30 10 361 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location Coventry Venue Where the speech was given Castle Hotel Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18581204 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice-Chairman, and Gentlemen, I hope your minds will be greatly relieved by my assuring you that it is one of the rules of my life never to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly did so, under any circumstances, it would be least of all under such circumstances as these, when its effect on my acknowledgement of your kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it, would be to give me a certain constrained air, which I fear would contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so unaffected, so earnest and so true. Furthermore, your Chairman has decorated the occasion with a little garland of good sense, good feeling, and good taste; so that I am sure that any attempt at additional ornament would be almost an impertinence. Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and how deeply I feel your kindness. This watch with which you have presented me, shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary working at home, and in my restless wanderings abroad. It shall never be absent from my side, and it shall reckon off the labours of my future days; and I can assure you, gentlemen, that after this night the object of these labours will not less than before be to uphold the right and do good. And when I have done with time and its measurement this watch shall belong to my children; and as I have seven boys, and as they have all begun to serve their country in various ways, and to elect into what distant regions they shall roam, it is not only possible, but very probable, that this little voice will be heard scores of years hence, – who knows? – in some yet unfounded city in the wilds of Australia, or communicating Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan. Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of hearts I can assure you that the memory of tonight, and of your picturesque and interesting city, will never be absent from my mind, and I can never more hear the slightest mention of the name of Coventry without having inspired in my breast sentiments of unusual emotion and unusual attachment. Gentlemen, the chairman had wisely observed that it was a curious characteristic of the human mind, that it is almost always disposed to laugh when a thing is mentioned for the first time. That being the case, I am not in the least apprehensive of your laughter when I talk to you of the chairman himself, because his merits are so familiar to you that I should almost incline to suppose, according to the converse of the proposition, that you would cry. We all know that there are various systems for doing most things, each system claiming for itself the support of many friends, and encountering the opposition of various opponents. There may be a great variety of conflicting opinions in regard to farming, and especially with reference to the management of a clay farm; but however various opinions as to the merits of a clay farm may be, there can be but one opinion as to the merits of the clay farmer, and it is the health of that distinguished agriculturalist which I have to propose. In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may be, for anything I know, indeed I am ready to admit that it is exceedingly important that a clay farm should go for a number of years to waste; but I claim some knowledge as to the management of a clay farmer, and I positively object to his ever lying fallow. In the hope that this very rich and teeming individual may speedily be ploughed up, and that we shall gather into our barns and store-houses the admirable crop of wisdom, which must spring up wherever he is sown, I take leave to propose his health, begging to assure him that the kind manner in which he offered to me your very valuable present, I can never forget. It has been suggested to me that there is one concluding toast which we ought to drink; but I feel under some little difficulty, because I know the moment I touch the subject you will not unnaturally connect me with the great hero of this city; but many of you when you leave this place will have the privilege of going home to the softer and better sex. Heaven forbid that I should follow you, but I think you ought to be able to tell your wives that in our flowing cups they were freshly remembered. It would be ridiculous to say anything in praise of women – especially here. We know that she was a woman. We know that the Graces were all women; we know that the Muses were women, and we know every day of our lives that the Fates are women. I think that as we receive so much from them, both in happiness and pain, we ought at least to drink their healths. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Presentation and Banquet in His Honour, Coventry Description An account of the resource Speech at a Presentation and Banquet in His Honour, Coventry (4 December 1858). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1858-12-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1858-12-04_Speech_Presentation-and-Banquet-in-His-Honour-Coventry Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Presentation and Banquet in His Honour, Coventry' (4 December 1858). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-12-04_Speech_Presentation-and-Banquet-in-His-Honour-Coventry">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-12-04_Speech_Presentation-and-Banquet-in-His-Honour-Coventry</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice-Chairman, and Gentlemen, I hope your minds will be greatly relieved by my assuring you that it is one of the rules of my life never to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly did so, under any circumstances, it would be least of all under such circumstances as these, when its effect on my acknowledgement of your kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it, would be to give me a certain constrained air, which I fear would contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so unaffected, so earnest and so true. Furthermore, your Chairman has decorated the occasion with a little garland of good sense, good feeling, and good taste; so that I am sure that any attempt at additional ornament would be almost an impertinence.  Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and how deeply I feel your kindness. This watch with which you have presented me, shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary working at home, and in my restless wanderings abroad. It shall never be absent from my side, and it shall reckon off the labours of my future days; and I can assure you, gentlemen, that after this night the object of these labours will not less than before be to uphold the right and do good. And when I have done with time and its measurement this watch shall belong to my children; and as I have seven boys, and as they have all begun to serve their country in various ways, and to elect into what distant regions they shall roam, it is not only possible, but very probable, that this little voice will be heard scores of years hence, – who knows? – in some yet unfounded city in the wilds of Australia, or communicating Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan. Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of hearts I can assure you that the memory of tonight, and of your picturesque and interesting city, will never be absent from my mind, and I can never more hear the slightest mention of the name of Coventry without having inspired in my breast sentiments of unusual emotion and unusual attachment. Gentlemen, the chairman had wisely observed that it was a curious characteristic of the human mind, that it is almost always disposed to laugh when a thing is mentioned for the first time. That being the case, I am not in the least apprehensive of your laughter when I talk to you of the chairman himself, because his merits are so familiar to you that I should almost incline to suppose, according to the converse of the proposition, that you would cry. We all know that there are various systems for doing most things, each system claiming for itself the support of many friends, and encountering the opposition of various opponents. There may be a great variety of conflicting opinions in regard to farming, and especially with reference to the management of a clay farm; but however various opinions as to the merits of a clay farm may be, there can be but one opinion as to the merits of the clay farmer, and it is the health of that distinguished agriculturalist which I have to propose. In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may be, for anything I know, indeed I am ready to admit that it is exceedingly important that a clay farm should go for a number of years to waste; but I claim some knowledge as to the management of a clay farmer, and I positively object to his ever lying fallow. In the hope that this very rich and teeming individual  may speedily be ploughed up, and that we shall gather into our barns and store-houses the admirable crop of wisdom, which must spring up wherever he is sown, I take leave to propose his health, begging to assure him that the kind manner in which he offered to me your very valuable present, I can never forget. It has been suggested to me that there is one concluding toast which we ought to drink; but I feel under some little difficulty, because I know the moment I touch the subject you will not unnaturally connect me with the great hero of this city; but many of you when you leave this place will have the privilege of going home to the softer and better sex. Heaven forbid that I should follow you, but I think you ought to be able to tell your wives that in our flowing cups they were freshly remembered. It would be ridiculous to say anything in praise of women – especially here. We know that she was a woman. We know that the Graces were all women; we know that the Muses were women, and we know every day of our lives that the Fates are women. I think that as we receive so much from them, both in happiness and pain, we ought at least to drink their healths. