er than water," and while it courses
in the veins of a loyal American, he will remember with grateful
appreciation the sympathy and the moral support, more powerful than
armed battalions or cruisers, of Alexander II, who, like our Lincoln,
freed his serfs, and like him, while serving his people, fell by the
hand of an assassin.

Gentlemen, who serve His Imperial Majesty the Czar, we salute you and
your flag under whatever skies or on whatever sea it floats. We remind
you that we are not ungrateful. The best we have is yours; the Nation
presents arms as you pass in review, and as our borders approach each
other in the frozen zone so when we meet you here:--

"Though our hearts were dry as the shell on the sand,
They would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand."

"Bleak are our shores in the blast of December,
Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow,
Throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember
Who was our friend when the world was our foe.

"Fires of the North, in eternal communion
Blend your broad flashes with evening's bright star,
God bless the Empire that loves our great Union!
Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar!"

* * * * *

OUR ANCESTORS AND OURSELVES

[Speech of Henry E. Howland, President of the New England Society in the
City of New York, at their ninety-fourth annual dinner, New York,
December 22, 1899.]

FELLOW-MEMBERS OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY:--It is my agreeable
duty to receive this weary, way-worn band of Pilgrims upon the occasion
of their 279th landing upon these bleak and arid shores, and, like
Samoset on the occasion of your first arrival, to welcome you to the
scanty fare and the privations and sufferings that are incident to this
ledge of the old Plymouth Rock. [Applause.]

The traditions of the early entertainment of Massasoit and his warriors
at Plymouth, lasting several days, to cement a friendship which was
never broken, when heavy drafts were made upon the little stock of New
England rum, imported Hollands, bear's meat and Indian corn, have here
been renewed to such an extent that, like them, we doubtless feel that
the "earth is ours and the fulness thereof." [Laughter.] Though, if
Plymouth Rock and the Waldorf-Astoria are synonymous terms for fulness,
we should think that the latter was the more synonymous of the two.
[Laughter.] The surroundings of the two occasions may differ--velvet
carpets, gro