The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1867-04-03
General svavne IS 8 "Goakist. -


the business BY going to Congress, we may
look upon General Swayne as the coming
"goakist.''
Says he to himself" Now that the under
jaw of Ills people is hanging low as that low
er deep beneath the lowest depth, 10 which
the hell they suffer seems heaven, III run
up to the Huntsville Convention and fire off q
squib." The General has not heretofore been
addicted 10 fun, but remembering how his
prototype, grim old CROMWELL had lis little
Joke with Lord Henry Vane, lie tried to be as
humorous as he conil, without rehecting wha.'
tie consequences might be to the buttons on
Figures brcechcs.
Said Cromwell, as he entered Parliament
with his soldiers and in the name of the peO-
pie drove out the constitutional authorities
:. Go away I tell you! What are you doing
here, Harry Vaue ?" To which Harry re-
piled q am seeking the Lord, Oliver. y
s'Then seek Him elsewhere, for He has not
been here for 10 these ten years.
Remembering this blunt joke Of the old
Puritan, General Swayne thought at first that
he would yet up a second performance Of the
celebrated comedy of "A Roland for an Oil
ver''--in this wise:
"What are You doing here, Messrs. Fielder,
Doster, Sykes, Figures i Co.? Did not see
you in rebel offices during the warp
1--WE are seeking the Union, General"
"Thcn seek it else where, for to my certain
knowledge it has not been with this company,
par excellence, for 10 these seven years"
! Upon reflection, however, the General con-
cludcd not to interrupt the solemnity Of a
death bed repentance, but to put his joke in
another shape. Hence, be arose in tie Con
vention, and with a merry twinkle in the cor
ner Of his left eye, he proposed the following
resolutions:
Resolved, That resistance to the late rebel
lion should be exalted to honor, and partci-
patton in it considered wrong, qualified by
circumstances tending to compel participation.
You might have Knocked the Convention
down with a white feather. A bombsheI in
! Quartcrmasters tent, bull in achina shop,
would not have produced half the demorali-
cation caused by the Generals shot between
wind and water. You see the joke was very
heavy against those gentlemen who, like
| Judge Fielder, didn't wait for compulson, but
partici pated in the 'frebelIion" from the word
Jump
General Swayne like to have died with sup
pressed laughter when he saw the effect of his
resolution. There were Col. Mich. Davis,
/ Trcgiment UNKNOWN Col. Doster, regiment
unknowner, and Capt. Fielder, 5lst regiment
Partisan Rangers all winking and blinking
at the General to get down and not spoil the
egg by shaking it. The General got down
and is supposed TO have whispered to delegate
Fairbanks, Of Dallas, late Of Rhode Island,
who wasn't there, about as follows:
"This thing is a humbug. ] have come up
here to prove to the people Of Alabama that it
is monstrous humbug, and when get back
to Montgomery | intend to see to it that this
bob-taIel concern shalinot imposeitsclf upon
the nation as better than other men who pro-
TESS less and mean more honesty. Mark my
word, these impostors do not intend to adopt
my resolution. You remember that at MouI-
ton these same men denounced negro suf-
fragc, because they thought it would win with
the poor whites Now that they see the poor
whites against them, they profess that property
qualification is wrong, and that all negroes
should vote in order to win with the negroes"
Sure enough, the Generals resolution was
crushed sQuc!ched, covered up, and the place
it occupied was well Gumigated by the following
substitute, which the Convention passed:
Resolved, That those men in the Southern
States, who resisted the rebellion and stood on
the side of the Union are entitled to that con-
sideration which is the ust need OF loyalty
and patriotism in any land.
This substitute, as will be seen, is too timid
to compliment Yankees, and too dishonest to
exonerate from unqualified blame many men
who were really more strongly opposed to Sc
cession than the members Of the Huntsville
varieties. The General impaled the Conven-
ton on the point of his wit, and left it to buzz
against the clear window of truth.
1t was the best joke of the season!
Montgomery Mail.
ENToMBED ELEVEN DATs.-In Berlin let
| ter we find the following story:
4 most extraordinary instance of the pre-
seryation of life without sustenance for a
| heightened period has lately occurred at Pc
nikau, near Grossenhayn, in Saxony. On the
| 9th of December, two brothers, named Musch-
ter, were engaged in digging deep we'll
when the earth fell in and completely buried
! tkcm. A third brother went down mmedi-
ately, but was not able to detect the slightest
sound. Some miners were then set to work
and it was so generally believed that the poor
fellows could not possibly be alive, that orders
had been given that unless. the relations in
sisted on proceeding further, the well should
be filed and a monument to the memory of
| the Muschters erected over it.
Eight days had already elapsed since the
accident, but the mother of the entombed
would not give up all hope, and some fresh
hands began to work again, though only in
the expectation of finding the corpses. To
their establishment. however, they soon heard
from below the words, Do not strike SO hard.
| A conversation commenced, the work was
pushed forward with renewed diligence, and
at length crowned with success. On the 18th
Of December, after they had been eleven days
and four hours in this living grave, the two