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location Manchester Venue Where the speech was given Free Trade Hall Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18581203 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Ladies and Gentlemen, It has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn season produces an immense amount of public speaking. I notice that no sooner do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls of great price begin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, and north, and west, and south; and anybody may have them by the bushel, for the picking up. Now, whether the comet has this year had a quickening influence on this crop, as it is by some supposed to have had upon the corn harvest and the vintage, I do not know; but I do know that I have never observed the columns of the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of orations, each vieing with the other in the two qualities of having little or nothing to do with the matter in hand, and of being always addressed to any audience in the wide world rather than the audience to which it was delivered. The autumn being gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as to hope that we in our proceedings may break through this enchanted circle and deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have something real to do, and are come together, I am sure, in all plain fellowship and straightforwardness, to do it. We have no little straws of our own to throw up to show us which way any wind blows, and we have no oblique biddings of our own to make for anything outside this hall. At the top of the public announcements of this meeting are the words ‘Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire’. Will you allow me, in reference to the meaning of those words, to present myself before you as the embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, and to put myself through a short, voluntary examination as to the results of my studies? To begin with, the title did not suggest to me anything in the least like the truth. I have been for some years pretty familiar with the terms, ‘Mechanics’ Institutions’, and ‘Literary Societies’, but they have, unfortunately, become too often associated in my mind with a body of great pretensions, lame as to some important member or other, which generally inhabits a new house much too large for it, and which is very seldom paid for, and which takes the name of mechanics most grievously in vain, for I have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo in that place together. I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, ‘Here is the old story’. But the perusal of a very few lines of my book soon gave me to understand that it was not by any means the old story; in short, that this association is expressly designed to correct the old story, and to prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I learnt that this Institutional Association is the union, in one central head, of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics Institutions and Mutual Improvement Societies, at an expense of no more than five shillings to each society; suggesting to them all how they can best communicate with and profit by the fountain-head and one another; keeping their best aims steadily before them; advising how those aims can be best attained; giving a direct end and object to what might otherwise easily become waste forces; and sending among them not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes of excellent books, called ‘Free Itinerating Libraries’. I learned that these books are constantly making the circuit of hundreds upon hundreds of miles, and are constantly being read with inexpressible relish by thousands upon thousands of toiling people, but that they are never damaged or defaced by one rude hand. These, and other like facts, lead me to consider the immense importance of the fact that no little cluster of working men’s cottages can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at the foot of any running stream which enterprise hunts out for water-power, but it has its educational friend and companion ready for it, willing for it, acquainted with its thoughts and ways and turns of speech even before it has come into existence. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that has brought me here. No central association at a distance could possibly do for those working men what this local association does. No central association at a distance could possibly understand them as this local association does. No central association at a distance could possibly put them in that familiar and easy communication with one another, as that I, man or boy, eager for knowledge in that valley seven miles off, should know of you, man or boy, eager for knowledge in that valley twelve miles off, and should occasionally trudge to meet you, that you may impart your learning in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I impart mine in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, and a most important feature, of this society. On the other hand it is not to be supposed that these honest men, however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed in establishing and maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious that combination must materially diminish their cost, which is in itself a vital consideration; and it is equally obvious that experience, essential to the success of all combination, is especially so when its object is to diffuse the results of experience and reflection. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present profitable history of this society does not stop here in his learning; when he has got so far, he finds with interest and pleasure that the parent society at certain stated periods invites the more eager and enterprising of the local societies to submit themselves to voluntary examination in various branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes the charge and arranges the details, and invites the successful candidates to come to Manchester to receive the prizes and certificates of merit which it impartially awards. The most successful of the competitors in the list of these examinations are now among us, and these little marks of recognition and encouragement I shall have the honour presently of giving them, as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose. I have looked over a few of those examination papers. They comprise history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, book-keeping, decimal coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the French language – in fact, they comprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge. I felt most devoutly grateful, as to many of them, that they had not been submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they had been, I should have had mighty little to bestow upon myself tonight. And yet it is always to be observed and seriously remembered that these examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passed in a continual fight for bread, and whose whole existence has been a constant wrestle with ‘Those twin gaolers of the daring heart – low birth and iron fortune’. I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that these questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the business of whose life is with writing and books, but by men, the business of whose life is with tools and machinery. Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, from among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and certificate-gainers who will appear before you, some two or three of the most conspicuous examples. There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who work from morning to night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have walked eight miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington, who began life as piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence a week, and the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at which he worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in which this son has since come to be taught. These two poor boys will appear before you tonight, to take the second-class prize in chemistry. There is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took a third class certificate last year at the hands of Lord Brougham; he is this year again successful in a competition three times as severe. There is a wagon-maker from the same place, who knew little or absolutely nothing until he was a grown man, and who has learned all he knows, which is a great deal, in the local institution. There is a chain-maker, in very humble circumstances, and working hard all day, who walks six miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which he has won so famous a place. There is a moulder in an iron foundry who, whilst he was working twelve hours a day before the furnace, got up at four o’clock in the morning to learn drawing. ‘The thought of my lads’, he writes in his modest account of himself, ‘in their peaceful slumbers above me, gave me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I should never receive any personal benefit, I might instruct them when they came to be of an age to understand the mighty machines and engines which have made our country, England, pre-eminent in the world’s history’. There is a piecer at mule-frames, who could not read at eighteen, who is now a man of little more than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged mother, who is arithmetical teacher in the institution in which he himself was taught, who writes of himself that he made the resolution never to take up a subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to it with such an astonishing will, that he is now well versed in Euclid and Algebra, and is the best French scholar in Stockport. The drawing classes in that same Stockport are taught by a working blacksmith; and the pupils of that working blacksmith will receive the highest honours of tonight. Well may it be said of that good blacksmith, as it was written of another of his trade, by the American poet: Toiling – rejoicing – sorrowing, Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begun,  Each evening sees its close; Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night’s repose. Ladies and gentlemen – to pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance from amongst them. There is amongst their number a most remarkable man, whose history I have read with feelings I could not adequately express under any circumstances, and least of all when I know he hears me, who worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom weaving until he dropped from fatigue; who began to teach himself as soon as he could earn five shillings a week; who is now a botanist, acquainted with every production of the Lancashire valleys; who is a naturalist, and has made and preserved a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed the birds; who is now a conchologist, with a very curious and in some respects an original collection of fresh-water shells, and has also preserved and collected the mosses of fresh waters and the sea; who is worthily the president of his own local Literary Institution; and who was at his work this time last night as foreman in a mill. So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and many more, that I notice among the applications from Blackburn for preliminary test examination papers, one from an applicant who gravely fills up the printed form by describing himself as ten years of age, and who, with equal gravity, describes his occupation as ‘nursing a little child’. Nor are these things confined to the men. The women employed in factories, milliners’ work, and domestic service, have begun to show, as it is fitting they should, a most decided determination not to be outdone by the men; and the women of Preston in particular, have so honourably distinguished themselves, and shown in their examination papers such an admirable knowledge of the science of household management and household economy, that if I were a working bachelor of Lancashire or Cheshire, or if I had not cast my eye or set my heart upon any lass in particular, I should positively get up at four o’clock in the morning with the determination of the iron-moulder himself, and should go to Preston in search of a wife. Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, daily occurring, always accumulating, are surely better testimony to the working of this Association than any number of speakers could possibly present to you? Surely the presence among us of these indefatigable people is the Association’s best and most effective triumph in the present and the past, and is its noblest stimulus to effort in the future? As its temporary mouth-piece I would beg to say to that portion of the company who attend to receive the prizes, that the institution can never hold itself apart from them – can never set itself above them; that their distinction and success must be its distinction and success; and that there can be but one heart beating between them and it. In particular, I would most especially entreat them to observe that nothing will ever be further from this Association’s mind than the impertinence of patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificates that it gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy with so many striving brothers and sisters, and are only valuable for the spirit in which they are given, and in which they are received. The prizes are money prizes, simply because the institution does not presume to doubt that persons who have so well governed themselves, know best how to make a little money serviceable, because it would be a shame to treat them like grown-up babies by laying it out for them, and because it knows that it is given, and knows it is taken, in perfect clearness of purpose, perfect trustfulness, and above all perfect independence. Ladies and gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole collective audience before me, I will, in another two minutes, release the hold which your favour has given me on your attention. Of the advantages of knowledge I have said, and I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty with which the man who grasps it under difficulties rises in his own respect and in usefulness to the community, I have said, and I shall say, nothing. In the City of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, both of them remarkable for self-taught men, that were superfluous indeed. For the same reason I rigidly abstain from putting together any of the shattered fragments of that poor clay image of a parrot which was once always saying, without knowing why, that knowledge was a dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from an English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been – as my friend Mr. Carlyle vigorously has it – ‘blasted into space’; and there, as to this world, is an end of them. So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the first place let me congratulate you upon the progress which real mutual improvement societies are making at this time in your neighbourhood, through the noble agency of individual employers and their families, whom you can never too much delight to honour. Elsewhere, through the agency of the great railway companies, some of which are bestirring themselves in this manner with a gallantry and generosity deserving of all praise. Secondly and lastly, let me say one word out of my own personal heart, which is always very dear to it in this connexion. Do not let us, in the midst of the visible objects of nature, whose workings we can tell off in figures, surrounded by machines that can be made to the thousandth part of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be proved upon a slate or demonstrated by a microscope – do not let us, in the laudable pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect the fancy and the imagination which equally surround us as part of the great scheme. Let the child have its fables; let the man or woman into which it changes, always remember these fables tenderly. Let numerous graces and ornaments that cannot be weighed and measured, and that seem at first sight idle enough, continue to have their places about us, be we never so wise. The hardest head may co-exist with the softest heart. The union and just balance of those two is always a blessing to the possessor, and always a blessing to mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate as He was powerful and wise. You all know how He could still the raging of the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost results of the wisdom of men can only be at last to help to raise this earth to that condition to which His doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses and passions of men, would have exalted it long ago; so let us always remember that He set us the example of blending the understanding and the imagination, and that, following it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our race on to its better and best days. Knowledge, as all followers of it must know, has a very limited power indeed when it informs the head alone; but when it informs the head and heart too, it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates the universe. I am deeply obliged to you for your cordial reception. The honour of this presidency, believe me, is all mine; the pleasure attaching to it, I am sure, we shall divide between us. No man can have seen this scene tonight without having his heart touched with the most delightful emotions, and without feeling himself, as to the great mass of the community, a wiser, a better, a more helpful, a more happy man. But it is nothing new to me to receive satisfaction here; for I never come to Manchester without expecting pleasure, and I never leave it without taking pleasure away. I heartily assure you that you have been most cordially welcome to my poor services, and I most affectionately wish you good night. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire Prize-Giving Description An account of the resource Speech at the Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire Prize-Giving (3 December 1858). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1858-12-03 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1858-12-03_Speech_Institutional-Association-of-Lancashire-and-Cheshire Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire Prize-Giving' (3 December 1858). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-12-03_Speech_Institutional-Association-of-Lancashire-and-Cheshire">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1858-12-03_Speech_Institutional-Association-of-Lancashire-and-Cheshire</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, It has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn season produces an immense amount of public speaking. I notice that no sooner do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls of great price begin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, and north, and west, and south; and anybody may have them by the bushel, for the picking up. Now, whether the comet has this year had a quickening influence on this crop, as it is by some supposed to have had upon the corn harvest and the vintage, I do not know; but I do know that I have never observed the columns of the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of orations, each vieing with the other in the two qualities of having little or nothing to do with the matter in hand, and of being always addressed to any audience in the wide world rather than the audience to which it was delivered. The autumn being gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as to hope that we in our proceedings may break through this enchanted circle and deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have something real to do, and are come together, I am sure, in all plain fellowship and straightforwardness, to do it. We have no little straws of our own to throw up to show us which way any wind blows, and we have no oblique biddings of our own to make for anything outside this hall. At the top of the public announcements of this meeting are the words ‘Institutional Association of Lancashire and Cheshire’. Will you allow me, in reference to the meaning of those words, to present myself before you as the embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, and to put myself through a short, voluntary examination as to the results of my studies? To begin with, the title did not suggest to me anything in the least like the truth. I have been for some years pretty familiar with the terms, ‘Mechanics' Institutions’, and ‘Literary Societies’, but they have, unfortunately, become too often associated in my mind with a body of great pretensions, lame as to some important member or other, which generally inhabits a new house much too large for it, and which is very seldom paid for, and which takes the name of mechanics most grievously in vain, for I have usually seen a mechanic and a dodo in that place together. I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself, ‘Here is the old story’. But the perusal of a very few lines of my book soon gave me to understand that it was not by any means the old story; in short, that this association is expressly designed to correct the old story, and to prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I learnt that this Institutional Association is the union, in one central head, of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics Institutions and Mutual Improvement Societies, at an expense of no more than five shillings to each society; suggesting to them all how they can best communicate with and profit by the fountain-head and one another; keeping their best aims steadily before them; advising how those aims can be best attained; giving a direct end and object to what might otherwise easily become waste forces; and sending among them not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes of excellent books, called ‘Free Itinerating Libraries’. I learned that these books are constantly making the circuit of hundreds upon hundreds of miles, and are constantly being read with inexpressible relish by thousands upon thousands of toiling people, but that they are never damaged or defaced by one rude hand. These, and other like facts, lead me to consider the immense importance of the fact that no little cluster of working men's cottages can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at the foot of any running stream which enterprise hunts out for water-power, but it has its educational friend and companion ready for it, willing for it, acquainted with its thoughts and ways and turns of speech even before it has come into existence. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that has brought me here. No central association at a distance could possibly do for those working men what this local association does. No central association at a distance could possibly understand them as this local association does. No central association at a distance could possibly put them in that familiar and easy communication with one another, as that I, man or boy, eager for knowledge in that valley seven miles off, should know of you, man or boy, eager for knowledge in that valley twelve miles off, and should occasionally trudge to meet you, that you may impart your learning in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I impart mine in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, and a most important feature, of this society. On the other hand it is not to be supposed that these honest men, however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed in establishing and maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious that combination must materially diminish their cost, which is in itself a vital consideration; and it is equally obvious that experience, essential to the success of all combination, is especially so when its object is to diffuse the results of experience and reflection. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present profitable history of this society does not stop here in his learning; when he has got so far, he finds with interest and pleasure that the parent society at certain stated periods invites the more eager and enterprising of the local societies to submit themselves to voluntary examination in various branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes the charge and arranges the details, and invites the successful candidates to come to Manchester to receive the prizes and certificates of merit which it impartially awards. The most successful of the competitors in the list of these examinations are now among us, and these little marks of recognition and encouragement I shall have the honour presently of giving them, as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose. I have looked over a few of those examination papers. They comprise history, geography, grammar, arithmetic, book-keeping, decimal coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the French language – in fact, they comprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge. I felt most devoutly grateful, as to many of them, that they had not been submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they had been, I should have had mighty little to bestow upon myself tonight. And yet it is always to be observed and seriously remembered that these examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passed in a continual fight for bread, and whose whole existence has been a constant wrestle with ‘Those twin gaolers of the daring heart – low birth and iron fortune’. I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that these questions have been replied to, not by men like myself, the business of whose life is with writing and books, but by men, the business of whose life is with tools and machinery. Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, from among the most interesting cases of prize-holders and certificate-gainers who will appear before you, some two or three of the most conspicuous examples. There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who work from morning to night in a coal-pit, and who, in all weathers, have walked eight miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington, who began life as piecers at one shilling or eighteen-pence a week, and the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at which he worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in which this son has since come to be taught. These two poor boys will appear before you tonight, to take the second-class prize in chemistry. There is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took a third class certificate last year at the hands of Lord Brougham; he is this year again successful in a competition three times as severe. There is a wagon-maker from the same place, who knew little or absolutely nothing until he was a grown man, and who has learned all he knows, which is a great deal, in the local institution. There is a chain-maker, in very humble circumstances, and working hard all day, who walks six miles a night, three nights a week, to attend the classes in which he has won so famous a place. There is a moulder in an iron foundry who, whilst he was working twelve hours a day before the furnace, got up at four o'clock in the morning to learn drawing. ‘The thought of my lads’, he writes in his modest account of himself, ‘in their peaceful slumbers above me, gave me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I should never receive any personal benefit, I might instruct them when they came to be of an age to understand the mighty machines and engines which have made our country, England, pre-eminent in the world's history’.  There is a piecer at mule-frames, who could not read at eighteen, who is now a man of little more than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged mother, who is arithmetical teacher in the institution in which he himself was taught, who writes of himself that he made the resolution never to take up a subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to it with such an astonishing will, that he is now well versed in Euclid and Algebra, and is the best French scholar in Stockport. The drawing classes in that same Stockport are taught by a working blacksmith; and the pupils of that working blacksmith will receive the highest honours of tonight. Well may it be said of that good blacksmith, as it was written of another of his trade, by the American poet: Toiling – rejoicing –  sorrowing,   Onward through life he goes;   Each morning sees some task begun,   Each evening sees its close;   Something attempted, something done,   Has earned a night's repose. Ladies and gentlemen – to pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local societies now before me, and to content myself with one instance from amongst them. There is amongst their number a most remarkable man, whose history I have read with feelings I could not adequately express under any circumstances, and least of all when I know he hears me, who worked when he was a mere baby at hand-loom weaving until he dropped from fatigue; who began to teach himself as soon as he could earn five shillings a week; who is now a botanist, acquainted with every production of the Lancashire valleys; who is a naturalist, and has made and preserved a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed the birds; who is now a conchologist, with a very curious and in some respects an original collection of fresh-water shells, and has also preserved and collected the mosses of fresh waters and the sea; who is worthily the president of his own local Literary Institution; and who was at his work this time last night as foreman in a mill. So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and many more, that I notice among the applications from Blackburn for preliminary test examination papers, one from an applicant who gravely fills up the printed form by describing himself as ten years of age, and who, with equal gravity, describes his occupation as ‘nursing a little child’. Nor are these things confined to the men. The women employed in factories, milliners’ work, and domestic service, have begun to show, as it is fitting they should, a most decided determination not to be outdone by the men; and the women of Preston in particular, have so honourably distinguished themselves, and shown in their examination papers such an admirable knowledge of the science of household management and household economy, that if I were a working bachelor of Lancashire or Cheshire, or if I had not cast my eye or set my heart upon any lass in particular, I should positively get up at four o'clock in the morning with the determination of the iron-moulder himself, and should go to Preston in search of a wife. Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, daily occurring, always accumulating, are surely better testimony to the working of this Association than any number of speakers could possibly present to you? Surely the presence among us of these indefatigable people is the Association's best and most effective triumph in the present and the past, and is its noblest stimulus to effort in the future? As its temporary mouth-piece I would beg to say to that portion of the company who attend to receive the prizes, that the institution can never hold itself apart from them –  can never set itself above them; that their distinction and success must be its distinction and success; and that there can be but one heart beating between them and it. In particular, I would most especially entreat them to observe that nothing will ever be further from this Association’s mind than the impertinence of patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificates that it gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy with so many striving brothers and sisters, and are only valuable for the spirit in which they are given, and in which they are received. The prizes are money prizes, simply because the institution does not presume to doubt that persons who have so well governed themselves, know best how to make a little money serviceable, because it would be a shame to treat them like grown-up babies by laying it out for them, and because it knows that it is given, and knows it is taken, in perfect clearness of purpose, perfect trustfulness, and above all perfect independence. Ladies and gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole collective audience before me, I will, in another two minutes, release the hold which your favour has given me on your attention. Of the advantages of knowledge I have said, and I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty with which the man who grasps it under difficulties rises in his own respect and in usefulness to the community, I have said, and I shall say, nothing. In the City of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, both of them remarkable for self-taught men, that were superfluous indeed. For the same reason I rigidly abstain from putting together any of the shattered fragments of that poor clay image of a parrot which was once always saying, without knowing why, that knowledge was a dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the mutilated remains of any wretched Hindoo who has been blown from an English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been – as my friend Mr. Carlyle vigorously has it – ‘blasted into space’; and there, as to this world, is an end of them. So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the first place let me congratulate you upon the progress which real mutual improvement societies are making at this time in your neighbourhood, through the noble agency of individual employers and their families, whom you can never too much delight to honour. Elsewhere, through the agency of the great railway companies, some of which are bestirring themselves in this manner with a gallantry and generosity deserving of all praise. Secondly and lastly, let me say one word out of my own personal heart, which is always very dear to it in this connexion. Do not let us, in the midst of the visible objects of nature, whose workings we can tell off in figures, surrounded by machines that can be made to the thousandth part of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be proved upon a slate or demonstrated by a microscope – do not let us, in the laudable pursuit of the facts that surround us, neglect the fancy and the imagination which equally surround us as part of the great scheme. Let the child have its fables; let the man or woman into which it changes, always remember these fables tenderly. Let numerous graces and ornaments that cannot be weighed and measured, and that seem at first sight idle enough, continue to have their places about us, be we never so wise. The hardest head may co-exist with the softest heart. The union and just balance of those two is always a blessing to the possessor, and always a blessing to mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate as He was powerful and wise. You all know how He could still the raging of the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost results of the wisdom of men can only be at last to help to raise this earth to that condition to which His doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses and passions of men, would have exalted it long ago; so let us always remember that He set us the example of blending the understanding and the imagination, and that, following it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our race on to its better and best days. Knowledge, as all followers of it must know, has a very limited power indeed when it informs the head alone; but when it informs the head and heart too, it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates the universe.  I am deeply obliged to you for your cordial reception. The honour of this presidency, believe me, is all mine; the pleasure attaching to it, I am sure, we shall divide between us. No man can have seen this scene tonight without having his heart touched with the most delightful emotions, and without feeling himself, as to the great mass of the community, a wiser, a better, a more helpful, a more happy man. But it is nothing new to me to receive satisfaction here; for I never come to Manchester without expecting pleasure, and I never leave it without taking pleasure away. I heartily assure you that you have been most cordially welcome to my poor services, and I most affectionately wish you good night. manchester Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. Why, he asked, should the gentlemen be ensconced before their smoking edibles and glittering decanters, and the ladies be compelled to sit above, behind that ‘blistering screen’, and look on contentedly all the while? Even in the Sandwich Isles or Otaheite the savages would not expel the fair sex from their banquets. Why should not these things be altered? For his part, if the committee would promise to introduce ladies next year, or the year after, to the dinner-table at the annual festival, and place one on each side of the Chair, he would not have the least objection to act as president. Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Freemasons' Hall Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18600308 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Ladies and Gentlemen, I suppose I may venture to say that it is pretty well known to everybody that all people, whenever they are brought together at dinner in private society for the declared purpose of discussing any particular matter or business, it invariably happens that they never can by any ingenuity be brought to approach that business, and that they invariably make it the one sole object and ground on which they cannot be trapped into the utterance of a syllable. This being the curious concurrent experience of all mankind, it is the cautious custom of this particular dinner to place its business in the very front of the evening’s engagements. It commits it to paper, and places it in black and white before the unhappy chairman whilst he speaks. It guards him with a long row of distinguished gentlemen on either hand to keep him up to the mark and force him to approach the thing from which everybody knows he has a secret tendency to retreat; and there is a voice at his ear – a sonorous voice – which, like the warning voice of the slave of old, reminds him in all stages of the pageant that he is but a mortal chairman, and that it is the common lot of all his race to ‘speak and to die’. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the one hundred and twenty-second anniversary festival of the Royal Society of Musicians. One hundred and twenty years have passed since the casual contemplation by two gentlemen standing at a coffee-house door of two poor boys driving a pair of milch asses through the London streets within half a mile of the place where we are now assembled, led to its establishment. These two boys were the sons of a deceased musician; and the two rich hearts that took pity on them were the hearts of two deceased musicians; and the noble soul that came spontaneously to their aid was the soul of a deceased musician, known among the natural nobility of the art by but one ‘Handel’ to his name, and that a very glorious one, and derived – as I take it – directly from God. Now, ladies and gentlemen, that ‘Harmonious Blacksmith’ hammered so soundly upon the iron of his order while it was hot, that he struck out of it the sound of self-respect, independence, and prosperity, which are present in this society at the moment while I speak. During the remaining nineteen years of his life he wrought for it at the forge of his art with a true faith and vigour; and, when he died, he left it the princely bequest of £1,000. We see now what good seed is, and what good music is. One hundred and twenty-two years have gone; the ruffles and powder have gone; the white capes, great coats, and huge cravats and top boots have gone; but the good seed is here in the shady and flourishing tree under which we sit tonight; and the good music is here, ever young in the young ears, and on the young lips and fingers, of every new generation. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my custom when I have the honour to hold such a position as this, to offer to those amongst the company who may not be personally acquainted with the society under consideration, those recommendations in its behalf which have been most powerful with myself. Will you allow me to sum up under a few heads the reasons that I have for regarding with particular sympathy and respect this Royal Society of Musicians? First, because it is a real thing – it is in fact as well as in name a society of musicians: not a heterogeneous concourse of nondescripts with here and there a musician smuggled in to justify the misuse of an art, but a society of professional men bound together in the love of their common art, and with the objects important to their art. Because these gentlemen come together, as they only usefully and independently could come together as a benefit society, making timely provision if not for their own old age, distress or infirmity, certainly for those casualties in the lives of their brethren, and for their widows, and their orphan children. Because it not only grants money for the education and apprenticeship of those poor children, but afterwards preserves a parental care over them in this way – that when they have done well in their apprenticeship, it encourages them to come back and to be rewarded for having done well, and to stimulate them to continue to tread the paths of truth and duty. Because it is not an exclusive society, but concedes to its newest members the privileges of its oldest, and freely admits foreigners as members who are really domiciled in England as practitioners of music. Because it manages its own affairs, and manages them in a manner so excessively irrational and unpopular that it pays only two small salaries for real services, while the governors actually pay the expenses of their meetings out of their own pockets. Ladies and gentlemen, you have no notion of what confusion would be carried into a certain literary society if the ferocious person who addresses you in his own plain way, were to get up there and to propose the Musicians in these respects as an example for imitation. Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, I recommend the society to such of this assembly as do not know it, because it is a society of artists who begin by putting their own shoulders to their own wheel. Every member of this body stands pledged to every other to exercise his talents gratuitously at any performance whatsoever given in aid of the society’s objects. Every member is formally and distinctly reminded on his enrolment that he accepts the responsibility of a great work connected with the labour of his art, and to that he is understood to pledge himself thenceforth. Now these, ladies and gentlemen, are the main features of the body of professional men that pass tonight the one hundred and twenty-second milestone on the road of its life – the main features except one, and that is that the annual income derived from one source, the annual subscription of its members, is not much more than a tithe of the money annually expended in the execution of its excellent objects. Turning over the book just now, with the words ‘One hundred and twenty-second night’ printed on its outside, I feel in a half kind of fancy, remembering the wonderful things which music has of course suggested to me from my earliest childhood. I feel a kind of fancy that I might have gone back to the one hundred and twenty-second night of the great Arabian Nights, and have heard Dinarzade saying, about half an hour before daybreak, ‘Sister Scheherazade, if you are still awake, and my lord the Sultan will permit, I beg you to finish the story of– the British musicians.’ To which Scheherazade replies that she would willingly proceed, but that to the best of her belief it was a story without an end, because she considered that as long as mankind lived, and loved, and hoped, so long music, which draws them upward in all their varying and erring moods, could never cease out of the world. So the Sultan, who changed his name for the purpose for the time, girded on, not his scimitar, but a scythe, and went out graciously resolving that the story should have its one hundred and twenty-second night, and that the brotherhood should live for ever. Ladies and gentlemen, these may appear to you vagrant ideas, but music is suggestive of all fancies. You know it can give back the dead; it can place at your side the congenial creature dear to you who never lived. You know that the blind see in it; the bedridden have hope in it; the dead hear it. We all hear it from the sound of the varying seasons, to the beating of the waters upon which our Saviour walked. Let me, in conclusion, entreat you to listen also to one strain which will certainly be heard through all the sweet sounds of tonight, and which will be simply this – no less, no more. The hand cannot always keep its hold upon the bow, the string, the keys; the breath will sometimes fail. It is the inevitable result of the skilful combination of many instruments that there must be some players who can never hope to attain a great success or great reward, but who are nevertheless quite inseparable from, and necessary to your delight. And so, if you listen to it, the strain will say: ‘I am one of those; I have been young and now am old; my hand has lost its mastery; my breath has failed. Now for the love of the much that music has done for you, do that little for me.’ I beg propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to the Royal Society of Musicians’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Royal Society of Musicians Anniversary Description An account of the resource Speech at the Royal Society of Musicians Anniversary (8 March 1860). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1860-03-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1860-03-08_Speech_Royal-Society-of-Musicians-Anniversary Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Royal Society of Musicians Anniversary' (8 March 1860). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1860-03-08_Speech_Royal-Society-of-Musicians-Anniversary">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1860-03-08_Speech_Royal-Society-of-Musicians-Anniversary</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, I suppose I may venture to say that it is pretty well known to everybody that all people, whenever they are brought together at dinner in private society for the declared purpose of discussing any particular matter or business, it invariably happens that they never can by any ingenuity be brought to approach that business, and that they invariably make it the one sole object and ground on which they cannot be trapped into the utterance of a syllable. This being the curious concurrent experience of all mankind, it is the cautious custom of this particular dinner to place its business in the very front of the evening's engagements. It commits it to paper, and places it in black and white before the unhappy chairman whilst he speaks. It guards him with a long row of distinguished gentlemen on either hand to keep him up to the mark and force him to approach the thing from which everybody knows he has a secret tendency to retreat; and there is a voice at his ear – a sonorous voice – which, like the warning voice of the slave of old, reminds him in all stages of the pageant that he is but a mortal chairman, and that it is the common lot of all his race to ‘speak and to die’. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the one hundred and twenty-second anniversary festival of the Royal Society of Musicians. One hundred and twenty years have passed since the casual contemplation by two gentlemen standing at a coffee-house door of two poor boys driving a pair of milch asses through the London streets within half a mile of the place where we are now assembled, led to its establishment. These two boys were the sons of a deceased musician; and the two rich hearts that took pity on them were the hearts of two deceased musicians; and the noble soul that came spontaneously to their aid was the soul of a deceased musician, known among the natural nobility of the art by but one ‘Handel’ to his name, and that a very glorious one, and derived – as I take it – directly from God. Now, ladies and gentlemen, that ‘Harmonious Blacksmith’ hammered so soundly upon the iron of his order while it was hot, that he struck out of it the sound of self-respect, independence, and prosperity, which are present in this society at the moment while I speak. During the remaining nineteen years of his life he wrought for it at the forge of his art with a true faith and vigour; and, when he died, he left it the princely bequest of £1,000. We see now what good seed is, and what good music is. One hundred and twenty-two years have gone; the ruffles and powder have gone; the white capes, great coats, and huge cravats and top boots have gone; but the good seed is here in the shady and flourishing tree under which we sit tonight; and the good music is here, ever young in the young ears, and on the young lips and fingers, of every new generation. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my custom when I have the honour to hold such a position as this, to offer to those amongst the company who may not be personally acquainted with the society under consideration, those recommendations in its behalf which have been most powerful with myself. Will you allow me to sum up under a few heads the reasons that I have for regarding with particular sympathy and respect this Royal Society of Musicians? First, because it is a real thing – it is in fact as well as in name a society of musicians: not a heterogeneous concourse of nondescripts with here and there a musician smuggled in to justify the misuse of an art, but a society of professional men bound together in the love of their common art, and with the objects important to their art. Because these gentlemen come together, as they only usefully and independently could come together as a benefit society, making timely provision if not for their own old age, distress or infirmity, certainly for those casualties in the lives of their brethren, and for their widows, and their orphan children. Because it not only grants money for the education and apprenticeship of those poor children, but afterwards preserves a parental care over them in this way – that when they have done well in their apprenticeship, it encourages them to come back and to be rewarded for having done well, and to stimulate them to continue to tread the paths of truth and duty. Because it is not an exclusive society, but concedes to its newest members the privileges of its oldest, and freely admits foreigners as members who are really domiciled in England as practitioners of music. Because it manages its own affairs, and manages them in a manner so excessively irrational and unpopular that it pays only two small salaries for real services, while the governors actually pay the expenses of their meetings out of their own pockets. Ladies and gentlemen, you have no notion of what confusion would be carried into a certain literary society if the ferocious person who addresses you in his own plain way, were to get up there and to propose the Musicians in these respects as an example for imitation. Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, I recommend the society to such of this assembly as do not know it, because it is a society of artists who begin by putting their own shoulders to their own wheel. Every member of this body stands pledged to every other to exercise his talents gratuitously at any performance whatsoever given in aid of the society's objects. Every member is formally and distinctly reminded on his enrolment that he accepts the responsibility of a great work connected with the labour of his art, and to that he is understood to pledge himself thenceforth. Now these, ladies and gentlemen, are the main features of the body of professional men that pass tonight the one hundred and twenty-second milestone on the road of its life – the main features except one, and that is that the annual income derived from one source, the annual subscription of its members, is not much more than a tithe of the money annually expended in the execution of its excellent objects. Turning over the book just now, with the words ‘One hundred and twenty-second night’ printed on its outside, I feel in a half kind of fancy, remembering the wonderful things which music has of course suggested to me from my earliest childhood. I feel a kind of fancy that I might have gone back to the one hundred and twenty-second night of the great Arabian Nights, and have heard Dinarzade saying, about half an hour before daybreak, ‘Sister Scheherazade, if you are still awake, and my lord the Sultan will permit, I beg you to finish the story of– the British musicians.’ To which Scheherazade replies that she would willingly proceed, but that to the best of her belief it was a story without an end, because she considered that as long as mankind lived, and loved, and hoped, so long music, which draws them upward in all their varying and erring moods, could never cease out of the world. So the Sultan, who changed his name for the purpose for the time, girded on, not his scimitar, but a scythe, and went out graciously resolving that the story should have its one hundred and twenty-second night, and that the brotherhood should live for ever. Ladies and gentlemen, these may appear to you vagrant ideas, but music is suggestive of all fancies. You know it can give back the dead; it can place at your side the congenial creature dear to you who never lived. You know that the blind see in it; the bedridden have hope in it; the dead hear it. We all hear it from the sound of the varying seasons, to the beating of the waters upon which our Saviour walked. Let me, in conclusion, entreat you to listen also to one strain which will certainly be heard through all the sweet sounds of tonight, and which will be simply this – no less, no more. The hand cannot always keep its hold upon the bow, the string, the keys; the breath will sometimes fail. It is the inevitable result of the skilful combination of many instruments that there must be some players who can never hope to attain a great success or great reward, but who are nevertheless quite inseparable from, and necessary to your delight. And so, if you listen to it, the strain will say: ‘I am one of those; I have been young and now am old; my hand has lost its mastery; my breath has failed. Now for the love of the much that music has done for you, do that little for me.’ I beg propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to the Royal Society of Musicians’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Freemasons' Hall Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18620520 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Ladies and Gentlemen, When I had the honour of being asked to preside over the anniversary dinner of the society last year, I was prevented from doing so by indisposition. I requested my friend Wilkie Collins to reign in my stead. He very kindly complied, to my great relief, and he made an excellent speech. Indeed, to tell you the truth, I read the account at the time with considerable uneasiness, for it inspired me with a strong misgiving that I might have done better to have presided last year with neuralgia in my face and my subject in my head, rather than preside this year with my neuralgia all gone, and my subject anticipated. Therefore I shall preface the toast of the evening by making the managers of this institution one very solemn and repentant promise, and it is this – if ever I have to find them a substitute again, they may implicitly rely upon my sending them the most speechless man in my circle of acquaintance. The chairman of last year presented you with an admirable view of the universality of a newsman’s calling, and the great variety of people who look to him each day, and the diversity of interest with which his burden is expected. Now nothing I can think of seems to be left for me, but to imagine the newsman’s burden itself, to unfold one of those wonderful sheets which he every day disseminates, and to take a glance over his shoulder – a bird’s-eye view of the general character of its contents. So, if you please, choosing my own time – as the newsman cannot, as he must be equally active in all weathers, in winter as in summer, in sunshine and snow, in light and darkness, early and late – say, choosing my weather, as an amateur can but as he cannot, I will for two or three moments start off with my newsman on a fine May morning, and take a peep over his shoulder at one of the wonderful broadsheets which he every day scatters broadcast over the country. Well, the first thing that occurs to me in taking up the newspaper every morning is that we are born every day, that every day we – or, at least, some of us – are married, and that every day we die. Consequently my first glimpse over the newsman’s shoulder instructs me that Atkins is born, Catkins is married, and that Datkins is dead. But one of the most remarkable circumstances connected with the sheet is, that Atkin’s infancy seems to be surprisingly brief, for I immediately discover in the very next column that he has grown up to be seventeen years old, and has run away from his mother. At least I see that, ‘if W. A.’, which stands for William Atkins, ‘who is seventeen years old, in a dress suit, with one front tooth missing, will only return to his disconsolate parents, everything will be arranged to the satisfaction of everyone’. I am afraid he never will return, for the reason, amongst others perhaps, that if he had ever meant to have come back he never would have gone away. Immediately below, I find a mysterious character, in a position of such mysterious difficulty, that it is only to be expressed by several disjointed letters, several figures, several stars, and some such adjuration as, ‘Amelia write instantly. Destruction, all is lost! The canary bird has made over his property to his uncle. The elephant is on the wing.’ Then, still glancing over the shoulder of my industrious friend the newsman, there pass by fleets of ships bound to all parts of the earth, all going to have immediate dispatch, all with a little more stowage for a little more cargo, and a few more berths for a few more passengers, that they all have the most spacious cabins, all teak-built and copper-fastened, all carrying surgeons of experience, and having elevated space between decks – all, in short, A.1. at Lloyd’s and everywhere else. Still glancing over the shoulder of my industrious friend, I find I am offered every kind of house, lodging, clerk, servant, situation, that I can possibly or impossibly want, with everything to eat, drink, wear, and use. I learn, to my intense gratification – for I begin to have some doubts upon the subject myself – that I need never grow old; that I may preserve the juvenile bloom of my complexion to any period of life; that I need never more have any grey hairs; that if I ever cough again it is entirely my own fault; that I need never be ill of any complaint; that if I want brown cod liver oil I know where to find it; that if I want a Turkish bath I know where to get it; and that if I want an income of seven pounds a week for life for 2s. 6d. down, I have only to send the postage stamps and there it is. Still glancing over the newsman’s shoulder, my eye rests on the Imperial Parliament, and there I read among other stereotyped passages, which I am always sure to find there, how the hon. member for somewhere, asked the Right hon. gentlemen the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he had any intelligence to communicate respecting that last outrage, or that last railway accident, or that last mine explosion, or that last case of police justice; and I always read how the Right hon. gentleman said in reply, rather magnificently, that ‘he knew nothing whatever about the matter except what he had read in the newspapers’. Which stereotyped reply I observe to be received universally with a ‘Hear, hear’, which is, to me, perfectly incomprehensible; because I can read such things in a paper without drawing a salary for doing it. Well then I look to the Police Intelligence, and that teaches me that if I want to bite off a woman’s nose I can do it very cheap, but if I want surreptitiously to make off with the salted nose of a pig or calf from a shop window, it will cost me exceedingly dear. And, also, that if I allow myself to be betrayed into the folly, say, of killing an inoffensive tradesman on his own doorstep, that little act of indiscretion will not in the least interfere with my triumphant production of testimonials to character as a most amiable young man, particularly to be esteemed in all respects, but above all things remarkable for the singular inoffensiveness