my many errors, from the feeling that I was striving for the
widow and the fatherless. (Long and enthusiastic applause
followed Mr. Murray's address.)

Sir WALTER SCOTT gave "The Health of the Stewards."

Mr. VANDENHOFF.---Mr. President and Gentlemen, the honour
conferred upon the Stewards, in the very flattering compliment
you have just paid us, calls forth our warmest acknowledgments.
In tendering you our thanks for the approbation you have been
pleased to express of our humble exertions, I would beg leave to
advert to the cause in which we have been engaged. Yet,
surrounded as I am by the genius--the eloquence--of this
enlightened city, I cannot but feel the presumption which
ventures to address you on so interesting a subject. Accustomed
to speak in the language of others, I feel quite at a loss for
terms wherein to clothe the sentiments excited by the present
occasion. (Applause.) The nature of the institution which has
sought your fostering patronage, and the objects which it
contemplates, have been fully explained to you. But, gentlemen,
the relief which it proposes is not a gratuitous relief, but to
be purchased by the individual contribution of its members
towards the general good. This Fund lends no encouragement to
idleness or improvidence, but it offers an opportunity to
prudence in vigour and youth to make provision against the
evening of life and its attendant infirmity. A period is fixed
at which we admit the plea of age as an exemption from
professional labour. It is painful to behold the veteran on the
stage (compelled by necessity) contending against physical decay,
mocking the joyousness of mirth with the feebleness of age, when