THE BABIES.

Waikato Times, Volume XIV, Issue 1203, 13 March 1880, Page 3

THE BABIES.

At the banquet of the Army of the Tennessee, a toast was pi-oposed to "The Babies." Mark Twain responded as follows : — " The Babies." — As they comfort us in our sorrow, let us not forget them in our festivities. (Laughter). I like that. (Laughter). We haven't all had the good fortune to be ladies. (Laughter). We haven't all been generals or poets or statesmen. But when toasts work down to babies, we stand on common ground, for we have all been there : we have all been babies. (Laughter and applause). It is a shame that for thousands of years the world's banquets have utterly ignored the baby as if he did not amount to anything. If you gentlemen will stop and think a minute ; if you go back fifty or one hundred years to your early married life— (laughter)— and contemplate your first baby, you will remember that he amounted to a good deal and even something over. You soldiers, you all know when that little fellow arrived at family headquarters you had to hand in your resignation. (Laughter). He took entire command. You became his lackey, his mere body-servant, and you had to stand around, too. He was not a commander who made allowances for time, distance, weather, or anything else. You had to execute his order whether it was possible or not— (laughter) ; and there was only one form of marching in his manual of tactics, and that double-quick. He treated you with every sort of insolence and disrespect, and the bravest of yon didn't dare to say a word, you could face the death-storm of Donilderson and Vicksburg, and give back blow for blow (applause) ; but when he clawed your whiskers and pulled your i lair and twisted your nose you had to bake it. (Laughter.) When the thunders )i war were sounding in your ears you set your face toward battries and advanced with steady tread ; but when he turned on the terrors of his war whoops you advanced in another direction laughter), and mighty glad of the chance, ,00. When he called for soothing syrup, lid you venture to throw out any side •emarks about certain service being unjecoming an officer and a gentleman? Laughter.) No, you got up and got. If le ordered his pap bottle, did you talk back ? No, you went to work and wanned j. You even descended so far in your nenial office as to take sup at that vram , usipid stuff yourself to see if it wt s rig it, hree parts water to one of milk, a touch >f sugar to modify the colic and a drop oi peppermint to kill the immortal hiccough. i can taste it yet. (Roars of laughter. ) And how many thing you learn as you arent along. Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying that when the baby smiles in his sleep it is because angels are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too thin. (Laughter.) Simply wind on the stomach. My friends, if the baby proposed to take a walk at his usual hour, 2.30 in the morning, didn't you raise up promptly and remark with a mental addition that wouldn't improve the Sunday-school book much, that it was the very thing you were about to propose yourself ? (Roars). Oh. yes, you were under very good disciplin, and as you went fluttering up and down your room in your nndress uniform, you not only prattled undignified baby talk, but you turned up your martial voice and tried to sing ' Rock a by, baby, in the tree top,' for instance. What a spectacle for the Army of the Tennessee (roars of laughter), and what an infliction for the neighbours, too ! For it isn't everybody within a mile round that likes military music at 3 o'clock in the morning ; and when you have been keeping this sort of thing up two or three hours and your little velvet had intimated that nothing suited him like exercise and noise, what did you say? You simply 'went on till you dropped in the last ditch. (Laughter). The idea that a baby don't amount to anything ! One baby is just a house and front yard by itself. If one baby can't furnish more business than you or your whole interior department can attend to he is not enterprising-. Irrepressible, brimfull of lawless activity, do what you please, you can't make him stay on his reservation. (Prolonged laughtei\) Sufficient unto tho day is one baby — as long as you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot ; and there ain't any real difference between triplets and an insurrection. (Laughter and applause). Ye?, it was high time for a toast-master to recognize the importance of the babies. I hink what isinstore for the present crop ! Fifty years hence we shalt all be dead — I trust — and then this flag, if it still survive, and let us hope it may, will be floating over arepublic numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws of our increase ; our present schooner of State wilihave grown into apolitical leviathian — aiireatEastem — and the cradled babies of to-day will be on deck ! Let them be well trained for we are going to leave a big contract: on their hands. (Applause.)

" Ir.iny" of the law— Sentencing a blacksmith for "forgery." A Gbeat Want.— When two couple of young people start out riding in a twoseated carriage, they are as happy as four loving cLvw until the shades of evening approach, and then the couple in the front seat begin to realisa that thp crying need of this great, free, and maje-tic country of ours is— a two-seated carriage with the front seat behind.— Puck. When an hen lays an egg she cackles ; it is hen nature. When a man gets in a new stock of goods it is human for him to crow over it. When a hen cackles people know that she has laid in some fresh stock and feels proud ot it. When the merchant opens l\ia now stylos and blows his tVUft^pet in the newspapers, people ki\ow that he has something on hand that is worth advertising. Blow your own trumpet once in a while. It won't hurt you or the trumpet either.