SPEKi'iii-:-. 34.5 



toasts is as necessary as it is graceful and manly; so let there be no hemming or hawing, 

 no hesitations, stutterings or stammerings, but start to your feet at once and dash into 

 the subject as though you were enchanted at the privilege : 



MR. CHAIKMVN AM* GENTLEMEN 



The high, the glorious privilege has been accorded me of replying to the toast of 

 " The Ladies." You could not have selected a better man. Impossible ! This you will 

 say is rather cheeky of me ; but when I tell you that there breathes not a man who 

 res, loves, and adores the sex so much as I do, I ask you in all honesty, could the 

 chance of replying to the toast have fallen upon more deserving shoulders ? The ladies, 

 God bless them ! what would we do without them that nearer, clearer, dearer heaven 

 of stars ! In their smiles lie our sunshine, in their tears our anguish, in their beauty 

 our heartaches. To the ladies we owe all the refining influences of our lives. They 

 are the bright flowers by the wayside, the quite too tenderly utter beings, who make, 

 mar, and marry us. 



Then here, gentlemen, is my response to the toast of The Ladies. May they ever 

 shine like stars in our firmament, never cease to captivate us, and, when we desire it, 

 warding us. The ladies, God bless them ! 



Another Reply. 



The toast to which I have the honour of responding is one that awakes in the manly 

 heart the latent chivalry of manhood. The toast of The Ladies embraces womanhood, 

 mother, the wife, the daughter, the sister, and if you will, gentlemen, the cousins 

 and the aunts. Sir Walter Scott has beautifully written : 



" O woman ! in our hours of ease, 

 Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 

 And variable as the shade 

 By the light quivering aspen made ; 

 WhtMi pain and anguish rack the brow, 

 A ministering angel thou ! " 



N\ h.it ,111 admirable delineation of woman's character ! In our hours of ease, on the 

 stoop, or by the stove, there is no doubt of it, gentlemen, that she in uncertain, oxl 

 mely coy, and infernally hard to please I mean at times while as for her variability, 

 she is as whirly-t^gy as a weather-cock on a windy March morning. But here is the 

 r side of the shield, the silver one. Have any of you ever been ill ? Have any of 

 over been smitten to the earth by grief or misfortune 1 I hope not ; but if such 

 has been your bitter experience, turn back on your memories for the tender sympathy, 

 . iin:,' devoti ,n, the ceaseless graciousness of woman. (M-ntlnnon. this is a 

 'ii which, like the brook, I e.uld "run on for ever ;" yet, delightful as i 

 ami perh m that 1 am spending in reply to the toast of The Lad 



:' in their company. Gentlemen, I return you my m 



hanks for be-in-,' called upon by you to reply to such an important and grac 

 toaat. 



Presentation of a Piece of Plate to a Public Official 



intense pleasure to represent a committee, who in turn represent 



'. admirers, and mi their behalf to present you with this 



as a very slight tokei. : the admirable and praiseworthy 



