THE FRUITS IN CONVENTION. 



347 



thismocting, therefore, was nothing more nor 

 less than whether things should be called by 

 names that sounded real, or names thai had 

 a foreign, fictitious and romantic air; whe- 

 ther an honest man might be called in plain 

 English a " good Christian," or whether he 

 should forever be doomed to be misrepre- 

 sented and misunderstood as a " Bon Chrc- 

 tie?i." For his own part, he said, he thought 

 it was time to assert our nationality; and 

 while he was the last man to say or do 

 anything to prevent foreigners from settling 

 among us, he did think that they should 

 have the courtesy to drop foreign airs and 

 come down to plain English, or plain Yan- 

 kee comprehension. He was himself a 

 " native American," and he gloried in it. He 

 considered himself, though a plain republi- 

 can, as good as any foreigners, however 

 high sounding their titles ; and he believed 

 that if fruits would be more careful about 

 their intrinsic flavor, and study, as he did, 

 how to maintain their credit perfect and 

 unimpaired for the longest possible period, 

 it would in the end be found more to their 

 advantage than this stickling for foreign 

 titles. His ancestors, he said, were born 

 in the state of New- York; and he was him- 

 self raised in a great and well known or- 

 chard on the Hudson. (Hear, hear.) If any 

 gentleman present wished to know the 

 value of a plain American name, he would 

 be glad to show him, in dollars and cents, 

 the income of that orchard. He was in 

 greater favor in Covent Garden market than 

 any English or continental fruit ; and such 

 sums had been realized from the sales of 

 that orchard, that it was seriously proposed 

 in the English parliament to impose a duty 

 on Newtown Pippins, to pay off the na- 

 tional debt. (Great applause, and a hiss 

 from a string of Currants.) He concluded, 

 by trusting the chairman would pardon this 

 allusion to his own affairs, which he only 



gave to show that a Pippin, in plain Eng- 

 lish, was worth as much in the market, and 

 t!i" world's estimation, as the finest French 

 title that was ever lisped in the Faubourg 

 St. Germain. He moved that all foreign 

 names of fruits be done into plain English. 



This speech produced a great commotion 

 among the Pears on the right, who had 

 evidently not expected such a straight for- 

 ward way of treating the matter. For a 

 moment, all was confusion. That little 

 fellow, the Petit Muscat, — always the first 

 on the carpet, — ran hither and thither, 

 gathering little clusters about him. The 

 Sans-peau, or Skinless, was evidently touch- 

 ed to the quick. The Pomme glace gave all 

 the Pippins a freezing look ; and the Fon- 

 dante d 'Automne, a very tender creature, was 

 so overcome that she melted into tears at such 

 a monstrous proposition. The Belle de 

 Bmzelles muttered that she had seen New- 

 town Pippins that were false-hearted ; and 

 the Poire Episcopal declared that the man 

 who could utter such sentiments was a 

 radical, and dangerous to the peace of es- 

 tablished institutions. 



Just as we were wondering who would 

 rise on the opposition, a tall, well propor- 

 tioned Pear got up, with a pleasant Flemish 

 aspect. It was Van Mons' Lion le Clerc. 

 He said he was sorry to see this violent 

 feeling manifested against foreign names ; 

 and being a foreigner, and having had a 

 pretty long acquaintance with foreign Pears 

 abroad, he felt called upon to say some- 

 thing in their defence. He thought the re- 

 marks of the gentleman who had preceded ' 

 him, both uncourteous to foreigners and un- 

 reasonable. He could not understand why 

 people should not be allowed to retain their 

 names, at least such as had any worth re- 

 taining, even if they did become rooted to 

 the soil of this country. Especially when 

 those names were in the most polite Ian- 



