(The old song, "Hurrah for Old New England," was then rendered. As this is now sung frequently at New England dinners throughout the country, the text is incorporated in this record.)

HURRAH FOR OLD NEW ENGLAND.

This is our own, our native home

Tho poor and rough she be,
The home of many a noble soul,
The birth-place of the free,
We'll love her rocks and rivers

'Til death our quick blood stills,
Hurrah for old New England!

And her cloud-capped granite hills.

Shall not the land tho' poor she be
That gave a Webster birth,

With pride, step forth to take her place
With the mightiest of the earth;
Then for his sake whose lofty fame
Our farthest bound'ries fill;
We'll shout for Old New England
And her cloud-capped granite hills.

They tell us of our freezing clime,
Our hard and rugged soil,
Which hardly half repays us for
Our spring time care and toil;
Yet gaily sings the merry boy
As the homestead farm he tills,
Hurrah for old New England

And her cloud-capped granite hills.

Others may seek the western clime,
They say 'tis passing fair,

That sunny are its laughing skies
And soft its balmy air.

We'll linger round our childhood's home,
'Til age our warm blood chills,
'Til we die in old New England
And sleep beneath her hills.

CHORUS.

Hurrah for old New England

And her cloud-capped granite hills.
Hurrah for old New England

And her cloud-capped granite hills.

PRESIDENT STETSON: Now we come to still another from New England. I didn't know, until some very lurid publications came out a few years ago, that Lawson was distinctively a New England name. This descendant of New England came out of the Valley of the Mohawk.

I have great pleasure in introducing Mr. Joseph A. Lawson, of Albany, the Mohawk and New England, who will undertake to give you a justification, not merely for his course, but for his existence.

SPEECH BY MR. JOSEPH A. LAWSON.

Mr. President, members of the New England Society, and those charming daughters of the East who have lingered so long through this fateful occasion, to say nothing of others who are present:

When your distinguished president communicated with me last May, and at the same time conferred a very great honor upon me by requesting me to be present on this occasion, I thought his letter had been mis-directed; that it should have gone to my namesake Thomas W., of Boston. But I had some correspondence with him subsequently and he assured me that he was willing to take the responsibility of the mis-direction, if such there was.

Before proceeding to the toast that I selected myself, and that is as far as I ever went with the preparation of it, I desire to pay my respects to the distinguished Premier of Canada. I doubt whether many of you gentlemen have had the opportunity to personally come in contact with the Province of Ontario that was mine but two or three short years ago, when the Ontario Bar held their annual banquet at the City of Toronto and, through their executive committee, invited me to be present as the representative of the great Bar of the State of New York, and the only man from the States present on that occasion. If I had only had the eloquence and ability to tell you descendants of New England in proper language of the courtesy, the kindness, and the cordiality accorded to me, the theme of the entire occasion being the entente cordiale subsisting between the people of the States and our neighbors on the North, if I could put the same before you as it existed and found expression that night I could make some amends for my contribution on the occasion, to say nothing of a slight return for the liquid hospitality of the King George Hotel.

After receiving your invitation, I said to myself that the very least I can possibly do to make myself worthy of the environment will be to produce something to submit to these Sons of New England that will be worthy to go down to posterity. At least to write something, and commit it, that shall be worthy of a place in your Year Book. And ever since last spring I have been working myself to an intellectual frazzle in an effort to bring the same forth. As I have remarked, I never got further than my topic and I was almost afraid to submit that lest some Harvard men might be here and imagine that I referred to their college team. But when I came in this evening and saw the distinguished company at the speakers' table that which gave me the most comfort was the remark of the president that this was to be “a kind of a family gathering," and when the baked beans and cider came on, and I recognized the two favorite elements of New England gastronomy, I took heart of grace.

You have seen a military parade passing through the streets of this or some other metropolis; you have seen the drum-major with his gold baton, and the red-coated musicians with their trombones, clarinets, cornets, and other sources of melody; and you have seen trudging beside them the bare-footed little boy, really not clad for the inclemency of the season, but with his eyes filled with awe and admiration as he followed the band. My neighbors at this table symbolize the band while I typify the tattered follower.

I prepared something along the line of my toast as to the history of the United States, comprehensive and convincing, to demonstrate how the New England idea in all its different phases has leavened our national life, but I soliloquised, "what is the use of making Bancroft's great history a work of absolute supererogation." I abandoned the theme. Then I took up the Year Book that Mr. Stetson was so kind as to mail to me and read the speeches of last year: President Elliott of Harvard College-I have never been the head of an educational institution of any kind;

Rev. Lyman Abbott-anybody who has followed my career as a lawyer knows I have never qualified to follow in his footsteps; the novelist and playwright from the State of Maine, with his nubbins of wit and wisdom-outclassing anything in that line of which I am capable. And lastly my friend James M. Beck, with whom I had the honor of speaking on two or three occasions, and there was hope.

I recollect a few years ago at Round Island in the St. Lawrence speaking at a banquet of money. It reminded me of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," "money, money everywhere, but not one cent for me." It was the Bankers' Association of the State of New York, and the members and guests, about 500, were accompanied by their wives and daughters. Mr. Beck and I were of the battery; Mr. Beck of course a very large piece of artillery, while I did the fire-cracking. But when Mr. Beck looked over the audience he seemed to be entirely non-plussed by the preponderence of the fair sex, and the same temerity appears in his speech of last year. I took heart after Mr. Beck had confessed his overweening modesty. When my turn came I was in the same position as now. The morituri salutamus of the post-prandial feature. I said, "My friends, I am not as modest as Mr. Beck. I do not feel the same diffidence in addressing an audience where the fair sex predominates, because I have spoken in the presence of the sex before. I have spoken in the presence of four queens. Of course, I did not make a long speech, I only said, "That's good.' There was not a

New York State banker in the crowd who did not understand the technical allusion.

On this occasion I come as an original proposition, not as a substitute. That is another thing for which I am very grateful and also that I am placed in the position where I like to be; where I can follow the great orators who have preceded me. I had an experience of that kind here in New York last winter that did not turn out the same way. I was honored by an invitation to attend a banquet of the