nceforth white should be black. Here was matter for
discussion, nor was I at all sanguine as to the result; but to be thus
knocked on the head by a club, in the outset, was too much for the
modesty of a maiden speech. I took my seat in confusion; and I plainly
saw that the Perpendiculars, by their sneers, now expected to carry
everything triumphantly their own way. This, most probably, would have
been the case, had not one of the Tangents immediately got the floor,
to move the amendment. To the vast indignation of Captain Poke, and,
in some degree, to my own mortification, this duty was intrusted to the
Hon. Robert Smut. Mr. Smut commenced with entreating members not to be
led away by the sophistry of the first speaker. That honorable member,
no doubt, felt himself called upon to defend the position taken by his
friends; but those that knew him well, as it had been his fate to know
him, must be persuaded that his sentiments had, at least, undergone a
sudden and miraculous change. That honorable member denied the existence
of color at all! He would ask that honorable member if he had never been
instrumental himself in producing what is generally called "black and
blue color"? He should like to know if that honorable member placed as
little value, at present, on blows as he now seemed to set on words. He
begged pardon of the house--but this was a matter of great interest to
himself--he knew that there never had been a greater manufacturer of
"black and blue color" than that honorable member, and he wondered at
his now so pertinaciously denying the existence of colors, and at his
wish to underrate their value. For his part, he trusted he understood
the importance of words, and the value of hues; and while he did
not exactly see the necessity of deeming black so inviolable as some
gentlemen appeared to think it, he was not by any means prepared to go
as far as those who had introduced this resolution. He did not believe
that public opinion was satisfied with maintaining that black was black,
but he thought it was not yet disposed to affirm that black was white.
He did not say that such a day might not arrive; he only maintained that
it had not yet arrived, and with a view to meet that which he believed
was the public sentiment, he should move, by way of amendment, to strike
out the whole of the resolution after the word "really," and insert that
which would cause the whole resolution to read as follows, viz.:

"Resolved, tha