The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-22 00:00:00

SPORTING NOTES.

There was a considerable falling off in the attendance at
the York meeting when compared with previous years.
Considerable opposition was made against Gladiateur, who
was at one time knocked out to 14 to 1, but those who were
operating soon found out they had burnt their fingers, and
the horse was soon afterwards again firmly established as
first favourite.

The late hour at which the races commenced on Tuesday
afforded ample time for the sales, and likewise enabled the
Londoners, who delayed their departure until this morn-
ing, to reach the course before the first race, in which The
Inca, a Derby outsider from Spigot Lodge, who has figured
among the 1,000 to 10 division, made his debut this season.
His opponents comprised Minie, Lozenge, and Lady of
Coverdale, all of whom were backed, the first-named
having the call until his temper broke forth at the post,
when he became friendless, and after causing some
delay, he got off so badly that any chance he might
have had was extinguished at the outset. Still,
Minie managed to beat the high-priced Inca (a 600 guineas
Doncaster yearling), who has turned out no better so far
than his half-sister, Linda, at three years old, whose fine
speed he exhibited for half a mile, and then gave up the
ghost; a slashing finish between Lady of Coverdale and
Lozenge resulting in favour of the Whitewall selling plate
cast-off by a very short head. There was a great improve-
ment in the field for the Zetland Stakes, the principal two-
year-old race of the meeting, for which ten youngsters
went to the post, minus any " dark" one of sufficient pre-
tensions to dispute the favouritism with Valentine, whose
forward running at Lincoln, Doncaster, and Epsom gave
her the decided call of everything ; Osiris, who finished
behind Mr. Hodgman's filly at the latter meeting, being
next in demand ; 10 to 1 was offered bar the two, and a
longer price laid against Castanet, upon whom Fordham
came with such a tremendous rush, after being disap-
pointed inside the distance, that Valentine, who had the ad-
vantage of " first run" besides, only just pulled through
by a head—two strides past the post the "head" was the
other way ! How true the running, and how moderate the
first batch of two year olds, with Qui Vive at their head—
until King Hal and Redan put in appearance—was strik-
ingly verified by to-day's performance of Castanet, who
beat Osiris as far as Tina (behind whom was Capt. Gray's
filly twice at Chester) did at Epsom. The announcement
of ten starters only for the Great Northern Handicap
caused both surprise and disappointment. The voyageurs
by the five o'clock "express" from King's Cross, the pre-
vious afternoon, who left Finesse first favourite at Tatter-
sall's, were startled to find the mare struck out at 40 minutes
past 4 on reaching York, where Revival's non-starting was
also announced. La Toucques coughed so badly this morn-
ing, whilst at exercise, that Mr. de Mongomery, who was
present, at once made up his mind not to start her, and she
was scratched at half-past eight o'clock. The next and
most important victim of the pen was Buckfoot, who, with
his lenient weight of 7st 31b (including 51b extra for run-
ning second in the Chester Cup), had been first or second
favourite for this event since that race ; and as it is the
general opinion he would have won at Chester if Carroll
had " come sooner," the Great Northern looked a "gift"
to him. Mr. Barber started a couple, and tried the cutting
down game with Macbeth (with whom he declared to win,
The Clown being amiss), but could not improve upon
Helen's Chester Cup position of fourth, the first three berths
being occupied by Cathedral, Stanton, and Sidewind. The
Stand Selling Stakes introduced us to the first of Tom
Bowline's progeny in Jolly Boy and a filly out of Relic, the
latter of whom won cleverly, but did not cause much com-
petition at the hammer. When the numbers went up for
the Knavesmire Plate, the "plungers" betted odds on
Lion with avidity, to recover their losses on the pre-
vious race, in the face of so large a field ; nothing else
being backed except Roderick Random, who was stated
to be 2st better than the winner of the Craven Stakes.
The favourite had evidently not forgotten his Chester
work, or must be a worse horse than he has had the
credit of being, as he cut such a very bad figure amongst
this moderate lot that we were not surprised to find The
Duke not quite so steady after his defeat ; nor did the Ring
appear to entertain a very exalted opinion of the "lion
tamer," as 1000 to 10 was laid several times against the
winner of the Derby after his victory. Roderick Random
was bred by Sir Lydston Newman (amongst whose year-
lings to be sold on the Monday after the Derby is an own
brother to him), and was bought by Mr. Haig for 200
guineas.

