e indeed very few Americans who have not either tact or a sense
of humor. They make the best of chairmen. They know that the audience
have not come to hear them, and that all that is required of them is to
introduce the lecturer in very few words, and to give him a good start.
Who is the lecturer that would not appreciate, nay, love, such a
chairman as Dr. R. S. MacArthur, who introduced me yesterday to a New
York audience in the following manner?

"Ladies and Gentlemen," said he, "the story goes that, last summer, a
party of Americans staying in Rome paid a visit to the famous
Spithoever's bookshop in the Piazza di Spagna. Now Spithoever is the most
learned of bibliophiles. You must go thither if you need artistic and
archaeological works of the profoundest research and erudition. But one
of the ladies in this tourists' party only wanted the lively travels in
America of Max O'Rell, and she asked for the book at Spithoever's. There
came in a deep guttural voice--an Anglo-German voice--from a spectacled
clerk behind a desk, to this purport: 'Marcus Aurelius vos neffer in te
Unided Shtaates!' But, ladies and gentlemen, he is now, and here he is."

With such an introduction, I was immediately in touch with my audience.

What a change after English chairmen!

A few days before lecturing in any English town, under the auspices of a
Literary Society or Mechanics' Institute, the lecturer generally
receives from the secretary a letter running somewhat as follow:

DEAR SIR:

I have much pleasure in informing you that our Mr. Blank, one of our
vice-presidents and a well-known resident here, will take the chair at
your lecture.

Translated into plain English, this reads:

My poor fellow, I am much grieved to have to inform you that a
chairman will be inflicted upon you on the occasion of your lecture
before the members of our Society.

In my few years' lecturing experience, I have come across all sorts and
conditions of chairmen, but I can recollect very few that "have helped
me." Now, what is the office, the duty, of a chairman on such occasions?
He is supposed to introduce the lecturer to the audience. For this he
needs to be able to make a neat speech. He has to tell the audience who
the lecturer is, in case they should not know it, which is seldom the
case. I was once introduced to an audience who knew me, by a chairman
who, I don't think, had ever heard of me in his life. Before going on
the platform