I am a little at a loss still to know how I got into this company to-night.  I begin to feel like some of those United States Senators who, after they have reached Washington, look around and wonder how they got there.  The nearest approach to being decorated with a sufficiently aristocratic epithet to make me worthy of admission to this Society was when I used to visit outside of my native State and be called a “Pennsylvania Dutchman.”  But history tells us that at the beginning of the Revolution there was a battle fought at Breed’s Hill, and it was called the Battle of Bunker Hill, because it was not fought there; and I suppose I have been brought into this Dutch Society to-night because I am not a Dutchman. [Laughter.]

I have great admiration for these Dutchmen; they always get to the front.  When they appear in New York they are always invited to seats on the roof; when they go into an orchestra, they are always given one of the big fiddles to play; and when they march in a procession, they are always sure to get a little ahead of the band.  This Society differs materially from other so-called foreign societies.  When we meet the English, we invariably refer to the common stock from which we sprang, but in the Dutch Society the stock is always preferred! and when a Dutchman dies, why, his funeral is like that funeral of Abel, who was killed by his brother Cain—­no one is allowed to attend unless he belongs to a first family. [Laughter.]

Now, a Dutchman is only happy when he gets a “Van” attached to the front of his name, and a “dam” to the rear end of the city from which his ancestors came.  I notice they are all very particular about the “dam.” [Laughter.]

There was a lady—­a New York young lady—­who had been spending several years in England and had just returned.  She had posed awhile as a professional beauty.  Then she attempted to marry into the aristocracy, but the market for titles was a little dull that year and she came home.  She had lived there long enough to become an Anglomaniac.  She met a Dutchman in New York—­I think he was a member of the Holland Society—­and she said:  “Everything seems so remarkably commonplace here, after getting back from England; I am sure you must admit that there is nothing so romantic here as in England.”  The Dutchman remarked:  “Well, I don’t know about that.”  She said:  “I was stopping at a place in the country, with one of the members of the aristocracy, and there was a little piece of water—­a sort of miniature lake, as it were—­so sweet.  The waters were confined by little rustic walls, so to speak, and that was called the ‘Earl’s Oath’; we have nothing so romantic in New York, I’m sure.”  Said the Dutchman:  “Oh, yes, here we have McComb’s Dam.” [Laughter.]