ers; it don't
seem to them as if Squashville, or Punkinville, or Lumbertown was right
represented, unless Squashville, or Punkinville, or Lumbertown, makes
itself heard and known, ay, and feared too. So every feller in bounden
duty, talks, and talks big too, and the smaller the State, the louder,
bigger, and fiercer its members talk.

"Well, when a critter talks for talk sake, jist to have a speech in
the paper to send to home, and not for any other airthly puppus but
electioneering, our folks call it _Bunkum_. Now the State o' Maine is a
great place for _Bunkum_--its members for years threatened to run foul
of England, with all steam on, and sink her, about the boundary line,
voted a million of dollars, payable in pine logs and spruce boards, up
to Bangor mills--and called out a hundred thousand militia, (only they
never come,) to captur' a saw mill to New Brunswick--that's _Bunkum_.
All that flourish about Right o' Sarch was _Bunkum_--all that brag about
hangin' your Canada sheriff was _Bunkum_. All the speeches about the
Caroline, and Creole, and Right of Sarch, was _Bunkum_, In short,
almost all that's said _in Congress_ in _the colonies_, (for we set
the fashions to them, as Paris galls do to our milliners,) and all over
America is _Bunkum_.

"Well, they talk Bunkum here too, as well as there. Slavery speeches are
all Bunkum; so are reform speeches, too. Do you think them fellers that
keep up such an everlastin' gab about representation, care one cent
about the extension of franchise? Why no, not they; it's only to secure
their seats to gull their constituents, to get a name. Do you think
them goneys that make such a touss about the Arms' Bill, care about the
Irish? No, not they; they want Irish votes, that's all--it's _Bunkum_.
Do you jist go and mesmerise John Russell, and Macauley, and the other
officers of the regiment of Reformers, and then take the awkward squad
of recruits--fellers that were made drunk with excitement, and then
enlisted with the promise of a shillin', which they never got, the
sargeants having drank it all; go and mesmerise them all, from General
Russell down to Private Chartist, clap 'em into a caterwaulin' or
catalapsin' sleep, or whatever the word is, and make 'em tell the
secrets of their hearts, as Dupotet did the Clear-voyancing gall, and
jist hear what they'll tell you.

"Lord John will say--'I was sincere!' (and I believe on my soul he was.
He is wrong beyond all doubt, but he is