Page:Masterpieces of American Humor (Little Blue Book 959).djvu/55

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MASTERPIECES OP AMERICAN HUMOR
53

with a larger world than owns him. Insensibly he lends himself to the shaping hand of new ideas. He gets his reversible cuffs and paper collars from Cambridge, Mass., the scarabæus in his scarfpin from Mexico, and his ulster from everywhere. He has passed out of the chrysalis state of Odd Stick; he has ceased to be parochial; he is no longer distinct; he is simply the Average Man.

THE NEW NETHERLANDERS

CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW

The Pilgrim Fathers of Manhattan

Mr. President and Gentlemen:

I do not see why you should send to New York for after-dinner speakers when you have a chairman fully equipped to make a speech upon every toast that is presented. He takes the meat, as it were, desiccates it, and leaves the shell for the unfortunate guest who is to follow. Next year we will take him over to New York. The President of the New England Society of New York said to me: "Depew, you know a good thing when you see it. If you find anything of that sort in Philadelphia, let us know." I have found it.

I met on the train coming over here to-night a Pennsylvania Dutchman of several genera-

Speech at the Sixth Annual Festival of the New England Society of Pennsylvania, at the Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, December 22, 1886. Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, December 22, 1886.