Litchfield enquirer., 1861-04-04
SPEECH OF GENERAL RILEY.

erence of bill amending the charter of the City of Carondelet to standing Committee of the House.
 Mir. Riley obtained the floor, and addressed the House.
 MIR. SPEAKER: Everybody is pitching into this matter like toad frogs into willow swamp, on lovely evening in the balmy month of June, a delicious flood the thin, etherial atmospheric air lApplause.) Sir, want to put in a word, or perhaps word and half
 There seems to be disposition to fight. I say, if there is to be any fighting to be done, come on with your corn-cobs and lightning bugs! ! (APplause) In the language of the ancient Ro- man,
 "Come one, come all, this rock shall fly
 From it's firm base-in pigs eye"
 Now, there has been great deal of bombast here to-day. call it bombast from Alpha" to Omega" q don't understand the meaning of the words, thought Sir, the question to refer, is a great and magnificent question. It is the ali-absorbing question-like sponge, Sir-a large unmeasurable sponge, of globe shape, in small tumbler of water-it sucks up everything. Sir, stand here with the weapons have desig- hated, to defend the rights of St. Louis County, the rights of any other county-sven the county of Cedar itself Daughter and applause.) Sir, the debate has assumed atitudinory. We have had a little black jack buncombe, little two-bit buncombe, bombast buncombe, bung hole buncombe. and the devil and his grandmother knows what other kind of buncombe. Uaugh- ter.)
 Why sir, just give some of em little South ern soap and a little Northern water, aId quick CT than hound pup can lick skillet they will make enough buncombe-lather to wash the gold en flock that roams abroad the azure meads of hna 1,,l l,,Jo ko the starry Armament.
 The Speaker-The gentleman is out of order. He must confne himself to the question.
 Mir. Riley-Just retain your linen ifyou please. I'll stick to the text as close as pitch plaster to pine plank, or a lean pig to hot jam rock (Cries of" Go on,"" You'll do.')
 l want to say to these carbopiferous gentle men, these igneous individuals, these detenating demonstrators, these pereginnous volcanoes, come on with your combustibles! If don't well, I'll suck the Gulf of Mexico through goose quill. Daughter and applause.) Per haps you think am diminitive tubers and dsparse in the mundane elevation. You may discover, gentlemen, you are laboring under as great mis- apprehension as though you had incinerated your inner vestment. In the language of the noble bard
 II was not born in thicket
 To be scared by a cricket" t."-( (Applause.)
 Sir, we have lest our proper position. Our proper position is to the zenith aud nadir- our heads to the one, our heels to the other, at right angle with the horizon, spanded by that azure arch of the lustreus Armament, bright with the couuscations of innumerable cancellations, and proud as speckled stud-horse on @ county- court day. (Cheers)
 But how have the mighty fallen ?! in the Ian guage of the poet Silversmith. We have lost our proper position. We have assumed slesh- indicular or diagonological position. And what is the cause? Echo answers, " Buncombe, i" sir, '" Buncombe." The people have been fed on buncembe, while lot of spavined, ring-boned, hamstlung, wind-galled, swine-eyed, splt-hoofed, distempered, poll-eviled, pot-bellied politicians have had their noses in the public crib until there ain't fodder enough left to make gruel for g sick grasshopper. (Cheers and laugnter.) public pap. They say, Y" Let down your milk, sucky, or you'll have split bag" Do they think they can stuff such buncome down our craw? No sir; you might as we'll try to stuff butter in wild cat with hot aw. Continued laughter.) The thing can't be did.
 The public grindstone is great institution, sir-yes sir, great institution-one of the great est, perhaps that rose, reigned, or fell. But sir, there is toe much private cutlery ground The thing won't pay. Occasionally big axe is brought in to be fixed up, ostensibly for the pur- pose of hewing down the gnarled trunks of er- TOT and clearing out the brushwood of ignorance and folly that obstruct the public highway of progress. The machine whirls the axe is ap- piled. The lookerson are enchanted with the brilliant sparks elicited. The tool is polished, keenly edged; and while the public stare in gaping expectantcy of Sc ting the road cleared, rnrIo Inf iG sl VI fako afY fo m ha private acres of some faithful friend of the peo ple." What is the result The Instructions remain unmoved. The people curse because the car lags-or, if it does move, tis at the expense of broken wheel and jaded and sore-backed team. tell you, the thing won't pay. The time will come when the nasal promonteries of these disinterrested grinders will be put to the stone, instead of their hardware. Applause. l. am mighty afraid the machine is going to stop. The grease is giving out laundering fast. It is beginning to creak on it's axis. Gentlemen it is my private opinion, confdentally expressed, that all the grit is pretty near worn of. (Ap- plause.)
 MT. Speaker, you must excuse me for my lati- tudinosity and circumlocutoriness. My old blunderbuss scatters amazingly, but if anybody gets peppered, it aint my fault if they are in the way.
 Sir, these candadical, supersquirtical, mahoga- ny faced gentry. What do they know about the blessings of freedom? About as much, sir, as a toad frog does of high glory. Do they think they can escape me? I'll follow them through pandemonium aud high water! (Cheers and laughter)
 These are the ones that have got our liberty pole off it's perpendicularity. Tis they who would rend the stars and stripes-that noble flag, the blood of cur revolutionary fathers em- balmed in it's red. The purity of the cause for which they died-denoted by the white; the blue-the freedom they attained, like the azure air that wraps their native hills and fingers on their lovely plains. (Cheers) The high bird | ii ol liberty sits perched on the topmost branch, ous there is no secession salt on his glorious tail l fear be will no more spread his noble plnlons 10 soar beyond the azure regions of the boreal poe. But let not Missouri pull the last feather from his sheltering wing, to plume shaft to pierce his noble breast or, what is the same, make ben to sign a secession ordinance lApplaHse.) Also, poor bird, if they drive you from the branches of the hemlock of the North, and the palmetto of the South, come over to the gum tree of the West, and we will protect your noble birdship, while water grows and grass runs. Qm- mense applause9 Mir; Speaker Isubside for the present.
 pA- Thospe's Union Square Hotel, New York, was entirely destroyed by fire on Friday morn ing It contained the halls, regalia, and ward robes of large number of Masonic lodges and