Donnybrook diposed of his hali-dozen opponents, in-
cluding the quondam Great Northern favourite, Finesse,
without much difficulty ; and the Tally-ho Stakes, with
£5O added by the Yorkshire Hunt Club, was carried off by
Cemerosa, a daughter of Orest, upon whom high odds were
betted, although opposed by Owetwick and Mischief, the
first and second in the hunters' race, wherein the running
of the pair, who met at 31b. difference in weight, was re-
versed.

At the Bath meeting, this week, there will no doubt be
some startling changes in the Derby betting. The Four-
teenth Triennial has King Hal and Qui Vivo engaged, and
one of them should win, my preference being for the
former. For the Bath and Somerstshire Stakes I expect
the judge will place—

BUCKFOOT 1
RED CAP 2
LITTLE GOY 3

Cambuscan or Fille de l'Air will win the Beaufort Cup.
The Western Stakes has King Hal and Qui Vive again
amongst the entries, and the former ought to win unless
Lord St. Vincent should bring out his slashing colt Redan,
which would make it a near thing between the two.
Accident looks most formidable in the Welter Handicap.
A FRESH MAN.

Annual Festival of the Newspaper Press

Fund.

The second anniversary dinner of this association,
at the Freemasons' Tavern on Saturday evening,
fully sustained in all respects the high position of its
inaugural festival last year under the presidency of
Lord Houghton. The attendance was not only more
numerous, but the variety and importance of the
classes represented showed that this young institu-
tion has struck its roots deeply, and that it promises
to take a high position among the permanent bene-
volent societies which are an honour to this great
metropolis. It may justly claim to do so, seeing the
earnestness and zeal with which it is supported by
those connected with the profession in whose interest
it has been established. Perhaps there has probably
seldom, if ever, gathered together under the same
roof for a similar purpose, a company so distin-
guished in every department of of literature, art, and
the liberal professions, as that which sat down to
dinner under the presidency of Mr. Chas. Dickens ; ,
and though doubtless some, nay much, of the attrac-
tion may be attributed to the announcement that he
would take the chair, and that his connection with
the morning press as a reporter in the earlier period
of his career would bring out some interesting auto-
biographical reminiscences, still the solid claims of
the association to public support may be well sup-
posed to have been manifested by such a numerous
company. Among those present we noticed—Lord
Truro, the Right Hon. Spencer H. Walpole, M.P.,
Mr. C. N. Newdegate, M.P., the Hon. Mr. Galt
(Commissioner from Canada), Mr. W. Scholefield,
M.P., Col. French, M.P., Col. Sykes, M.P., Mr. T.
Salt, M.P., Mr. Maguire, M.P., Mr. J. J. Powell,
M.P. and Q.C., Sir Norton Knatchbull, Bart., Dr.
Canton, Mr. T. Wright, F.S.A., M.A., Sir John
Gray, Mr. Anthony Trollope, W. H. Russell, LL.D.,
Mr. Theodore Martin, Mr. J. C. Pawle, Mr. M. F.
Tupper, Mr. R. W. Louesay, the Hon. Mr Ashley,
Mr. C. L. Gruneisen, Lieut.-Gen. Boileau, Dr. Tees-
dale (Chancellor of Christ Church, Oxford), Gene-
ral Watkins, Mr. W. Robinson, Mr. Sergeant
T. Atkinson, Mr. Charles Kent, Mr. Edmund
Yates, Mr. E. L. Blanchard, Mr. Chas. Dickens,
junr., Mr. R. Wood, Mr. W. H. Wills, Mr.
M. Wills, Mr. G. W. Martin, Col. Hocking, Col.
Jervois, Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A., Judge Manockjee
Cursetjee, the Ministers for Honduras and Hayti,
the Belgian Consul, the Mexican Consul-General,
the Monte Videan Consul, Admiral Burney, Pro-
fessor Owen, Mr. Alderman and Sheriff Dakin, Mr.
Alderman Phillips, Mr. Donald Nicol, Mr. Henry
Huggins, Mr. W. P. Andrew, Mr. C. Mudie, Mr.
G. F. Carden, Mr. Blackett, Capt. Eastwick, Mr.
E. Barrow, the Rev. IL Randolph, Mr. Andrew
Halliday, Mr. W. Bowman, F.R.S., Mr. J. Dillon,
Mr. Spicer, Mr. Butler Rigby, Mr. C. H. Towns-
hend, Mr. Edward bl‘Dermott, Mr. Frederick
Lehmann, Mr. Anthony Norris (hon. solicitor of the
Newspaper Press Fund), Mr. Blanchard Jerrold,
Evan Jones, M. 0., Mr. Thos Cahill, Mr. J. Byrne,
Mr. J. H. Doyle, J. J. Ellis, M.D., Mr. P. B. Shar-
key, Mr. Frederic Ledger, Mr. R. B. Knowles, Mr.
M. R. Sharpe, Mr. J. Lister O'Beirne, Mr. A.
Grant, Mr. A. A. Croll, Mr. Bee, Mr. J. W. Cherry,
Mr. C. A. Copper, Capt. Knox, Mr. T. Chipchase,
Mr. 11. R. Forster, Mr. Wm. Edsall, Mr. Buxton
Blyth, Mr. J. W. Ellisdon, Mr. Jas. Mould, Mr. C.
Harding, C.E., Mr. H. Findon, Mr. Wm. Saunders,
Mr. Chas. H. Scott, Mr. J. Dickinson, Mr. W. H.
Collingridge, Mr. Easton, Mr. Geo. Hodder, Mr.
J. W. Kaye, Mr. Peter Berlyn, Mr. Irwin L. Wiles,
31F, G. Gardiner, Mr. C. Coote, Mr. T. Bishop, Mr.
C. C. Millward, Mr. E. Ledger, Mr. W. Bucking-
ham, and many others well known in art and science
under the various departments of literature and

