The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-02-20 00:00:00

A GOOD WORD FOR THE LADIES!

At the farewell banquet given at Glasgow, last week,
to the American minister, Sir James Campbell pro-
ysleed "Mrs. Revertly Johnson and Family." Mrs.
Johnson, he remarked, was the daughter of one of the
governors of one of the principal States of America;
and she had the distinction of being the mother of
eleven children, the grandmother of forty, and the
great-grandmother of three (Laughter and applause).
Mr. Johnson, in rising to reply, was greeted with
hearty cheers, and in the count) of some remarks he
mid :
I am sorry Mrs. Johnson Is not here to answer for herself
laughter, but if she were, and she spoke as wisely to you as
he does to me, it would be much better for you to hear her
than to hear me !renewed laughter). I suppose it is barely
possible that there may he one or two unfortunate or fortu-
nate men at the table who think they are happy in • state
of single blessedness laughter. I do not know that there
are any (cries of " Yea," and renewed laughter). Scotchmen
are not so excessively fond of being blessed in that way
,laughter). I have gone through a great many trials, my
lord, at home; a great many trials here—trials of banquets,
trials of eating, trials of drinking (laughter). I nee& could
have gone through them in the world if I had not brought
Mrs. Johnson along with me applause and loud laughter'.
She is, as you may imagine, Milt° a considerable personage
—the mother of eleven children, and the grandmother of
forty, likely to hicresse to eighty, on. i laughter—the great-
grandmother of three, and—if she only lives twenty years
longer—likely to he the great-gvaniimother of 100 laughter .
As you may imagine, she has a wonderful influence over me.
Marriage, gentlemen, in an ordinance of God ; and, if one
may so speak, of the ordinances of heaven, one of its beet
and most merciful. What would man be without it? Worse
than the savage. What should we Be without woman—
virtuous woman? Scott says
! woman, in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to plea's,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made, •
But he did Justice to them afterwards In adding—
When pain Alloi anguish wring the brow,
A minstering angel thou.
Who that has been—l do not address myself to the clergy,
because they are always on their guard—at one of these
banquets, and has found himself In the menilng with a
horrid headache laughter ,—more frequent with us, by the
way, because our WiTIOS are not as good as yours daughter)
—has not felt that he would be more wretched still if he
had not a wife or a sister—but a wife is better than a sister
—to minister to his aching heart said hls aching head?
laughter.) And loan imagine from what! have heard of
the potations in which Scott occasionally Indulged—not
drinking the best of your sherries, or your Madeira, or your
champagne, but Scotch whisky punch—that when he wrote
these lines he bad before him In vivid remembrance many a
throb in his head ,laughter consequent on the potationa lii
which he had been engaged. A ministering angel thou
Who can doubt It? There are angels above; and when we
are permitted to be In their presence, my life for it they will
k be found to be women loud laughter.) Whoever thought
; of making a man an angel laughter, unless, Like Beelzebub,
he was a fallen angel I (loud laughter.)
- •
wearing
• which

Mr. Dickens was unable to read at St. James's Hall
on rneaday night. lie is suffering from inflammation of the
foot, and his medical advisers have ordered him to keep
Ituyval Voi a tow dap.