company is large. Good speakers are secured in advance. Each is given an
appropriate toast, either to propose or respond to. Suppose it is a New
England society celebrating Forefathers' Day in New York. The chairman (who
is usually the president of the society) rises, and by touching a bell,
rapping on the table, or in some other suitable manner, attracts all eyes
to himself. He then asks the meeting to come to order, or if he prefers the
form, to give attention. Then he utters a few graceful commonplaces, and
calls upon a guest to offer the leading toast--not always the chief or most
interesting one. When one is reached in which there is a lively interest,
some distinguished person such as Chauncey M. Depew, the prince of
after-dinner speakers, comes to the front. We give an outline of one of his
addresses on Forefathers' Day, delivered December 22d, 1882, in response to
the toast, "The Half Moon and the Mayflower."

In reading this address the "We" and "You" cannot fail to be noted. Mr.
Depew said he did not know why he should be called upon to celebrate his
conquerors. The Yankees had overcome the Dutch, and the two races are
mingled. The speaker then introduced three fine stories--one at the expense
of the Dutch who are slow in reaching their ends. A tenor singer at the
church of a celebrated preacher said to Mr. Depew, "You must come again,
the fact is the Doctor and myself were not at our best last Sunday
morning." The second related to the inquisitiveness of a person who
expressed himself thus to the guide upon the estate of the Duke of
Westminster: "What, you can't tell how much the house cost or what the farm
yields an acre, or what the old man's income is, or how much he is worth?
Don't you Britishers know anything?" The third story, near the close, set
off Yankee complacency. A New England girl mistook the first mile-stone
from Boston for a tombstone, and reading its inscription "1 M. from
Boston," said "I'm from Boston; how simple; how sufficient."