journalism.
After the removal of the cloth the CHAIRMAN
gave the usual loyal toasts with commendable
brevity, but with great emphasis, and they were
duly honoured. .
In proposing " The Army, Navy, - and Volun-
teers."

Mr. DICKERS said, it is one of the characteristics
of our English army and navy that we never hear of
great deeds done in those famous services from the
lips of the doers. But happily the greater indepen-
dence and enterprise of our newspaper press and the
bolder and more brilliant the describers who write in
it, the better the country learns what her heroes de-
serve, and the prouder she becomes to hold them
in her love and honour. I cannot offer you the
toast now in my hands without begging your serious
attention to a supposititious case in the French army.
It is the case of a young man who enlisted in the
ranks of what we should call the ScotS Fusileer
Guards.' He was a sergeant in the Crimea; and at
inkerman displayed such notable gallantry that he
received at the hands of his Sovereign a commission
in what we should call the Rifle Brigade, as what
we should call a lieutenant in that distinguished
corps. He volunteered to lead the ladder party in
the famous unsuccessful attack on the Redan.
While binding up a fellow officer's wounds he was
so severely shot in the left arm that the surgeon
found it necessary immediately to remove it from
the socket. He was so little discomposed or disabled
by its loss that he presently took what we should
call-a first-class certificate as instructor of musketry
at Hythe. He was afterwards nominated to a com-
pany by what we should call the Prince Consort—
(a laugh)—and received a staff appointment abroad
from what we should call the Duke of Cambridge.
(A. laugh.) And all these things took place in
.15
years. Novi, lam proud to tell you that this is not
a supposititious case in the French army, but a real
case in the English army. (Cheers.) That British
officer wears the Victoria Cross, and he is seated at
this board to-day. The toast I propose is " The
Army, Navy, and Vohuiteers ;" with the first clause
of it I beg to couple the name of Sir J. Boileau,
with the second Admiral Barney, and with the third
that of Lord Truro.

