DINNER-TABLE ORATORS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 95, 25 April 1891, Page 3 (Supplement)

DINNER-TABLE ORATORS.

That the after-dinner speech has attained no general success, so far as the quantity of the wit and wisdom uttered is concerned, we very well know. Can we explain to ourselves why ib is bhat we sit for an hour or two enduring, or even cheering, such dreariness ? On the whole, do we nob do ib oub of a eemi-sconecious conviction that we owe something to society, and, while we would rather be away, we ought) to be were we are and bear it out ? Besides, there is something in expectancy. Wβ know that there is such a thing as a flash of impromptu wit. Occasionally a shrewd fellow has prepared himself so well as to be truly entertaining. An old story gets a new twang or a racy application, and then you know wearefeeling-likedoingnofching else, o« nothing more serious. Everyone likes to appear bo be a good fellow, generous with applause. There is even a toach of the patron in our relation to the orators. To help them on is kindly and benevolent: We feel that we are somehow fulfilling a public function. So we manage to go through with a vaeb amount of really very vapid stuff, and we laugh and clap our hands, and go home warm-hearted. The occasion is, ab least, so much better than gossip that it ought to be encouraged, and ib ie betber bhan a carousal. Ib marks an upward sbep in civilisabion. Only when bhese occasions are annual, and musb come at a seb time whabever the weabher and bhe costs may be, there is danger of great cruelty and greater hypocrisy.— 'Globe Democrat.'