MARK TWAIN ON WOMEN.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 479, 25 February 1881, Page 3

MARK TWAIN ON WOMEN.

This American humorist is reported to have, delivered the following speech at the Correspondents' C'u > dinner, Washington—" Mr President,— I don't know why I liqvo received the greatest distinction of the evening, for so the office of replying to the toast of ' Woman' has been regarded in every age. But lam proud of the position, because, sir, lion' nil the women, irrespective of age or color.. (Laughter.) Mean intelligences cannot estimate, sir, what we owe to woman. She sews on our buttons,mends our clothes, confides in up, tells us whatever she can find out about her neighbors. (Laughter.) She gives us advice, plenty of it. (Laughter.) She gives us a piece of her mind sometimes, and sometimes all of it. (Laughter.) Where ever you place a woman, sir, she is an ornament to the place she occupies and a treasure to the world. Look at Cleopatra; look at Desdemona ; look at. Florence Nightingale ; look at Lucrezia Borgia. (Voices —' No, no.') (The speaker pauses as if in doubt.) Well, suppose we let Lucrezia slide. (Laughter.) Look at mother Eve. (Cries of 'Oh, oh ! ' and laughter.) You need not look at her unless you want to. (Parses reflectively.) But Eve was an ornament, sir, particularly before the fashion changed. 1 repeat, sir, look at the illustrious Widow Machree; look at Elizabeth Stan ton ; and, sir, I say it with bowed head and deepest veneration, look at the mother of Washington ; she ' dragged up ' a boy that could not lie ! It might have been different if he had belonged to a Newspaper Correspondents' Club. (Groans, hisses, cries of' Put him out,' and laughter.) I repeat, sir, that in whatever position you place a woman she is an ornament to society and a treasure to the world. As a sweetheart she lias few equals and no superiors. (Laughter.) As a cousin she is convenient; as a wealthy grandmother, with an incurable distemper, she is unmistakably precious. What would the people of the earth be without women ? They would be scarce, sir, perfectly scarce. (Renewed laughter.) Then let us cherish her; let us protect her ; let us give her our support, our sympathy, ourselves if we get the chance. (Laughter.) Putting all jesting aside, Mr President, woman is loveable, kind of heart, gracious, beautiful, worthy of all respect, of all deference, Not anyone here will refuse to drink her health right cordially in this goblet of wine— for each and everyone has known, loved, and honored the best of them all—his own mother. (Great applause.)"