Master of the Mercers' Company, the Master of the Grocers' Company,
the Master of the Drapers' Company, the Master of the Skinners'
Company, the Master of the Haberdashers' Company, the Master of the
Salters' Company, the Master of the Ironmongers' Company, the Master
of the Vintners' Company, and the Master of the Clothworkers' Company.
These various trades, of course, are no longer carried on by Guilds,
but by private firms or corporations, and yet the Guild organization
is still maintained as a sort of social or semi-social recognition of
the days when the Guildhall was not merely a great assembly-room, but
the place in which the Guilds actually managed the affairs of their
city. It was in such a place and amid such surroundings that Mr.
Roosevelt was formally nominated and elected a Freeman of the ancient
City of London.

Mr. Roosevelt's speech was far from being extemporaneous; it had been
carefully thought out beforehand, and was based upon his experiences
during the previous March, in Egypt; it was really the desire of
influential Englishmen in Africa to have him say something about
Egyptian affairs that led him to make a speech at all. He had had
ample time to think, and he had thought a good deal, yet it was
plainly to be seen that the frankness of his utterance, his
characteristic attitude and gestures, and the pungent quality of his
oratory at first startled his audience, accustomed to more
conventional methods of public speaking. But he soon captured and
carried his hearers with him, as is indicated by the exclamations of
approval on the part of the audience which were incorporated in the
verbatim report of the speech in the London _Times_. It is no
exaggeration to say that his speech became the talk of England--in
clubs, in private homes, and in the newspapers. Of course there was
some criticism, but, on the whole, it was received with commendation.