A LESSON FOR BOYS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 767, 7 March 1870, Page 3

A LESSON FOR BOYS.

THE NEW LORD MAYOR OF LONDON. M.R Alderman Besley, the new Lord Mayor, was recently presented with an address from the people of Devonshire, from which county his lordship, originally came. His reply was as follows : —Gentlemen, the presentation of this address is one of the most gratifying events of my life, and 1 cannot describe to you the depth of my feelings. There is about it a friendliness that would compensate me for much greater labor than is very likely to arise in discharge of my duties a« Lord Mayor, laborious as they may be; but there is iu it, above all, a flavor of the green fields and hill sides of my native country. Mj case is one of many thousands. Nearly half a century ago I came to London, to to be absorbed, as it were, as one of the crowd in its busy life, and it is I am convinced, the constant absorption of vitality from the provinces that enables the metropolis to maintain its commercial .superiority. I may say, by way of encouragement to the generation in the groove in which T once moved, that I had no parentage to help me forward; but I came to London with full confidence in the integrity of my own purpose, with a strong feeling of selfreliance and with indomitable energy. The very *vorst feature that I see in the present generation of young men is indifferentism. They dawdle with life; they do not work with a will neither do they play with a will. Many of them have too much selfesteem which is a fruitful source of failure in life. To make a successful man, honest, wholesome work is the only true path. Book-learning is not all that is required; talk will not do it. You will find as a rule, that for a time a glib, facile tongue may enable a man to maintain a certain position. It may serve him up to the age of forty-five or so, and then, if he has no more solid qualification, it ends in nothing, and he may be said to have been fairly talked out. Gentlemen, sharp practice won't do it. Over-sharp men, who never see but one side of the question and that their own side, are soon known and marked accor ingly. The only safe road to success is work—constant work--but work carried on with a genial spirit. In the language of the glorious old Book, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor know ledge, nor wisdom in the grave."