be bailed. The
minister and the marshal rode of course, for that was not the heyday of
vehicles. The minister rode very fast, so fast that the marshal called
out after him: "Dr. Backus, Dr. Backus, you ride as if the devil were
after you." The Doctor turning his head replied, "Just so!"

Mr. President, Connecticut has been often abused for the frugality and
thrift of its people, and called in derision the Nutmeg State. I
remember hearing that a New Yorker once put into his will an injunction
against any child of his being educated in Connecticut.

An Episcopal clergyman removing from New York into a Connecticut town
was actually boycotted. The people would not sell him anything to eat,
and I believe he returned for food and shelter to the hither side of
Byram River. I remember such a joke as this current in New York; that
they had a singular habit in Connecticut, when a man cast up his
accounts with his neighbor and gave him a note for the balance, he used
to exclaim: "Thank God, that debt is paid." Some of the people have
singular tastes now and then; as for example there is a hill behind East
Haddam that used to be called "Stagger-all-hill," but inquiring the
other day, I was told its name was now "Mount Parnassus."

They may say all these things if they please, but Connecticut has no
public debt, or a very small one at most, and her people are
industrious, educated, polite to strangers, jealous of their rights and
brave enough to defend them. I remember hearing Mrs. Fanny Kemble say,
some years ago, of the twelve hundred thousand people then inhabiting
Massachusetts, that, taking them all in all, she thought they were the
foremost twelve hundred thousand people living together in the world,
and I can speak in similar terms of the inhabitants of Connecticut, as
really a part of the same people.

In conclusion, Mr. President, may I without affectation utter these
words of love for my native State, its scenery and its people. Flow on,
gentle river, shine on, rugged and wooded hills, smile on, green meadows
basking in the sun, and you, brave people, who dwell amid these scenes,
prove yourselves ever worthy of your progenitors, and flaunt high as you
will, the old banner with its hopeful and trustful motto--_qui
transtulit sustinet_.

FRANCIS M. FINCH

THE OFFICE OF THE LAW

[Speech of Francis M. Finch on assuming the chair of the President of
the New York State Bar Association, at their annual dinner,