n, I tell a falsehood.

"The Speaker (to Mr. Stanly)--'Will the gentleman suspend for a moment?

"Mr. Stanly: 'We ought to suspend that fellow (pointing to Mr. Giddings)
by the neck. (Laughter.)

"Mr. Giddings: 'The gentleman from North Carolina reminds me of the boy
who turned round so fast that the hind part of his breeches was on both
sides. (Laughter.) The gentleman says that I was at Norristown, too; but
where was he and the members of the House? Why, drinking their grog.
(Laughter.)

"Mr. Stanly: 'I charge the official reporters not to let his (Mr.
Giddings') felonious hand touch one word of what I say, for we know how
he on a former occasion misrepresented my colleague from the Orange
district, and his own colleague from the Chillicothe district, having
altered his own speech after he got to his room with his coloured
friends. (Laughter.) He talks about my associates: but has anybody ever
seen him in private decent company? Free negroes may call to see him. He
does not let his right hand know what his left doeth. He alludes to my
absence; but I have not set myself up as a standard. I don't say I'm
always in the house as I ought to be. He says we were here drinking our
grog during Christmas times. Where was he? In Philadelphia, drinking
beer and eating oysters with free negroes. (Laughter.) Which was the
best off? Judge ye. (Laughter.) He thinks he was better off than we
were. [Mr. Stanly paused, and, looking towards Mr. Preston King, who was
standing near Sir. Giddings, remarked, raising his voice to a higher
pitch, "Help him out; he needs a little more poison." (Voices, "Ha, ha!
Good! Ha, ha!")] I quit this subject in disgust. I find that I have been
in a dissecting-room, cutting up a dead dog. I will treat him as an
insane man, who was never taught the decencies of life, proprieties of
conduct--whose associations show that he never mingled with gentlemen.
Let him rave on till doomsday.'

"The conversation then ceased."

Any one who has seen much of American gentlemen, must know that such
language as the above contains would be reprobated by them fully as
strongly as by any gentleman in this country. To doubt that would be to
do them a gross injustice. Does not, therefore, the recurrence of such
scenes go far to prove, that the advance of ultra-democratic principles
has the effect of lowering the tone of the Representative Chamber, and
that men of liberal education and gentlemanly bearing do not constitute