to know, if this law is allowed to stand? I tell you, gentlemen, this law is unconstitutional, and you will see blood running in our streets, if them tory scoundrels try to carry it out!”
His friends laughed, for they saw that Tom was reasoning from his pocket instead of his head; and, as he almost foamed at the mouth in his impotent wrath they could not suppress a smile.
“Oh, you may laugh, gentlemen—you may laugh; but you will see it. Our party will never disgrace itself a permitting the tories to rob them of their rights by passing unconstitutional laws; and I say, the sooner we come to blood, the better!”
At this moment, a gentleman stepped up, and addressing the Alderman, said:
“Alderman, I want to bring a case of book debt before you this morning.”
“How much is your claim?” asked Tom.
“Four dollars,” replied the rumseller—for such he proved to be—and his debt was for drinks chalked up against one of his “customers.”
“You can’t have your four dollars, Sir,” replied the excited Alderman. “You are robbed of your four dollars, Sir. Them legislative tories at Harrisburg, Sir, have cheated you out of your four dollars, Sir. I undertake to say, Sir, that fifty thousand honest men in Philadelphia have been robbed of their four dollars by these bloody tories and their cursed unconstitutional law! Ah, gentlemen, you will see blood running in our streets before you are a month older. (A laugh.) Oh, you may laugh; but you will see it—see if you don’t!”
