But “our wives.”  We don’t have far to look to find them; sometimes, I am told, you army gentlemen have been known to find them turning unexpectedly up along the ranges of the Rocky Mountains, and making their presence felt even as far as the halls of the Montezumas.  Yet how should we get on without them?  Rob mankind of his wife and time could never become a grandfather.  Strange as you may think it our wives are, in a sense, responsible for our children; and I ask you seriously how could the world get on if it had no children?  It might get on for a while, I do admit; but I challenge the boldest among you to say how long it could get on without “our wives.”  It would not only give out of children; in a little—­a very little—­while it would have no mother-in-law, nor sister-in-law, nor brother-in-law, nor any of those acquired relatives whom it has learned to love, and who have contributed so largely to its stock of harmless pleasure.

But, as this is not exactly a tariff discussion, though a duty, I drop statistics; let me ask you what would become of the revenues of man if it were not for “our wives?” We should have no milliners but for “our wives.”  But for “our wives” those makers of happiness and furbelows, those fabricators of smiles and frills, those gentle beings who bias and scollop and do their sacking at both ends of the bill, and sometimes in the middle, would be compelled to shut up shop, retire from business, and return to the good old city of Mantua, whence they came.  The world would grow too rich; albeit, on this promise I do not propose to construct an argument in favor of more wives.  One wife is enough, two is too many, and more than two are an abomination everywhere, except in Utah and the halls of our national legislature.

I beg you will forgive me.  I do but speak in banter.  It has been said that a good woman, fitly mated, grows doubly good; but how often have we seen a bad man mated to a good woman turned into a good man?  Why, I myself was not wholly good till I married my wife; and, if the eminent soldier and gentleman in whose honor we are here—­and may he be among us many and many another anniversary, yet always sixty-three—­if he should tell the story of his life, I am sure he would say that its darkest hours were cherished, its brightest illuminated by the fair lady of a noble race, who stepped from the highest social eminence to place her hand in that of an obscure young subaltern of the line.  The world had not become acquainted with him, but with the prophetic instinct of a true woman she discovered, as she has since developed, the mine.  So it is with all “our wives.”  Whatever there is good in us they bring it out; wherefor may they be forever honored in the myriad of hearts they come to lighten and to bless. [Loud applause.]

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THE PURITAN AND THE CAVALIER