The toast was drank with cheering, and • having
been acknowledged by those distinguished officers,
The CHAIRMAN, on rising to propose the toast of
the evening, was loudly cheered. He said—Ladies
and gentlemen, when a young child is produced after
dinner to a circle of admiring relations and friends,
I have generally observed that their conversation—
I suppose in an instinctive remembrance of the un-
certainty of infant life—usually takes a retrospec-
tive turn. They saw how much the child has grown
since the last dinner ; what a remarkably fine child
it is—to have been born only two =three years ago,
and so' forth. When a young institution is pro-
duced after dinner, there is not the same uncer-
tainty or delicacy as in the case of the. child, and it
may be confidently predicted of it that if it deserve
to live it will surely live, and that if it deserve to die
it will surely die. The proof of desert in such a case
as this must be mainly sought, ..suppose, srstly, in
what the society means to do with its • money ;
secondly, the extent to which it is supported by the
class with whom it originated, and for whom it is
designed ; and, lastly, in the power of its hold upon
the public. (Hear, hear.) I-add-this lastly, be-
cause no such institution that ever I heard of ever
yet dreamed of - existing apart from .the public, or
ever yet considered it a degradation to accept of
public support. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) Now what
the Newspaper Press
Fund proposes .to do with its
money is to gran trelief to members in want or dis-
tress, and the widows, families, parents, or other
near relatives of deceased members. Its members,
in right of a certaig
commutable, moderate provident annual sub-
scription,observe, for a provident
11
life subscription—its ;,
Inlb comprise the whole
paid class of literary
contributorsers to the Press
of the United
and every class of re-
porters. The numbers of its
time last year was somethingmembers at this
below 100
the present time it is somewhat above 170,.At
not
including thirty members of the Press who are
regular subscribers, but have not as yet quali-
fied as regular members. This number is steadily
on the increase, not only as regards the metropo-
litan litan Press, but also as regards the provincial
throughout the country. I have observed within
these few days that many members of the Press at
Manchester have lately at a meeting expressed a
strong brotherly interest in this institution, and a
great desire to extend its operations, and to
strengthen its hands, provided something in the
independent nature of life assurance and the pur-
chase of deferred annuities could be introduced into
its details, and always assuming that in it the me-
tropolis and the provinces stand on perfectly equal

