position in the community, you make your
compliment dearer and more precious because you are influenced by
profound respect for the memory of his parent. Your guest, as a man
who has served in great offices, and gained in a high degree the
esteem and confidence of those who have known and watched his career,
would have been entitled to a hearty welcome at the hands of British
colonists for his own valuable and unselfish public services to the
empire. But you have been prompted to honour, not only his personal
merits and his individual labours, but the great industrial name which
he bears--a name ennobled by the labour and enterprise of his
father--because you are proud to associate yourselves with the career
of one who had done, as you are in your smaller way endeavouring to
do, much for mankind. I give you--a company of public contractors--the
health of the son of the greatest of them all, the son of "Thomas
Brassey."' (Cheers.)

Lord Brassey, in reply, said that he felt great difficulty in
responding in worthy terms to the far too kind and flattering speech
which had been made on behalf of his hosts. But it needed not a speech
to express from a full heart his grateful appreciation of their
kindness. He did not forget his origin. He was proud of it--(hear,
hear)--and he could assure them--that if he had been spared the
personal anxieties experienced by those employed in the execution of
public works, he had a fellow-feeling for those who were engaged in
that most valuable sphere of enterprise. The speech in which his name
had been introduced to them referred--and he was glad that it did
refer so largely--to the career of his dear father. He was proud to
know that the opportunity was afforded to his father of performing the
useful office of a pioneer of civilisation throughout the length and
breadth of the world. His father entered timidly upon that career. He
(Lord Brassey) had often heard him describe the day which led him to
the execution of public works. At the time when the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway--our first railway--was in contemplation, old
George Stephenson came to see his father, then a young man, brought up
as a surveyor and carrying on his business in Birkenhead, with
reference to the purchase of some stone. His father conducted Mr.
Stephenson to the quarry. The impression made upon Mr. Stephenson by
his father was most favourable, and when he shook hands with him in
the evening he said, 'Well, you