Hayle, sir,
do!"
"One thing to be stopped at all cost," said Mr. Hayle, "is this deluge
of immigration. Every alien who comes to New Orleans, and especially
every alien who passes on up this river into the West, strengthens the
North and weakens the South commercially, industrially, and politically,
and corrupts the national type, the national speech----"
"The national religion,"----prompted the bishop.
"The national love of law and order,"----said the judge.
"And of justice and liberty,"----put in the general.
"And the national health," said the youth. "New Orleans should refuse
every immigrant entrance to the country, and every steamboat on the
Mississippi ought to decline to carry him to his destination!"
The commodore smiled to reply, but the senator broke in with an
anecdote, long but good, of a newly landed German. The judge followed
close with the story of a very green Irishman; and the general, with
mellow inconsequence, brought in a tale to the credit of the departed
Jackson and debit of the still surviving Clay. A new sultriness
prevailed. The judge's palliative word, that many a story hard on Clay
was older than Clay himself, relieved the tension scarcely more than did
Lucian's inquiry whether it was not, at any rate, true beyond cavil that
Clay had treated Jackson perfidiously in that old matter----
That old matter's extreme deadness reminded the group that the repast
was over and Whiggism amply squelched.
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