ground. (Hear,
_and cheers.) This appears to me
to be a demand so very moderate that I can hardly
have a doubt of the response on the part of the ma-
nagers, or of ethe benficial and harmonic us results.
(Hear, hear.) It only remains to add on this head
of desert the agreeable circumstan ;c that out of all
the money collected in aid of the society during the
last year more than one-third came exclusively from
the Press. (Hear, and cheers.) Now, ladies and
gentlemen, in regard to the last claim—the last
point of desert—the hold upon the public. I think
I may say that probably not one single individual
in this great company has failed to-day to see a
a newspaper, or has failed to-day to hear something
derived from a newspaper which was quite un-
known to him or to her yesterday. (Hear, hear.)
Of all those restless crowds that have this day
thronged the streets of this enormous city, the same
may be said as the general gigantic rule. (Hear.)
It may be said almost equally of the brightest and
the dullest, the largest and the least provincial town
in the empire, and this, oberve, not only as to the
active, the industrious, the healthy among the popu-
lation, but also as to the bedridden, the idle, the very
blind, and the deaf and dumb. Now, if the men
who provide this all-pervading presence, this won-
derful, übiquitous newspaper, where every descrip-
tion of intelligence on every subject of human inte-
rest, collected with immense pains and • immense
patience, offered by the exercise of a laboriously-
acquired faculty, united a natural aptitude, much of
the work done in that night, at the sacrifice of rest
and sleep, and quite apart from the mental strain by
the constant overtasking of the two most delicate of
the senses, sight and hearing—l say, if the men who,
through the newspapers, from day to day, or from
night to night, or from week to week, furnish the
public with so much to remember, that ought to be
remembered by the public in return. (Loud cheers.)
It would be absurd, it would be actuallyimpertinent,
in such an assembly as this, if I were to attempt to
expatiate upon the extraordinary combination of
remarkable qualities involved in the production of
any newspaper. But assuming the majority of this
associated body to be composed of reporters, be-
cause reporters, of one kind or other, compose the
majority of the literary staff of almost every news-
paper that is not a compilation, I would venture to
remind you, if I delicately may, in the august pre-
sence of members of Parliament, how much we, the
public, owe to the reporters, if it were only for their
skill in the two great sciences of condensation and
rejection. (Laughter and cheers.) Conceive what
our sufferings, under an Imperial Parliament, how-
ever popularly constituted, under however glorious a
' constitution, would be if the reporters could not skip.
(Much laughter.) Dr. Johnson, in one of his violent
assertions, declared that " the man who was afraid
of anything must be a scoundrel, Sir !" Though
admitting that the man who is afraid of a newspaper
will generally be found to be rather something
like it, I still must freely own that I should
approach ray parliamentary debate with infinite
fear and trembling, if they were so unskilfully
served up for my. breakfast. (Laughter.) Ever
since the time when the old man and his son took
their donkey home, which were the old Greek days,
I believe, and probably ever since the time when
the donkey went into the ark—perhaps he did not
like his accommodation there, but certainly from
that time downwards, he has objected to go in any
direction required of him—(laughter)—from the
remotest periods it has been found impossible to
please everybody. (Hear, hear.) I 4o not for a
moment seek to conceal that I know that this insti-
tution has been objected to. As an open fact, chal-
lenging the• freest discussion and inquiry, and seek-
ing no sort of shelter or favour but what it can. win,
it has nothing, I apprehend, but itself to urge against
objections. No institution conceived in perfect
honesty and good faith has a right to object to be-
ing questioned to any extent, and any institution so
based must be in the end the better for- it. (Hear,
hear.) Moreover, that this society has been ques-
tioned in quarters deserving of the most respectful
attention, I take to be an indisputable fact. Now,
I for one have given that respectful attention, and
I have come out of the discussion to where you see
me. (Cheers.) The whole circle of the arts is per-
vaded by institutions between which and this I can
descry no difference. The painter's art has four or
five such institutions. The musician's art, so charm-
ingly represented here, has likewise several such
institutions. In my own art there is one,
concerning the details of which my noble
friend the president • of the society and
myself have torn each other's hair to a consider-
able extent. (Laughter.) In the 'dramatic art there
are four, and I have never heard any objection
to their principle, except, indeed, in the cases of
some famous actors of large gains, who, having
through the whole period of their success positively
refused to establish a right in thein, became, in
their old age and declining repentance, suppliants
for their bounty. (Hear, hear.) It is urged against
this particular institution of all, that it is objec-
tionable because a parliamentary reporter, for in-
stance, might report a subscribing M.P. in large, and
a non-subscribingM.P. in little. (Laughter.) Now,
apart from the sweeping nature of this charge, which
it is to be observed, lays the unfortunate M.P. and
the unfortunate reporter under pretty much the
same suspicion—apart from this consideration, I
reply that it is notorious in all newspaper offices that '
every such man is reported according to the position
he can gain in the public eye, and according to the
force and weight of what he has to say. (Cheers.)
And if there were ever to be among its members one
so very foolish to his brethren, and so very dis-
honourable in himself as venially to abuse his trust,
I confidently ask those here, the most acquainted
with journalism, whether • they believe it possible
that any newspaper so ill conducted as to fail in-
stantly to detect him could possibly exist as a thriv-
ing enterprise for one single twelvemonth. (Loud
cheers.) No, ladies and gentlemen, the blundering
stupidity of such a journalist would have no chance
against the acute sagacity of newspaper editors. But,
I will go farther, and submit to you that the offence,
if it is to be dreaded at all, is far more likely of
commission on the part of some recreant camp-
follower of a scattered, disunited, and half-recog-
nised body, than when there is a public opinion
established by the union of all classes of its
members for the common-good, the tendency of
which union
.must in the nature of things be
to rouse the lower members of the Presstowards the
higher, and never to bring the higher towards the
lower. (Cheers.) I hope I may be allowed in the
very few closing words that I feel a desire to say in
remembrance of some circumstances, rather special,
attending my present occupation of this chair, to
give those words something of a personal tone. I
am not here advocating the case of a mere ordinary
client of whom I have little or no knowledge. I
hold a brief to-night for my brothers. (Loud and
and continued cheering.) I went into the gallery
of the House of Commons as a Parliamentary re-
porter when I was a boy not 18, and I left it—l
can hardly believe the inexorable truth—nigh thirty
years ago ; and I have pursued the calling of a re-
porter under circumstances of which many of my
brethren at home in England here, many of my
brethren's successors, can form no adequate con-
ception. I have often transcribed for the printer
from my shorthand notes important public speeches
in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a
mistake in which would have been to a young man
severely compromising, writing on the palm of my
hand by the light of a dark lantern in a postchaise
and four, galloping through a wild country all
through the dead of the night at the then surprising
rate of fifteen miles an hour. The very last time I
was at' Exeter I strolled into the castle yard there
to identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot
on which I once " took," as we used to call it, an
election speech of my noble friend Lord Russell,
in the midst of a lively fight maintained by all
the vagabonds in that division of the county,
and under suth pelting rain, that I remember
two
.good-natured colleagues, who chanced to be
pnyoti:bo
at leisure, held a pocket handkerchief over
anok eacfeteersiasthieca ml
parnonceerssioonf a(GSrtaeatte
my
l • t*
laughter.) I have worn my knees writing them on the old back row of the old by on
gallery of the
old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet
by standing to write in a preposterous
pen the old
Muse of Lords, where we used to be
m
o e huddled like
so many sheep—(laughter)--kept in waiting till the

