Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1885-05-28
LOG-TOWN LYCEUM.
EMBRYO ORATORS IN CHRYsALIs
STATE.

How Their Wings Grandly and Gro
tesquely Unfolded Beneath the Ca !
lerific, Incubating, VitaHzfug and
Inspiriting Rays of the Pine Torch,
ON Debating Society Nights.
by EDWARD PAYsON HALL.
For the Sentinel.
The Old South is dead Her chix-
alric bones are barbarously bleaching
under the ruthless touches of tempest
and sunshine, on thousand hills, from
Maryland to Texas. But, God bless
her, born of her bone and sinew and
graced by her tutelage, we're sponta-
neously sprouted and did unceremoni-
ously flourish, as the glorious foster
children of her wild independence and
rustic solitudes, several noteworthy
and history-crowned institutions which
like old Grimes double breasted coat,
| we shall never see the like of again.
There are, for instance, to be noted
among these mouldering ante-beltuns
relics, some dried mummies Of memo
ry's embalming such as the Negro and
Mule Co-Fraternity, the Negro Corn
shucking Corporation, the Municipal
ity of Idle Planters Sons, the Free
State Underground Railroad Compa-
ny, the College of Daredevil Cour-
age, the University of Open-uouse
Hospitality, the Master and Slave
Mutual Association, the Aristocratic
Reciprocal Admiration Society, the
High Toned Courtesy Exchange, the
Citadel of Secession, the Bank Of
Neighborly Faith and Honor, and,
pre.eminent for its literary and gym
nastic developments, the LogTown
Lyceum or Backwoods Debating Soci-
ETY.. This latter precious cradle of
distinction has been fully superseded
in these magic, telephone, Yankee-go-
it, post-bellum times by the electrical,
protean Reading Clubs, TableauN and
Evolutionary Glasses of the new rsgi-
me. Everything indeed will soon be
changed 80 that our powers of eating,
drinking, sleeping. talking and work
ing may yet be entirely delegated by
proxy to machinery; and our young
men may have nothing to do then but
10 devote themselves to studying out
new inventions and, Sardanapalus-like,
toying with and luxuriating among
the ladies. However, to return to my
Immediate theme, the cocoon in which
whilome slumbcred the unfedged
statesmen, the Clays, the Calhouns,
the McDuffies and the Haynes, was
, the old log school-house in the woods
but the pinc-torch fellows came along
on Saturday nights, smoked 'em out
like so many coons, and set 'em to elo
qucntly sputtering and spouting like
! 50 many right whales on a bender
Please to turn your eyes teltherward
my polite audience of SENTINEL read
ers, while | lift the curtain upon 6
, sample scenc-a very common ano
oft-repeated page in the comedy o
Log-Town Oratory Skyward Soaring
The question comes up for discuss
ion: "IFhicA apas the smartest teller
Lau.fay-h;t or WasA-m-tin ?"
y After that great orator, MIR. Thun
, gust, had belabore and pounded thu
! old school-house desk, which stood be
fore him, for the space of three morta
8 hours, worked himself into as profus'
:, a sweat as he ever did while maulin!
rails, and laid do,c,, the law and gos
pei and disturbed all the owls in thos
woods at that date musicalty inclinet
= after Mr. Nicodemus Nicefellow hat
= read no less than forty pages out o
FIVE different volumes of Patent Offic
{ Reports to show "adzackly how man
. men wuz killed in that air war, III al
e them ftin and scrimmagin eight years
, gentlemen; and what hit all cum t
n II and how Washintin huttoned up hi
d farewell dress when 'pendince wa
s. deklawrd''-after Mr.. Beefy Blifk kin
:. had aagued 80 ingcniously and circui
: toasly ON both sides of the questio
II that the President took his hat an
s. walked over home and got his suppe
- while the honorable member was lcii
/ urely speaking-after nine others ha
Is said theJ were incompetent for put
d lick speaking. and, though they weE
thar, would doustedly ruther, if the
!. could hev their ruthers, git up an
refair. after the President and Con
lnitteemen had been snoring in tn
corner judicial just one hour and
quarter, little no-account rascal cal
cd Davy Crockett Junior actually ha
the brass to deliver himself thus:
-"Mr. President This here que
r. CtOik, w uiJ AAIhot 40 e. Pt0SN "a Aiiou1S
i. able nonsense. History, my dear 81
# has decided the respective merits {
~ these men forty-thousand times owe
po and that. too, long before we wei
IS born. We are a pack of gumps to I
standing here, burning up all this fit
pine, and gravely arguing over
question which every school-boy
:. the land would think it folly to answ
:. - but in one way. There is no room f
| af argument in it-talk about Lafaye
,Mn ~ bein deservin more honor'n Washi
=, tin! It's absured, sir, and am. shoe
~ ed and astounded at the stupidity
the man who flst set such a questis
afeat. I move, sir, that we adiou
and go possum-huntiagg'
The motion was instantaneonsly sc
" onded by the loud toe5ing of a hur
"a. ing-horn outdoors, the jolly outbal
as Of all the dogs, and the speedy q
10 squatulation Of all the members of Il
Lyceum in search of fat possnnl.
Mt. Vernon. ~. c., Haas 3d.