supply the vacuum." Taking my cue from that generous compliment, I venture to suggest that if the South should suddenly withdraw from Wall Street, it would occasion such a contraction of the currency in that district as would demand even a more liberal policy than Secretary Fairchild has practised in purchasing Government bonds. [Applause and laughter.] The aggregate wealth of Southerners in Wall Street to-day is over $100,000,000 and the great bulk of that vast amount has been accumulated within the last twenty years. That is to say, "The South in Wall Street," has made at least $4,000,000 annually since the war. Under all the circumstances, who will dispute the magnificence of that showing? It must be remembered that the great majority of Southern men on entering Wall Street were poor; so poor, indeed, that they might almost have afforded to begin their career on the terms that I once heard of a man in South Carolina proposing to some little negroes. He told them if they would pick wild blackberries from morning till night he would give them half they gathered. [Laughter.] The Southerners of Wall Street, with but very few exceptions, entered that great field of finance with but one consolation, and that was the calm consciousness of being thoroughly protected against loss from the simple fact that they had nothing to lose. [Applause and laughter.] A hundred millions of dollars is no small pile when stacked up beside-nothing. Of course we are not called upon to analyze this fortune, nor do I mean to imply that it is evenly divided. Some of us it must be admitted spoil the average dreadfully, but we all may get the same satisfaction out of it that the childless man derived, who said that he and his brother together had three boys and two girls. [Laughter.]

The South is a power in Wall Street. She is identified. with the management of many leading financial institutions, and has also founded private banking-houses and built up other prosperous business establishments on her own ac count. It would be in bad taste to mention names unless I had the roll of honor at hand and could read it off without exception. The President of the Cotton Exchange and nearly forty per cent. of its members are Southerners. One of the oldest and strongest firms on the Produce Exchange

is essentially Southern. That private banking-house in Wall Street, which has stood longest without any change in the personnel of its partnership, and which ranks to-day with the most reputable and successful establishments of its kind, is Southern in every branch of its membership. Seven of the National Banks have Southern men for Presidents, and the list of Southern cashiers and tellers is long and honorable. It was a Southern boy who, ten years ago, counted himself lucky on getting the humble place of mail carrier in one of the greatest banking houses of America. That very boy, when not long since he resigned to enter business on his own account, was filling one of the most responsible positions and drawing the third largest salary in that same great establishment.

Another instance of signal success is told in this short story: Less than six years ago a young Georgian tacked up a cheap little sign on the door of a sky-lit room in the Evening Post" building. To-day his is the leading name of one of the most conspicuous houses in the Street, and the rent of his present quarters is more per month than the first office he occupied cost for a whole year. One of the most famous Southern leaders in Wall Street to-day [John H. Inman] was so little known when he first attracted attention there that many people assumed he must in some way be connected with a certain great ocean steamship line, simply because he bore the same name. To-day it is just as often supposed that the steamship line is an offshoot from him, because it bears his name. A great Italian painter once vitalized a canvas with the expression of his poetic thought and called it "Aurora." In looking at that masterpiece of art I have sometimes been reminded of this distinguished Southerner. Immediately after the war the South was enveloped in darkness. Out of that gloom this man emerged and came here to the East, where the sun shines first in the morning. Judging him to-day by the record he has made, we are warranted in saying that on coming here he adopted Usefulness as his chariot, and that thereto he harnessed the spirited steeds of Enterprise, Progress, and Development. To-day we see him driving that triumphal car through the land of his birth, and making the sunlight of prosperity to shine there. [Tremendous

applause.] Sharing with him the honors of their firm name is another Southerner, whose career of usefulness and record of splendid success suffer nothing by comparison. Two other Southern representatives, because of admirable achievements and brilliant strokes of fortune, have recently gained great distinction and won much applause in Wall Street. If I called their names it would awake an echo in the temple of history, where an illustrious ancestor is enshrined in immortal renown. [Applause and cries of "Calhoun! Calhoun!"]

It is not only as financiers and railroad magnates that the South ranks high in Wall Street, but Southern lawyers likewise have established themselves in this dollar district, and to-day challenge attention and deserve tribute. Under the brilliant leadership of two commanding generals, the younger barristers are steadily winning wider reputation and pressing forward in professional triumph.

One question, with its answer, and I shall have done: Are these Southerners in Wall Street divorced in spirit and sympathy from their old homes? [Cries of "No! No!"] You say "No." Let the record of their deeds also make reply. One of them had done a thing so unique and beautiful that I cannot refrain from alluding to it. It touches the chord of humanity in every true heart and makes it vibrate with sacred memories. In the cemetery of the little town of Hopkinsville, Ky., there stands a splendid monument dedicated to "The Unknown Confederate Dead." There is no inscription that even hints at who erected it. The builder subordinated his personality to the glory of his purpose, and only the consummate beauty of the memorial stands forth. The inspiration of his impulse was only equalled by the modesty of his method. Truth, touched by the tenderness and beauty of the tribute to those heroes who died "for conscience sake," has revealed the author, and in him we recognize a generous surviving comrade. [Applause, and cries of "Latham! Latham! John Latham!"]

Turning from this epitome of sentiment, we are confronted by abundant evidence of the substantial interest taken by Wall Street Southerners in the material affairs of the South. What they have done to reclaim the waste places and develop the resources of their native States is

beyond estimate. They have not only contributed liberally by personal investment, but they have used every honorable endeavor to influence other men to do likewise. Loyalty has stimulated their efforts. Their hearts are in the present and prospective glory of the New South. They are untiring in their furtherance of legitimate enterprises, and the fruit of their labor is seen to-day in every Southern State where new railroads are building, various manufacturing enterprises springing up, and vast mining interests being developed. The steady flow of capital into all those channels is greatly due to their influence. There is more money drifting that way to-day than ever before, and the time will soon come, if it is not already here, when the sentiment to which I have responded will admit of transposition, and we can with as much propriety toast "Wall Street in the South," as to-night we toast "The South in Wall Street." [Great and long-continued applause,]

KING EDWARD VII.

THE COLONIES

[Speech of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales [Edward VII, crowned King of England January 23, 1901], at the banquet given at the Mansion House, London, July 16, 1881, by the Lord Mayor of London [Sir William McArthur], to the Prince of Wales, as President of the Colonial Institute, and to a large company of representatives of the colonies-governors, premiers, and administrators. This speech was delivered in response to the toast proposed by the Lord Mayor, “The Health of the Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and the other members of the Royal Family."]

MY LORD MAYOR, YOUR MAJESTY, MY LORDS, AND Gentlemen: For the kind and remarkably flattering way in which you, my Lord Mayor, have been good enough to propose this toast, and you, my lords and gentlemen, for the kind and hearty way in which you have received it, I beg to offer you my most sincere thanks. It is a peculiar pleasure to me to come to the City, because I have the honor of being one of its freemen. But this is, indeed, a very special dinner, one of a kind that I do not suppose has ever been given before; for we have here this evening representatives of probably every Colony in the Empire. We have not only the Secretary of the Colonies, but Governors past and present, ministers, administrators, and agents, are all I think, to be found here this evening. I regret that it has not been possible for me to see half or one-third of the Colonies which it has been the good fortune of my brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, to visit. In his voyages round the world he has had opportunities more than once of seeing all our great Colonies. Though I have not been able personally to see them, or have seen only a small portion of them, you may rest assured it does not diminish in any way the interest I take in them.