woolsack might want re-stuffing._ (A laugh.) _ Re-
turning home from excited political meetings in the
country to the waiting press in London, I do verily
believe I have been upset in almost every description
Of vehicle known in this country. (Alaugh.) I have
been, in my time, belated on miry by-roads towards
the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London,
in a rickety carriage, with exhausted horses and
drunken postboys, and have got back in time before
publication to be received with never-forgotten com-
pliments by Mr. Black, in the broadest of Scotch,
coming from the broadest of hearts I ever knew.
(Hear.) Ladies and gentlemen, I mention these
trivial things as an assurance to you that I never
have forgotten the fascination of that old pursuit.
(Cheers.) The pleasure that I used to feel in the
rapidity and dexterity of its exercise has never faded
out of my breast. Whatever little cunning of hand
or head I took to it, or acquired in it, I have so
retained as that I fully believe I could resume it to-
morrow. (Cheers.) To this present year of my life, '
when I sit in this hall, or where not, hearing a dull
speech—the phenomenon does occur—(laughter)—
I sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by
mentally following the speaker in the old, old way ;
and sometimes, if you can believe me, I even find
my hand going on the table-cloth. (Laughter.)
Accept these little truths as a confirmation of what
I know, as a confirmation of my interest in this
old calling. Accept them as a proof that
my feeling for the vocation of my youth is not
a sentiment taken up to-night to be thrown away
to-morrow--(hear, hear)—but a faithful sympathy
which is a part of myself. (Cheers.) I verily be-
lieve, I am sure, that if I had never quitted my old
calling I should have been foremost and zealous in
the interest of this institution, believing it to be a
sound, a wholesome, and a good one. Ladies
and gentlemen, I am to propose to you to drink
" Prosperity to the Newspaper Press Fund," with
which toast I will connect, as to its acknowledg-
ment, a name that has shed new brilliancy on even
the foremost newspaper in the world, the illustrious
name of Mr. Russell. (Loud cheers.)
Dr. W. H. RUSSELL—By the exercise of your
power you have deprived me of the opportunity of
performing the most agreeable task that has ever
fallen to my lot, and you have imposed upon me one ,
of the most onerous. But as you are despot to-night
I bow to your behests, and only request those who
are listening to me to remember withwhat sympathy
they would have heard me if I had been allowed to
propose the original toast, which not 10 minutes ago
I was asked to propose—the health of the chairman.
(Cheers.) -That was a toast with whichlwould have
had all your sympathy, and I am sure I-would have
amply needed it for the4eficiencies which I must
exhibit, the nature of my calling having rendered
me more familiar with the use of the pen than with
the tongue. I have been called upon to return thanks
for the Newspaper Preis Fund, and very little has
been left for me to do, because you have heard ex-
pressed, in the words of one who, as master of the
, tongue or as master of the pen, who has no equal in
1 this or any other hail, the claims which this institu-
tion possesses upon you, its objects, it aims ; and I
hope also you have heard from him an .appeal which
will thrill through those -who, indeed .up to the pre-
sent moment, have not, according to the statistics
which you have given us, been sufficiently aware of
the claims which the institution has upon their sup-
port. There is some difficulty in my standing upto
return thanks for the Newspaper Press Fund, as you
are aware that a voice of support and encourage-
ment may not be quite expected to come from the
resorts to which I have been accustomed—at least
the voices that have proceeded from it are not those
of encouragement or support. (Hear, hear.)
But I am sure that when the great organ of popular
sentiment and of popular opinion is aware of the
force of argument, of the force of opinion, and the
force of sentiment that are brought to bear in ad-
vocacy, and in maintenance of this institution, that
we may receive less Delphic utterances, or at least
tones, of no decided discouragement. (Cheers.)
Any how, for myself, I should be unfaithful to the
calling to which I am proud to belong, if, knowing
what claims my brethren have upon popular sym-
pathy and support, and how right it is that they
should be banded together in defence of their own
interest, I for one should feel that I had abandoned
all sentiment and all feeling with regard to our com-
mon calling, and to the profession to which I belong,
if I did not rise most readily, and with all my heart
and all my soul, say "Amen" to one of the finest
pa3ans in support and glorification of our own pro-
fession, illustrated and adorned by him, that I ever I
heard. (Hear, hear.) I can only say that I,regret
exceedingly that I am deprived of a pleasure in. which
I should have had all your sympathy. I can only
say, further, that this Newspaper Press Fund, esta-
blished as it has been but one year, and the statistics
of which I am perfectly ignorant of, has placed itself
by Mr. Dickens's speech this evening in a position
before the world which all the winds of rhetoric may
assail, and all the storms of logic may beat against
in vain, for it stands upon a rock. (Cheers.) Before
sitting down, and I am sure you will be very glad if
Ido so, I can only say-for myself, as one of the body
which does not feel the inconveniences -Which Mr.
Dickens has portrayed, that I -would sooner follow
any army any day in the Critnea, I . would much
sooner have a sun-stroke in India, than encounter
one of Dr. Reid's blasts in the House of Commons.
I would rather have a:march under a scorching sun
than endure the torture of the old House of Lords. I
will not stand between- you and the next toast,
" The Houses of Parliament." I will only expresla
hope that they are better ventilated than they were in
my day. (A laugh.) I am sure the Newspaper Press
Fund requires. no more advocacy from me, but I find
I have another word to say. It is my duty and my
pleasure to propose " The Health of the Chairman."
I am destitute of words to express my feelings of
regard for him personally, and the admiration with
' which I, in common with you and all who speak the
English language, read his works. I have seen their
effect in the long and weary siege in the Crimea,
and in the tents pitched nightlY, during the Indian
mutiny. These works made Englishmen really kith
and kin, and the alternate tears and laughter which
their perusal drew forth were the best testimony to
command over the human heart.

