des: '_Failed?_ No, be gar! Firmer than
ever, Mr. H----, but I _should_ have failed, _almosht_, if I hadn't got
rid of dem tamn'd English goods at cost!' Straitway the out-witted Yankee
'departed the presence!'' . . . IT has been generally supposed that the
oratorical efforts of 'Major POGRAM,' as described by Mr. DICKENS in a
late number of his 'Chuzzlewit,' rather carricatured even the worst
specimens of western eloquence; but the subjoined passage from the speech
of a Mr. MAUPIN in the Indiana legislature, upon the subject of
establishing a tobacco warehouse and inspection at Paducah, seems to
militate against the validity of this 'flattering function:'

'MR. SPEAKER: I feel incompetent to measure this comprehensive
subject. Were my thoughts as deep as the Mississippi, and as clear
as the Ohio, I could not grasp its whole magnitude. It requires a
mighty mind; one that can look beyond the landscape; he must be
able to look even beyond the ocean; to grapple with all the
intricacies and winding convolutions of the subject, and to map in
his mind the whole length and breadth of its territories. Here,
Sir, is a river, whose broad and deep stream meanders from Paducah
through one of the most fertile tobacco countries in the world, to
Ross's landing, and at the terminus of the great Charleston
railroad, and possessing a steam navigation of eight hundred
miles, and giving commercial facilities to the briny ocean. Behold
this vast channel of commerce; this magnificent thoroughfare of
trade; one grand, unbroken chain of inter-communication, like to a
prodigious sarpent, with his head resting upon the shores of
Europe, and his lengthened form stretching over the ocean and
curling along this great winding stream in serpentine grandeur,
proudly flaps his tail at Paducah! . . . SIR, the ball is in
motion; it is rolling down in noise of thunder from the mountain
heights, and comes booming in its majesty over the wide-spread
plain. Yes, Sir, and it will continue to roll on, and on,
gathering strength and bulk in its onward progress, until it
sweeps its ponderous power to the town of Paducah, and there stand
a towering monument of patriotic glory and sublime grandeur, with
the noble American eagle proudly perched upon its cloud-capped
summit, and gazing with swelling pride and admiration down upon
the magnificent spectacle of t