WOMAN BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW MR. PRESIDENT:-I know of no act of my life which justifies your assertion that I am an expert on this question. I can very well understand why it is that the toast to "Woman" should follow the toast to "the Press." [Laughter.] I am called upon to respond to the best, the most suggestive, and the most important sentiment which has been delivered this evening, at this midnight hour, when the varied and ceaseless flow of eloquence has exhausted subjects and audience, when the chairs are mainly vacant, the bottles empty, and the oldest veteran and most valiant Roman of us all scarce dares meet the doom he knows awaits him at home. [Laughter.] Bishop Berkeley, when he wrote his beautiful verses upon our Western World, and penned the line, "Time's noblest offspring is the last," described not so nearly our prophetic future as the last and best creation of the Almighty-womanwhom we both love and worship. [Applause.] We have here the President of the United States and the General of our armies; around these tables is gathered a galaxy of intellect, genius and achievement seldom presented on any occasion, but none of them would merit the applause we so enthusiastically bestow, or have won their high honors, had they not been guided or inspired by the woman they revered or loved. I have noticed one peculiarity about the toasts this evening very remarkable in the New England Society: every one of them is a quotation from Shakespeare. If Elder Brewster and Carver and Cotton Mather, the early |