The toastwas drunk withlong.continued applause,
and was briefly acknowledged by the Chairman.
The next toast was " The Houses of Lords and
Commons," the formerbeingacknowledged by Lord
Truro.

The Right Hon. H. WALPOLE said—Ladies and
gentlemen, I cannot but feel, in returning thanks on
the part of the House of Commons, that the recol-
lection of those prosaic speeches which your admi-
rable chairman has so often curtailed with so much
advantage should induce me to be brief on this occa-
sion ; indeed, I think I can conceive his fingers al-
ready beginning to trace upon the tablecloth those
justly criticising remarks which he has so advanta-
geously made on so many previous occasions. But if
he will pardon me for a few moments I should like
to make a few remarks on behalf of this noble insti-
tution, whose aim and object I was but imperfectly
acquainted with until I had the honour of an invi-
tation to dine with youthis evening. But those aims
and objects have been so admirably portrayed by
Mr. Russell and previous speakers, that little need
be added to what you have heard from them. We
all of us know that there are many things which we
familiarly enjoy and do not appreciate, because we
so familiarly enjoy them ; and in this country we
shall never appreciate the enormous advantages of
a free, unrestricted, and enlightened press, because
we know that no legislation would presume to inter-
fere with that freedom, or in any way to entrench
upon the free exercise of public opinion which makes
itself hear through the medium of the Press.
There is one illustration I would venture to offer to
you, as showing the marvellous progress which even
your press has made in that which I may call the
most marvellous period of the world's history—the
65 years of the present century. Indeed, I believe
that when the future historian of this country writes
the history of the last 65 years, it will show that
during that period more progress had been made,
more blessings have been conferred upon us, more
advances have been attained in literature, in science,
in art, in everything we care for, than in any three
centuries before. You owe that, in a great measure,
to your public press. (Cheers.) We had a model
published recently of what the Times newspaper was