New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-09-13

men one of taciturnity for they only seem to
think that they must make up for his dumbness
by redoubled rhetorical garrulity. The average
Columbian Zine or superfne) now lives upon
the legs Tor limbs) with the mouth wide open
and Worcester Unabridged coming out of it..
We are first beguiled by an assurance that
the person sup" cannot "make q speech"
and reasonably enough we expect the person
"upp to sit down, only he OF she does MT.
PetticOat or pantaloon, tits all the same.
Fluent or hesitating, pregnant or frOthy, COM
pact or disjOinted, grave or gay, didachc or
humorous, or pathetic or reminiscent, we
have the speech, be the same good, bad. or
mediocre. Curiously enough, too, it is always
o success, for if not admired in going on,
grateful audience wildly applauds the conclus-
ion. Better luck, it is thought, with the next
one Sometimes there is; sometimes there
isn't, for luck is one of the most uncertain
things in this world of disappointment. There
is an end of everything, however, and at the
end of all this everybody goes home, each
saying to the other, What q beautiful meet
"ingw They feel so relieved
But nothing so pleasantly pulls the plug
out of the general cistern of public eloquence
as your Centennial Celebration-and why
mott With one hundred years to talk about,
the platform must be indeed stupid and stolid
if it cannot find plenty to say. This is why
there is so much said when gray old towns
observe their hundredth birthday; and we
confess that we like these laxative occasions.
There is heart in them at any rate; tender
"reminiscences and over all the reflex light of
lost youth. 'Tis a resurrection; frosty-headed
folk are boys and girls again; new sight OF
the old woods and meadows and homes Is
excuse enough for good deal of sincere gush;
the weary, whether successful or disappointed,
have come back for Saturday holiday from
the rough school of the world. In New
England, where everybody runs away early
in life from the granite meadows,
we find the truants are specially glad of an
excuse for playing Prodigal if only for day
or two. New as the land Is by name, the
Yankees are achieving something like re-
spectacle antiquity. Down at Plymouth. where
the breaking waves dashed high on stern
and rock-bOund coast, they are on the last half
of their third century, with plenty of messy
tombstones, if nothing more architectural, to
attest the long past. There will be fine
speaking on the rock, weswager, A. ID. 1920!
how many of our readers have heard of the
town of Northw0od, in New-Hampshiref Yet
it had been there 100 years on the 9th inst
a beautiful hamlet with ten lakes and no end
of hils-a lovely village to emigrate from and
to 90 back to when the wanderer has grown
homesick. 1t celebrated accordingly, and there
WAS talk enough, we may be sure, on
Of lind wi
we love, because it must have been
as sincere and hearty as the buzz and
murmur at happy golden wedding. Accord
ing to our information there was at North
wood not only regular historical address by
the clergyman of the town, but speeches and
poems followed without end, lnterspersed with
toasts and music. Then on Sunday there
we're more serious services in the church
Altogether it is declared "there were
speeches enough to last" for another
hundred years. We confess that this
Is a kind of anniversary elOquence which we
approve. The American cacoethes loquendi, of
which in the beginning we may have spoken
not over respectfully, here shows itself TO ad-
vantage. Compared with the talk, if we may
be allowed to say so, of a Woman's COnven-
ton or Mans Caucus, or even the annual
dinner deliveries of dignifed Historical
Society," there is something fresh, natural,
and sincere about this village pow-wow-
something suggestive of the contrast between
cool mountain breezes and the air OF a sick
chamber Thank God that in these days OF
swashy Senatorial prolixities, Credit Mobiler
creations, and Back Pay stammeriugs, we may
: II 4 III e ,.xI
primitive earnestness and simplicity!
Little girls are almost always nice and agreeable,