Speech-making.
--Among no other people on earth, we are satisfied, exists such an irrepressible desire for listening to speeches, as among the people of Richmond. The announcement of a forthcoming political speech, be the orator famous or obscure, induces hundreds of honest citizens to abandon the comforts of their firesides, and hasten to the place appointed for the harangue. Brass bands are brought out for the purpose of serenading political speakers, and when they accord to the sovereigns the blessed privilege of looking upon their sacred persons, masses of men will stand for hours upon the pavement, swallowing with eagerness the words that fall from their lips, unmindful of the physical tortures inflicted upon weak legs and way-worn feet. If an actor, unknown to fame, happens to please the boys in the second tier of the Theatre, he is enthusiastically called upon for a "speech," which vastly pleases an audience who are too ready to "pass his imperfections by;" and even the harmless super, who comes out to drag up the carpet or remove the tables and chairs, hears, to his profound astonishment, a vehement demand upon his forensic abilities, which sometimes causes him to drop the articles of stage furniture and make a pantomimic threat towards his persecutors. So we find it everywhere; and can we, therefore, blame those who come here "clothed with the sovereign power of the people," for devoting day after day to speech-making, seeming to take no account of the time that is thus elaborately thrown away? The fault is in the sovereigns themselves; it germinates in the little boy with a ragged roundabout, and expands fearfully in the man who aids in the lubrication of that vast and expensive machine called State Government.
