If folks would only give over talkin about that everlastin House of Assembly and Council, and see to their farms, it would be better for ’em, I guess; for arter all, what is it?  Why it’s only a sort of first chop Grand Jury, and nothin else.  It’s no more like Congress or Parliament, than Marm Pugwash’s keepin room is like our State hall.  It’s jist nothin—­Congress makes war and peace, has a say in all treaties, confarms all great nominations of the President, regilates the army and navy, governs twenty-four independent States, and snaps its fingers in the face of all the nations of Europe, as much as to say, who be you?  I allot I am as big as you be.  If you are six foot high, I am six foot six in my stockin feet, by gum, and can lambaste any two on you in no time.  The British can whip all the world, and we can whip the British.  But this little House of Assembly that folks make such a touss about, what is it?  Why jist a decent Grand Jury.  They make their presentments of little money votes, to mend these everlastin rottin little wooden bridges, to throw a poultice of mud once a year on the roads, and then take a “blowin time” of three months and go home.  The littler folks be, the bigger they talk.  You never seed a small man that did’nt wear high heel boots, and a high, crowned bat, and that war’nt ready to fight most any one, to show he was a man every inch of him.  I met a member the other day, who swaggered near about as large as Uncle Peleg.  He looked as if he thought you could’nt find his “ditto” any where.  He used some most particular educational words, genuine jaw-breakers.  He put me in mind of a squirrel I once shot in our wood location.  The little critter got a hickory nut in his mouth; well, he found it too hard to crack, and too big to swaller, and for the life and soul of him, he could’nt spit it out agin.  If he did’nt look like a proper fool, you may depend.  We had a pond back of our barn about the bigness of a good sizeable wash-tub, and it was chock full of frogs.  Well, one of these little critters fancied himself a bull-frog, and he puffed out his cheeks, and took a real “blowin time” of it; he roared away like thunder; at last he puffed and puffed out till he bust like a byler.  If I see the Speaker this winter, (and I shall see him to a sartainty if they don’t send for him to London, to teach their new Speaker) and he’s up to snuff, that are man; he knows how to cypher—­I’ll jist say to him, Speaker, says I, if any of your folks in the House go to swell out like dropsy, give ’em a hint in time.  Says you, if you have are a little safety valve about you, let off a little steam now and then, or you’ll go for it; recollect the Clockmaker’s story of the “Blowin time.”

No.  XXIV

Father John O’Shaughnessy.