The Ottawa free trader., 1883-06-23
The After-Dlnner Speeches of American

The After-Dlnner Speeches of Americans
1t has often been debated whether i
is to climate, to race, to the influence
OF free institutions, or to some othel
subtle cause, that men owe the Gift o
eloquence. and in little book calleC
Daniel Webster and His Contempora
ries' it is stated that the prince of Am
erican orators was firm in his conviction
that, as a predisposing cause, climate
Outweighed all the rest. If such be the
case, the climate of these islands is evi
IDENTIFY less calculated to create good
speakers than that of the North Ameri
can Continent, as among us there is not
one man fluent of tongue against ten tC
whom our kinsfolk in the United States
can point. Take, for instance, that rar-
est and, to Englishmen, most difficult
accomplishment of after-dinner oratory,
and who that has attended apublic din
ner in London and another in New
York can doubt upon which side the
Atlantic the superiority in this respect
liesP About a quarter Of century since
Richard Golden, then at his apogee as
one of the most persuasive and prac-
teal speakers in the House of Commons,
chanced to pay visit to Chicago, in
order to look after an investment he had
made in the shares of the Illinois Cen
trail Railroad There a complimentary
dinner was given to him, at which some
forty guests were included Among
them was fairly representative sprink-
ling of the bankers, merchants, lawyers,
spectators, and what not of that Won
derful young city; and, dinner being
over, speaking was freely indnlgcd in,
the verdict of all present EngliShmcn
and Americans-bcing that the worst
speeches of the evening came from
Richard Cobdcn's lips People were
wont, twenty years since, to regard
Charles Dickens as an aftcrdinncr
speaker almost without Il superior in
either hemisphere. The last visit of the
great novelist to the United States suf-
feed, however, to disSipate the illusion
under which his cOuntrymcn were labor
ing. "finally, gentlemen, remarked
Charles Dickens, at the banquet given
to him in New York on April Is, 1868,
Il do not believe that, from every honest
mind, upon both sides of the Atlantic,
there cannot be absent the conviction
that it would be better for this globe to
be rivcn by an earthquake, fired by a
oycrrun by an iceberg, and
to the Arctic fox and bear, than
that it should present the spectacle CT
these two great nations, each of which
has in its own way done 80 much for
freedom, being ever again alrayed the
one against the other"
Compare with the hyperbole of this
rXtravagant, or, to use an American
ism, "hifalutin' elocution, the easy
grace and quiet dignity of the speech
delivered, with admirable effect, by the
Ambassador, Mr.. James Rus
sell Lowell, at the dinnerr given
BY the Institution of Civil Engineers.
There were Englishmcn present at that
Inner who-again to employ an Ameri-
well calculated ''to hold
lp their end of the plank The House
If Peers was represented by Lord Der
)y and Lord Kimberley; the House of
Commons by Mr.. Bright, Sir Richard
Cross and Mr.. ChilderS. No one of or
linary culture who chanccd to hear or
% read the speeches delivered by the
English Cabinet Ministers would-to use
1 phrase of which Robert Southcy was
very fond-have had his mind scratch
,d' by any one of them. Mr. Bright,
indeed. could not altogether get away
rom party politics, even upon that con-
esSedly neutral ground. But when Mr..
lowell rose, there was in the accents,
he delivery, the voice, the manner, and
still more in the words of the speaker,
hat which irresiStibly engaged the fancy
md riveted the attention of the hear
,rs - L'rnlI Ihn l Innlinn T,cIcnrnnh