"OUR FUTURE."

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3052, 7 April 1881, Page 4

"OUR FUTURE."

As soon as the meeting was fairly under ■way Brother Gardner announced that Judge Affidavy Martin, late of Alabama, but now travelling in the North as the agent of a patent fishook, was present, and desired to address the club on the subject named above. It was voted to hear the address, and after being received in due form and introdiiced, the Judge stood upon the platform and began, "We mus' not look in de past for our ftfchei , . No man kin tell what de nex' hun'ard y'ars will bring fo'th by , lookin , over de fence of ole graveyards. What am our f ucher ? Who kin tell whet dis nashun will amount to if it keeps on in de way it hez begun ? If any one had told ; you twenty years ago dat to-night I would stan , befo' you wid a paper collah on my neck, you would have set him down as an assassin, yet de march of improvement has accomplished eben mo' dan dat. Fur de sum of fifty cents you kin have a brass watch-chain fixed up to look like gold, dat you kin work it in on a hoss trade for fifty dollars. Ef anybody had told George Washington dat de day would come when shirts would button behind, what would dat great man hava said ? Dis kentry am a mighty clock. Ebery time de pend'lum swings a child am bo'n. Ebery time de minit-hand takes a jump, somebody comes to do front wid a new sort o' stomach bitters or an improved rat-trap. Every hour ticked off am a mile o' railroad built, a bridge laid down, or a forest cleared. Sich of us as kin remember back a hun'red v'ars realise de change mo'dan de young folks. Fieh of us as lib a hun'red y'ars in de fucher will not be surprised to see jugs wid free handles, coffee-pots dat shefc up like a jai'k-knife, rat-traps that illuminate de house, an' rockin'-cha'rs dat sail aroun' on wheels."