AN AMERICAN RESPONDING TO THE TOAST OF "THE LADIES."

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 143, 17 June 1879, Page 4

AN AMERICAN RESPONDING TO THE TOAST OF "THE LADIES. "

The following was delivered by Mr Mark Turner at the Correspondents' Club Dinner, "Washington :— Mr President,— I love the sex, I love all women, sir, irrespective of age or color. (Laughter.) Mean intelligence cannot estimate what we owe to women, sir. She sews on our buttons, mends our clothes, she ropes us in at the church fairs, she confides in us, she tells us whatever she can find out about the little private afl'airs of the neighbors. (Langhter.) She gives us advice, and plenty of it i she gives us a piece of her mind sometimes, and sometimes all of it. (Laughter.) Wherever you place woman, sir, she is an. ornament to that place which Bhe occupies, and a treasure to the world. Look at Cleopatra, look at Desdemona, look at Florence Nightingale, look at Lucretiaßorgia. (Voices "No no.")| Well, suppose you let jLucrefcia slide. (Laughter.) Look at Mother Eve. Cries of " Oh, «h," and laughter.) You need not look at her unless you want to; but Eve was an ornament, sir, particularly before the fashion changed. (Renewed laughter.) I repeat, sir, look at the illustrious Midow Machree, look at Lucy Stone, look at Elizabeth Stanton, look at George Francis Train —(great laughter)— and, air, I say it with a bowed head and deep veneration, look at the mother of "Washington, she "dragged up" a boy that could not lie,' Could not lie ? It might have been different had he belonged to a Newspaper Correspondent's Club. (Groans, hisses, cries of. "put him out, and laughter.) I repeat, air, that in whatever position you place a woman, she is an ornament to society, and a treasure to the world. As a sweetheart Bhe has few equals, and no superiors. (Laughter.) As a cousin she is convenient ; as a wealthy grandmother, with an incurable distemper, she is unspeakably precious. What would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, perfectly scarce. (Renewed laughter.) Then let ub cherish her, let us protect her, and let us give her our support, our encouragement, our sympathy, ourselves, if we can get a chance. (Laughter.) But jesting aside, Mr President, woman is loveable, kind of heart, gracious, beautiful, worthy of all respect, of all deference. Not any here will refuse to drink her health right cordially in this goblet of wine, for each and every one of us has known, loved, and honored the best of them all— his mother. (Great applause.)