THE TABLES TURNED

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 2709, 22 July 1891, Page 4

THE TABLES TURNED

In America recently a Mrs Dumway at a literary reunion, was put up' to propose the toast of " Tho Gentlemen,." and this is how she did it :

" The Gentlemen "~" Bless 'em ! They halve our joys they double our sorrows, they treble our expenses, they quadruple our cares, they excite our magnanimity, they increase our self respect, awake our enthusiasm, arouse . our affection**, control our property, and out-manoeuvre us in everything. This would be a dreary world without them. In fact, 1 may say, without prospect of successful contradiction, that without them this wouldn't be much or' a world anyhow. We love tbein, and the dear things em't help it ; wo control them, and the precious fellows don't know it. As husbands, they are convenient, though not always on handy as beaux, they are by no moans 'matchless. ' They are the most agreeable as visitors; bandy at State fairs, and indispensable at oyster saloons. They are splendid as escorts for some other fellow's wife or sister, and as friends they are better than woman. As our fathers, they are inexpressibly grand. &. man may be a failure in business, a wreck in constitution, not enough to boast of as a beauty, nothing as a wit, less than nothing as a legislator for women's rights, and not very brilliant as a member of the Press ; but if he is our own father, we overlook his shortcomings, and co\er his peccadillos with the divine mantle of charity. Then, as our husbands, how we love to parade them as paragons ! In the sublime language of the poet — We'll lie for 'em, We'll cry for 'eir, And if we could, we'd fly fos-^em 5 We'd do anything but die for 'em.