The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1868-02-12
Charleston Chamber of Commerce
FoRTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY.
The Meeting.
T He BAN No U E T F..

THE BANQU
The forty-fifth anniversary meeting OF the
Charleston Chamber Of Commerce vas held
yesterday at the Mills House, and the following
gentlemen were unanimously elected officers for
the ensuing year.
| A. o. ANDREWS. President.
#ROBT. MURE, First Vice.President.
SAMUEL Y. TUPPER, Second Vice-P1esident
P. J. BARBoT, Secretary and Treasurer.
| W. D. clancy, Solicitor
Committee on Appeals-Geo. A. Trenholm, VIM. NJ
| Lswton, A. Gourdin. Theo. Huchet VIM. Rave el
Committee of Charity Fund.- J.Rorcher Theo. D..
Wagner, A. + Ravenel, F. ]. Pelzer. VIM. A. Courte-
| nay.
*Wm. Ravenel. declined.
tWm. G. Bee, declined.
THE BANQUET.
| The Chamber of Commerce have always been
famous for the good taste and good feeling
which have characterized their annual cele-
brations. During the forty-6ve years of their
existence they have been tho honored repre-
sentatives of the commerce and trade of this
city, and they have done all that in them lay
to promote that general good will and kindly
thought which are the sure foundations OF
pleasant financial relations. The Chamber OF
| Commerce have had their vicissitudes. Their
annual gatherings have been at times sus-
| pended, and they have entered their energetic
protest against more than one "bil Of abomi-
nations;" but they have always made courtesy
and hospitality their practice and their pride.
The dinner Of yesterday, however. was one
which was worthy of the palmiest days Of the
! times before the war. II was we'll arranged,
we'll organized, and was marred By no un-
pleasantness or shadow Of ill-will.
ssMine Host" OF the Mills House is so well
known as an adept in the art of making people
| gastronomically content that to sing his
praises here would be superhuous. Equally
unnecessary would it be to describe in detail
the hands ome tou! ensemble which had been
arranged under his eye to astonish the several
senses Of the guests.
The tables groaned sufficiently loud under
| the load of good things to be heard two or
three squares. Tho bill Of fare was superb.
The wines we'll the best comment upon them
| is the remark Of an old bon cioant present,
that whom he drank such good liquor he
wished his throat was. as long as his personal
corporosity.
For an hour or two the play of knife and
fork, the hum of dinner, and the joke and
| laugh went round in hearty fashion. Madame
| Cliouot and Heidsck rose gradually IN the
thermometer Of the evening, and by the time
the cloth was removed the company were in a
| jolly humor to listen to the "feast OF reason
and flow OF SOUL" which always comes in after
good dessert like an old fashioned doxology.
THE GUESTS.
Among the distinguished guests we're Bish-
op Wightman; Chancellor Carroll; Judge +. j.
Moses; II. P. Walker, Esq, 81. B. NJ. Consul;
NJ. de BelIaigue, Consul de France; Senior I.
NJ. R. de Moncada, Spanish Consul; e. w.
Marshall ESQ.,, President OF the Board OF
Trade, and Rev. Jno. II. Wightman.
When the cloth was removed President And
drews offered the first regular toast in the fol-
lowing words:
Gentlemen of he Chamber Of Commerce
Once again, through that continuing kind
| ness which has 90 long followed me, l am ac-
corded the happy privilege of rendering to you
the kindly greetings which associate them
selves SO pleasantly with your testal day, and
OF bidding you welcome in genial play to all
those social neutrality-suspicious. charities OF
the heart, which, from days of yore, have made
30 conspicuous and so comely feature in your
annual gatherings.
Other days we devote to the commerce OF
the mart-this evening we cGhsccrate to the
commerce of the heart.
Looking back upon an organization whose
date is from colonial days, we feel just pride
in an association whose influence has been sig
nally felt, either in the conception, OF in the
aid and depevelopment which it has given to
those varied auxiliaries, which, from time to
time, have done we'll their part, in the more
efficient promotion of industrial pursuit, the
unfolding OF our material resources, or in that
higher and complicated economy, whose bene-
tcent function it is when rightly working, to
make all these minister the greatest amount Of
happiness to the largest number.
II amid tho upheavings of our industrial
structure, through which we ar. now passing,
our administration has boon marked by less
than it's wonted activity tho cause thereof is to
be found, in our recognition of that philosophy
which believes that wisdom is sometimes
shown, not in what one does, but rather IN
what one omits to do. Your past is at least
secure. Its enviable record, now rolled up,
stands identified with civilization, benedic-
tive in all its tendencies generous lofty, hon.
orable and glorious, oven by the constrained
testimony Of those whose tremendous rcspon-
sibihty it is to have brokcn it up. Powerless
il ourselves, our part il 10 abide, and so far as
in us lies, to mould The incoming of the prom
ised, higher and better civilization.
We cannot look back and spit upon our an
cestry But treasuring up and conserving all
those noble elements, which neither time, nor
change, nor situation should destroy, we can,
and should, infuse and transfuse them,
through the new order OF fittings, 80 as to make
good the ancient beautiful leSend-that the
blood of giants, slain in holy war, appreciating
earth did into her pregnant bosom lap-thence
the fruitful vine did grow, whose potent juice,
coursing through succeeding veins, did ever
thence full mastery assert or, as in the grand
old verse of Spencer,
"For wine, they say is blood,
Even the blood of giants, whch were slaiu
By laundering Jove In Phlcgrean plain.
And of their vital blood, the which was shed
Into ear b q pregnant bosom forth she brought
| 10 fri win will rad