dens.
Their furry forms to shield, sir,
These scalnperers gained the doors ajar,
And in most hasty plight, sir,
With lock and key and bolt and bar,
They stroye to make 'crn tight, sir,
But ramped and roared the lurious mass
They vowed they'd smoke 'eln out, sir,
And fagsots made Of brush and grass,
And laid EN- all about, sir.
They ply the torch-the flames ascend
They catch from roof 10 rafter;
Within is heard the wall OF men
Without, whaling laughter
slump, jump, you fools the windows nigh
You'll all be burnt to cinders -
But, "no," they say, the leaps too high
'Twould smash us aIito flinders.
Wha. smoke us, burn us limb by limb
Eyad let's get as drunk as
Bacchanals, defiance sing,
And die like true Old Hunl1ers"
Says Tommy p, ''to die the bare
Idea shakes one oddly,
All Breckenridge IT'S time we were
Beginning II live godly."
Says Tom to H, ''ah Jack, my dear.
And Josh, since burn we must, sir,
that we had some Old Bourbon here,
Wed bum up in a bust, sir''
But having ,ne'er drap, poor souls,
They bowedaike weeping willows.
And told the saints licng rigmaroles
About ttheir 'peccadilloes,
Yet mid their penitential plight
One thoEgh ttheir fancy tickled--
'Twere best TO brave the windows heigh.
Than to be smoked and picked.
And SO each man resolved 10 leap,
First asking of kind heaven
To FIX the cold earth underneath
Like Charity, for giving
The first one out was Johnny j.,
Who leaped out like buck, sir,
But tumbed in pit OF Clay
And, gad, just there he stuck, sir
Jack the fshy followed next,
But lighting on his head, sis,
Kept throwing backward sunmersets
| Until he lay for dead, sir.
And there he would have laid till now,
| Had not some merry wight, sir,
Cried out, ''here comes Old Benz" / vow
1t scared him into lie, sir,
Joshua prayed, q prayer or sc,
Before he took the jump, sir,
Then he and Fount and Jerry Boyle
Piled all up.in alump, sic.
Then poured the judges and the clerks,
Like rats from out barn, sir
Some heavy bout their forward works,
Some heavier still astern sir.
Judge Shack, whose oily forms designed
For anything but Jumping,
Lit on his heavy parts behind,
Which ilattened with the pumping.
Jack and Phil, who've taxed the State
AS wheat stacks are by weevils,
Were killed outright, and buried meath
Great piles Of their own tee-blls.
But vain it is to give the fate
OF each unhappy leaper;
Enough TO say, upon the ground
They lay three deep, and deeper.
And there they lay upon the clay,
Until some kindly soul, sir,
Dug trenches deep and wide around,
And sepGlchred the whole, sir.
Just theaL woke, and made my room
Ring with deep ordinations,
To think how soon we d walk into
The Hunker, calculations.
ESSEN