Speech-making In Congress

The style of much of the speaking shows that the prayer-meeting and the play-house have been its nuraeries. - Those who have taken play-actors as models, are iníiated, emphatio and painfully slow. Such membera say, "Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to introduoe a bilí,"' as if tb.8 utterance were a startliug truth that had never buret upon the world before. They have the theatrical gaga and vulgarities, and say ohe-yild forohild, me tor iny, with much basso profundo, swelling and posing. Such pretensión promisea ïnuch, and always falla short. Those who have taken the class-leader and the preacher as their modela, are also unpleasant speakers. JThere is, and haa been, a tendency in certain of the priesthood to run into nasal sniffling tone in the exercise of apiritual functiona, under the mistaken notion that it adda aolemnity tojthe words. Thia influenoe ia very perceptible in Cungressional speaking, and sometimea becomea so marked that we expect a speaker to reach the climax, raise himself on his toes with a tremulous shake and pronounce the "Yea, ver-i-ly" of the fraise-lioa sareDone oí iruntan memory. In the speaking of Congress, it is worthy of remark, that a graat body and prominent stoinach lend a certain weight to the words pronounced. The dapper man with an insignificant voice is thua at a disadvantage, for let him speak as he will, his words do not have the importance of the man who delivers his over a graat abdomen, - supposing thom to be of something like equal talents. This was illustrated in the presentation of a gold snuffbox to Lord Jeffreys, a mau of great mental stature but small in the fiesh. He who presented the box was large, - compared to the diminutiva nobleman, - and of dignified manners ; after pronouncing the usual corapliments, he handed the box to the nobleman with a grand bow : the theatrioal ease of word and manner took away the little mau's faculty of speech, he thrust the box into his pocket and sat down without saying a word. In the same way, the big men in Congress ocoasionally beur down upon the small lean ones, and if they canuot take away their speech, they do sometimes disconcert thom with their ponderous wavs and