American FisJieries Society. 41 



fear the city of Erie might be a backwoods town ; but after soiik' 

 little persuasion, it was agi-eed to, and the invitation of the 

 chamber of commerce of the city of Erie and of certain of the 

 newspapers was accepted, and we are now here. I would there- 

 fore, like to have Mr. H. T. Leasure, the secretary of the cham- 

 ber of commerce of Erie, tell us how it is that he has had so 

 much of the milk of human kindness as to bring us here and 

 give us such a hearty reception as we have received here. 



Mr. H. T. Leasure: Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentle- 

 men : I am sorry that your toastmaster has made the mistake of 

 the evening in starting out by calling on me to address you, for 

 I assure you that if my position depended upon my ability to 

 talk, I would not have it for twenty-four hours. 



Again it is rather hard, after sitting down and partaking of 

 a meal like this, not knowing that you are going to be called 

 upon, to be suddenly subjected to an ordeal like this. I don't 

 know it from practical experience, but I have heard it said that 

 a man cannot talk well on a full stomach, and I have eaten a 

 very hearty meal. That makes me think, of course, of a little 

 incident that I read, where one of our humorists was traveling, 

 and he went into the diner and sat down opposite a lady with n 

 small child aljout four years of age. The child was taken care 

 of by the lady, and got what it wanted to eat, and afterwards 

 got cross and acted rather badly, and he made the remark if he 

 had a child which acted like that, he would give it a good spank- 

 ing. The mother replied, "I do not believe in spanking a child on 

 a full stomach. He replied, "No, I think you might turn it 

 around." And I think if I could have spoken before I had a 

 full stomach, I could possibly have said something. (Laughter). 



I assure you, that it has been a great pleasure for the cham- 

 ber of commerce to entertain you. We have had a great many 

 conventions in the last four years, invited here by the chamber 

 of commerce. We have always tried to please them. I do not 

 know of any instance where they have gone away not pleased 

 with our entertainment and their treatment. 



I may say that this convention is not as large as we ex- 

 pected, but what it lacks in number, it has surely made up in 

 quality. I do not think we have ever had a more representative 



