IN SHORT.
AN American journal says of the Governor's message to the Legis- lature of the State of Maryland, "it is a short document, contained in less than three columns of the Baltimore American." But every thing American—boys and girls, trees and speeches, terms of dividend- payments, &c.—has a tendency to shoot out into length like the sea- serpent ; and therefore Jonathan's notions of what is short differ a little from ours. Jonathan's sayings and doings are like the rope the Irish sailor was set to stow away—so long that Pat began to suspect somebody had cut the end off. Even in this country, how- ever, we begin to aspire to the lengthy, like cabbages or asparagus running to seed. Our hours of work are long : there is no getting a short-time-bill passed any way. The speeches of our orators are abominably long. Short petticoats have gone out of fashion, and knee-breeches are universally superseded by long pantaloons. A House of Commons debate is drawn out through a whole week, and a state trial stretches its dreary length through a month. Nay, the venerable adage "Ira furor brevis " itself has ceased to be true ; for the wrath of the Irish Repealers and of the Manchester Leaguers lives on from year to year, and, reversing the fate of a candle, grows longer as it burns. Our theatrical amusements are spun out till they cease to be amusing. Every thing now is drawn out as long as possible, like cotton-yarn and penny-a-line para- graphs. Even short noses a ent out with WILLIAM PITT, and long ones came in with the Duke of WELLINGTON. In short, there will soon be nothing short in the country, except the short commons of the poor, and the "drop of something short," for which they fly to the gin-palace, to blunt their sense of suffering.
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