of my character and disposition. So, also looking over the shoulder of my friend the newsman of the day, I pass to the theatrical intelligence; and there, perhaps, I read the gratifying announcement, which is no news to anyone, that the true spirit of a picturesque artist has again been displayed by Mr. Benjamin Webster, and that another most subtle and delicate piece of genuine comedy has been achieved by my friend Mr. Alfred Wigan. Then, turning my eye to the Fine Arts, under that head I find the latest intelligence to be that a certain ‘J. O.’ has most triumphantly exposed a certain ‘J.O.B.’, which ‘J.O.B.’ is remarkable for this singular and particularly novel feature, that I was required to make the sacrifice of depriving myself of the best of my pictures for six months; that for that time they were to be hung upon wet walls; and that I was to be requited for my courtesy by having them impertinently covered with a wet blanket. Now, ladies and gentlemen, summing up in short, this one glance over my newsman’s shoulder gives me the comprehensive knowledge of what is going on over the great continent of Europe, over the great continent of America to boot, to say nothing of such little-known geographical regions as India and China; for Reuter’s telegrams come straight to me. Under the heading of Military Intelligence, I read the last news of my boy in the Army, and under the head of Naval Intelligence, I read the last news concerning my boy in the Navy. All these topics are ready sifted for me in sharp, terse, pointed, leading articles. In a word, every morning before my breakfast is done, I can put a girdle round the earth, like Ariel, and come up to the time of high water at London Bridge, and the arrival of the Japanese ambassadors. By the by, the Japanese ambassadors ought of all things to be here tonight. They could not be shown anything in England so astonishing as a newsvendors dinner, seeing that it is the usage and policy of their country, as described by travellers, to forbid the circulation of news of any kind, on pain of instant death, and to cut the newsman in half the moment he shows himself. Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman’s shoulder from the whimsical point of view, which is the point, I believe, that most promotes digestion. The newsman is to be met with at every turn, on steamboats, and in railway stations. His profits are small, he has a great amount of anxiety and care, and no little amount of personal wear and tear. He is indispensable to civilization and freedom, and he is looked for with pleasurable excitement every day, except when he lends the paper for an hour, and then his punctuality in calling for it is anything but agreeable. I think the lesson we can learn from the newsman is some new illustration of the uncertainty of life, some illustration of its vicissitudes and fluctuations. Mindful of this permanent lesson, some members of the trade founded this society, which would afford them assistance in time of sickness and indigence in return for their subscription – a subscription which is infinitesimal. It amounts to five shillings per annum. Looking at the returns before me, the progress of the society would seem to be slow, but it has only been slow for the best of all reasons, that it has been sure. The pensions granted by the society are all drawn out of the interest on the funded capital, and, therefore, the institution is literally as safe as the Bank. It is stated that there are several news-vendors who are not members of this society; but that is equally the case in all institutions which have come under my experience. The very persons who are most likely to stand in need of the benefits which an institution of this kind confers, are usually the persons to keep away until bitter experience comes to them too late, and shows that men have much to lose in keeping apart from it. In asking you to drink this toast I have to congratulate you on the success which has followed this institution, and I must also congratulate you on the fact that a rare article of intelligence will appear in the public prints tomorrow, and give employment to the newsvendors – the fact, namely, that ladies have dined at a public dinner table. I respect the gallantry and good sense of the committee in abolishing, so far as they have been concerned, the barbarous and preposterous custom which condemned the ladies to a distinct place while the other sex were eating and drinking – which is the custom of all savage tribes. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival 1862 Description An account of the resource Speech at the Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival (20 May 1862). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1862-05-20 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1862-05-20_Speech_Newsvendors-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival' (20 May 1862). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1862-05-20_Speech_Newsvendors-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1862-05-20_Speech_Newsvendors-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, When I had the honour of being asked to preside over the anniversary dinner of the society last year, I was prevented from doing so by indisposition. I requested my friend Wilkie Collins to reign in my stead. He very kindly complied, to my great relief, and he made an excellent speech. Indeed, to tell you the truth, I read the account at the time with considerable uneasiness, for it inspired me with a strong misgiving that I might have done better to have presided last year with neuralgia in my face and my subject in my head, rather than preside this year with my neuralgia all gone, and my subject anticipated. Therefore I shall preface the toast of the evening by making the managers of this institution one very solemn and repentant promise, and it is this – if ever I have to find them a substitute again, they may implicitly rely upon my sending them the most speechless man in my circle of acquaintance. The chairman of last year presented you with an admirable view of the universality of a newsman's calling, and the great variety of people who look to him each day, and the diversity of interest with which his burden is expected. Now nothing I can think of seems to be left for me, but to imagine the newsman's burden itself, to unfold one of those wonderful sheets which he every day disseminates, and to take a glance over his shoulder – a bird's-eye view of the general character of its contents. So, if you please, choosing my own time – as the newsman cannot, as he must be equally active in all weathers, in winter as in summer, in sunshine and snow, in light and darkness, early and late – say, choosing my weather, as an amateur can but as he cannot, I will for two or three moments start off with my newsman on a fine May morning, and take a peep over his shoulder at one of the wonderful broadsheets which he every day scatters broadcast over the country. Well, the first thing that occurs to me in taking up the newspaper every morning is that we are born every day, that every day we – or, at least, some of us – are married, and that every day we die. Consequently my first glimpse over the newsman's shoulder instructs me that Atkins is born, Catkins is married, and that Datkins is dead. But one of the most remarkable circumstances connected with the sheet is, that Atkin's infancy seems to be surprisingly brief, for I immediately discover in the very next column that he has grown up to be seventeen years old, and has run away from his mother. At least I see that, ‘if W. A.’, which stands for William Atkins, ‘who is seventeen years old, in a dress suit, with one front tooth missing, will only return to his disconsolate parents, everything will be arranged to the satisfaction of everyone’. I am afraid he never will return, for the reason, amongst others perhaps, that if he had ever meant to have come back he never would have gone away. Immediately below, I find a mysterious character, in a position of such mysterious difficulty, that it is only to be expressed by several disjointed letters, several figures, several stars, and some such adjuration as, ‘Amelia write instantly. Destruction, all is lost! The canary bird has made over his property to his uncle. The elephant is on the wing.’ Then, still glancing over the shoulder of my industrious friend the newsman, there pass by fleets of ships bound to all parts of the earth, all going to have immediate dispatch, all with a little more stowage for a little more cargo, and a few more berths for a few more passengers, that they all have the most spacious cabins, all teak-built and copper-fastened, all carrying surgeons of experience, and having elevated space between decks – all, in short, A.1. at Lloyd's and everywhere else. Still glancing over the shoulder of my industrious friend, I find I am offered every kind of house, lodging, clerk, servant, situation, that I can possibly or impossibly want, with everything to eat, drink, wear, and use. I learn, to my intense gratification – for I begin to have some doubts upon the subject myself – that I need never grow old; that I may preserve the juvenile bloom of my complexion to any period of life; that I need never more have any grey hairs; that if I ever cough again it is entirely my own fault; that I need never be ill of any complaint; that if I want brown cod liver oil I know where to find it; that if I want a Turkish bath I know where to get it; and that if I want an income of seven pounds a week for life for 2s. 6d. down, I have only to send the postage stamps and there it is. Still glancing over the newsman's shoulder, my eye rests on the Imperial Parliament, and there I read among other stereotyped passages, which I am always sure to find there, how the hon. member for somewhere, asked the Right hon. gentlemen the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he had any intelligence to communicate respecting that last outrage, or that last railway accident, or that last mine explosion, or that last case of police justice; and I always read how the Right hon. gentleman said in reply, rather magnificently, that ‘he knew nothing whatever about the matter except what he had read in the newspapers’. Which stereotyped reply I observe to be received universally with a ‘Hear, hear’, which is, to me, perfectly incomprehensible; because I can read such things in a paper without drawing a salary for doing it. Well then I look to the Police Intelligence, and that teaches me that if I want to bite off a woman's nose I can do it very cheap, but if I want surreptitiously to make off with the salted nose of a pig or calf from a shop window, it will cost me exceedingly dear. And, also, that if I allow myself to be betrayed into the folly, say, of killing an inoffensive tradesman on his own doorstep, that little act of indiscretion will not in the least interfere with my triumphant production of testimonials to character as a most amiable young man, particularly to be esteemed in all respects, but above all things remarkable for the singular inoffensiveness of my character and disposition. So, also looking over the shoulder of my friend the newsman of the day, I pass to the theatrical intelligence; and there, perhaps, I read the gratifying announcement, which is no news to anyone, that the true spirit of a picturesque artist has again been displayed by Mr. Benjamin Webster, and that another most subtle and delicate piece of genuine comedy has been achieved by my friend Mr. Alfred Wigan. Then, turning my eye to the Fine Arts, under that head I find the latest intelligence to be that a certain ‘J. O.’ has most triumphantly exposed a certain ‘J.O.B.’, which ‘J.O.B.’ is remarkable for this singular and particularly novel feature, that I was required to make the sacrifice of depriving myself of the best of my pictures for six months; that for that time they were to be hung upon wet walls; and that I was to be requited for my courtesy by having them impertinently covered with a wet blanket.