chief, but which now proved to be the county
newspapers--one of which gave a statement of the amount expended by the
first magistrate of the Union during his administration, reduced, for
the sake of clearness, into waggon-loads. Bob was silent, while his
neighbour the secretary put on his spectacles, and began to read this
important document. He was interrupted, however, by cries of "Know it
already! Read it already! Go on, Bob!"

"Only see here now," continued Bob, taking up the paper. "Diplomatic
missions! what does that mean? What occasion had they to send any one
there? Then they've appointed one General Tariff, who's the maddest
aristocrat that ever lived, and he's passed a law by which we ain't to
trade any more with the Britishers. Every stocking, every knife-handle,
that comes into the States, has to pay a duty to this infernal
aristocrat. Where shall we get our flannel from now, I wonder?"

"Hear, hear!" cried a youth in a tattered red flannel shirt, to whose
feelings this question evidently went home.

"Moreover," continued Bob, "it's a drag put upon our ships, to the
profit of their Yankee manyfacters. Manyfacters, indeed! Men! free
sovereign citizens! to work in manyfacters!"

"Hear, hear!" in a threatening tone from the audience.

"But that ain't all," continued Bob, nodding his head mysteriously. "No,
men--hear and judge! You, the enlightened freemen of Alabama, listen and
judge for yourselves! Clever fellows, the 'Ministration and the Yankees!
D'ye know what they've been a-doin'?"

"No, no. Tell us!" repeated twenty voices.

"You don't know?" said Bob, with a fine oratorical movement. "I'll tell
you then. They've been a-sendin' clothes, powder, rifles, flour, and
whisky to the Creeks! Two full shiploads have they sent. Here it is!"
yelled Bob, taking another paper from his pocket, and dashing it upon
the table.{E}

A breathless silence reigned during the reading of the important
paragraph, while Richards and myself were making almost superhuman
efforts to restrain our laughter. Bob continued--

"You see, men, they want to get the scalpin' plunderin' thieves back
ag'in over the Mississippi into Georgia--ay, and perhaps into Alabama
too. And they're holdin' meetin's and assemblies in their favour, and
say that we owe our independence to these Creeks; and talk about their
chiefs--one Alexander the Great, and Pericles, and Plato, and suchlike
names that we give our niggers. And the cussed Redskins a