Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1895-12-04
A FAMOUS DINNER
Is was h Honor of s,aaisy. and the GscstS
 Got Mixed.
ELI WASH BURN,
 oATEsvllLE. TEX.

Ie Was In Honor Of staaisY. and the GncstS
 Got Mixed.
 The following amusing though somewhat annoying incident hap
 pened in connection with the American dinner" that was given
 to Henry RI Stanley on his return from the Emin Pasha relief expetli-
 tion. The incident also serves to show how very slight accident may procipitate confusion in a din-
 ner party. The American dinner to Stanley was the idea of Mir. Henry $. Welcome. An American business man of London, who was not only' personal friend of Stanley, but a member of the firm of druggists who fitted out the Emin Pasha ie- lief expedition. Through Mir We'll oome's energy almost every Ameri- can in London subscribed for tickets to tho dinner, and on the night it came of covers for over 300 people were laid in Evans assembly rooms. One table on a dais was reserved for Stanley and tho moro distinguished guests, and there were a dozen other long tables facing this one.
 Mir. Welcome attended personally to the arrangement of the seats. and each man who had subscribed to the plate that was to be presented to tho guest of the evening was given a place at the end of one of the suhsid- iary tables and others were given seats near each other who had ex- pressed preference. Mir. Welcome gave minute attention Go these de- tails. and tho first thing on the morning of the night of the dinner he took his completed plan of the tables and seats to a printer in order to have the usual diagrams ready for the guidance of the diners in taking their places.
 When tho hour of S:S0, which had boon fixed for dinner, had arrived the 800 guests were assembled in the reception room. Stanley was there, and so was Consul General John c. New, who was Co preside. and 50 were some of the most distinguished men in England. But there were no diagrams of the dining room. and the reception committee was anx- iousiy waiting for Mir. Welcome to arrive with them. At s:35 o'clock Mir. Welcome flew in in his husi- ness clothes. with Q smudge of print CTS ink on his nose and more on his hands, He agonizingly informed the reception committee that the printers had pied the typo for tho diagrams of the tables at the last moment. and that they would be compelled to do without them.
 It may seem an easy matter for 300 men to find their places at tables when their names are at their plates. but it brought about so much con- fusion that everybody was turned from the dining room back ttl tho reception room. and brilliant scheme wes suggested. There was the original list of the names of tho diners, with the respective plaees. that Mr. Welcome had rescued from the printer, in the possession of the reception committed. The toast master was stationed on a chair as the door of the dining room and in- structed to read the list of names, each man to pass out and take his place at tho table when his name was called.
 The toastmaster was fino. big with a stentorian voice. He did as he was told. New, Con- sul General John C., ' he shouted, and Mir. New went through thedcor. Stanley, Henry M., !" beloved tho next. There was a roar of laughter, and that scheme for seating the guests was dropped. Finally verybody went in again and searched for his place and found it or otherwise as best he might. Sew eral of the guests designed for the principal table were rescued from positions below, and somo ones were degraded from the table of rank, but the dinner went on merrily and ended similar ly, though it began an hour later than the time it had been set for, and all because of the accident to the diagrams. New York Telegram.