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, summing up in short, this one glance over my newsman's shoulder gives me the comprehensive knowledge of what is going on over the great continent of Europe, over the great continent of America to boot, to say nothing of such little-known geographical regions as India and China; for Reuter's telegrams come straight to me. Under the heading of Military Intelligence, I read the last news of my boy in the Army, and under the head of Naval Intelligence, I read the last news concerning my boy in the Navy. All these topics are ready sifted for me in sharp, terse, pointed, leading articles. In a word, every morning before my breakfast is done, I can put a girdle round the earth, like Ariel, and come up to the time of high water at London Bridge, and the arrival of the Japanese ambassadors. By the by, the Japanese ambassadors ought of all things to be here tonight. They could not be shown anything in England so astonishing as a newsvendors dinner, seeing that it is the usage and policy of their country, as described by travellers, to forbid the circulation of news of any kind, on pain of instant death, and to cut the newsman in half the moment he shows himself. Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman’s shoulder from the whimsical point of view, which is the point, I believe, that most promotes digestion. The newsman is to be met with at every turn, on steamboats, and in railway stations. His profits are small, he has a great amount of anxiety and care, and no little amount of personal wear and tear. He is indispensable to civilization and freedom, and he is looked for with pleasurable excitement every day, except when he lends the paper for an hour, and then his punctuality in calling for it is anything but agreeable. I think the lesson we can learn from the newsman is some new illustration of the uncertainty of life, some illustration of its vicissitudes and fluctuations. Mindful of this permanent lesson, some members of the trade founded this society, which would afford them assistance in time of sickness and indigence in return for their subscription – a subscription which is infinitesimal. It amounts to five shillings per annum. Looking at the returns before me, the progress of the society would seem to be slow, but it has only been slow for the best of all reasons, that it has been sure. The pensions granted by the society are all drawn out of the interest on the funded capital, and, therefore, the institution is literally as safe as the Bank. It is stated that there are several news-vendors who are not members of this society; but that is equally the case in all institutions which have come under my experience. The very persons who are most likely to stand in need of the benefits which an institution of this kind confers, are usually the persons to keep away until bitter experience comes to them too late, and shows that men have much to lose in keeping apart from it. In asking you to drink this toast I have to congratulate you on the success which has followed this institution, and I must also congratulate you on the fact that a rare article of intelligence will appear in the public prints tomorrow, and give employment to the newsvendors – the fact, namely, that ladies have dined at a public dinner table. I respect the gallantry and good sense of the committee in abolishing, so far as they have been concerned, the barbarous and preposterous custom which condemned the ladies to a distinct place while the other sex were eating and drinking – which is the custom of all savage tribes. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Freemasons' Tavern Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18630404 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am aware that nothing I may say can add to the enthusiasm with which the toast will be received, but in proposing to you to drink the loyal toast, ‘The Queen’, I have the gratification of informing you that Her Majesty has again repeated her munificent annual donation of one hundred pounds in aid of the Royal General Theatrical Fund. Ladies and Gentlemen, It is not the least notable circumstance in the young lives of the two exalted persons who have lately engrossed so much general attention, that as each is the deserving object of the other’s free choice, so the future career of both must henceforth for ever be inseparable from that of a free people deserving to be free. Surely no old poet, or painter, or sculptor ever conceived a more graceful or beautiful marriage procession than that of the other day, where all ages, all classes, all conditions of the fruition of hope or the disappointment of hope joined together in one great equal, generous enthusiasm in behalf of those two young people in the flush of life and fortune, and governed themselves and governed their tempers in honour of the interesting scene. I am sure you will agree with me in saying: never may that young Prince and Princess, and the great true-hearted English people, be less worthy of one another, or less at peace with one another, than they were that day. I beg to propose to you to drink, ‘Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family.’ Ladies and Gentlemen, It is equally the characteristic of the Army and of the Navy that the members of those two brave services very seldom talk about their duty, and always do it. I cannot better testify my respect for that noble model than by adopting it. I therefore beg to propose to you, ‘The Army and Navy and the Volunteers’, with which toast I will connect the name of Captain Ward of the Army who sits upon my right. Ladies and Gentlemen, With my present responsibilities impending over me, I happened the other night, as I sat alone, to be reading a paper in The Tatler referring to the time when Mr. Powell’s company of performing puppets was in high vogue with persons of quality. In that number of The Tatler the brilliant essayist gives a humorous description of a contest then raging between two ladies at Bath – Prudentia and Florimel – as to which of them should set the fashion to the greatest number of imitators. In the course of this noble struggle Florimel bespoke Alexander the Great to be acted by the players, and Prudentia bespoke The Creation of the World, to be acted by the puppets: at the same time darkly putting it about, for the confusion and ridicule of her rival, that the puppet Eve, whom I suppose to have been but indifferently modelled, would be found in figure ‘the most like Florimel that ever was seen’. Now what were the missing charms, what were the defective points in this wooden lady’s anatomy does not appear, otherwise I should have the honour of delicately stating them to this company; but it does appear that his Worship the Mayor inclined to the wooden side of the question, and that on high moral grounds he greatly preferred those innocent creatures, the puppets, to those wicked players.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, as I have a profound veneration for Mayors and such like, this sentiment caused me to close the book and to consider how much we should gain if there were no manager now but Mr. Powell, and if there were no actors now but puppets. In the first place – and on the immense advantage to be reaped here, I have no doubt we shall be all agreed – there would be no Fund, no dinner, no chairman, and no speech. Then on Saturdays there would be no treasury, although I am told that that great point has occasionally been gained even under the existing system; there would never be any throwing up of parts, there would never be any colds, there would never be any little jealousies or dissensions; the two leading ladies might dress for any length of time in the same room without the remotest danger of ever coming to words, and the loftiest tragedian that ever was or ever will be, might be doubled up with his legs round his neck, and put away in the same box with the reddest-nosed and most flowered waistcoated of comic countrymen. Now these, I considered to myself, were the points to be gained. On the other hand there would be human interest to be lost – there would be the human face to be lost – which after all does stand for a little – and last, not least, there would be that immense amount of comfort and satisfaction to be lost by a large number of well-meaning persons, which they constitutionally derive from slightly disparaging those who entertain them. This last high moral gratification, this cheap, this complacent self-assertion I felt could not possibly be parted with; and, therefore, I quickly came to the conclusion that we must have those wicked players after all. Ladies and gentlemen, it is an astonishing thing to me, but within my limited range of observation and experience it is nevertheless true, that there should be, and that there is, in a part of what we call the world – which certainly is in the main a kind, good-natured, always-steadily-improving world – this curious propensity to run up a little score against, and as it were to be even with, those who amuse and beguile them. ‘That man in the farce last night, made me laugh so much’, says Portman Square, Esq., at breakfast, ‘that I hope there may be nothing absolutely wrong about him, but I begin to think this morning there must be.’ ‘My Dear’, says Mr. Balham Hill to Mrs. Balham Hill, ‘I was so profoundly affected at the theatre last night, and I felt it so very difficult to repress my sobs when the poor mad King listened in vain for the breathing of his dead daughter, that I really felt it due to myself to patronize that gentleman this morning. I felt a kind of compensation to myself to regard him as an extraordinary man, having no recognized business that can be found in the Post Office Directory. I feel it necessary to put up with him, as it were, as a kind of unaccountable creature who has no counting-house any-where; in short, to bear with him as a sort of marvellous child in a Shakespearian go-cart.’ Ladies and gentlemen, this is quite true in a greater or less degree, I think, of all artists; but it is particularly true of the Dramatic artist, and it is so strange to me. Surely it cannot be because he dresses himself up. for his part, for, as you all know very well, there is an enormous amount of dressing and making-up going on in high stations all around us. I never saw a worse make-up in the poorest country theatre than I can see in the House of Commons any night when there is a message from the Lords; and I assure you, on my personal veracity, that I have known a Lord High Chancellor at twenty-five shillings a week who, in his wigs and robes, looked the part infinitely better than the real article at fifteen thousand a year. Ladies and gentlemen, I think the secret cannot lie here; I think the truth is that this little harmless disposition occupies a little quiet, out-of-the-way corner of our nature, and as I think it a little ungracious, and a little ungenerous, and certainly more so than it is meant to be, I always, whether in public or in private, on principle steadily oppose myself to it for this reason which I have endeavoured to explain to you. Although I am now going to urge upon you the case of, and am going to entreat your active sympathy with, this General Theatrical Fund on this eighteenth anniversary, you will hear from me nothing conventional about the Poor player Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage, which shall in any way separate him otherwise than favourably from the great community of us poor players, who all strut and fret our little hours upon this stage of life. His work, if he be worth anything to himself or to any other man, is at least as real and as hard to him as the banker’s is to him, or the broker’s is to him, or the professional man’s to him, or the merchant’s to him. His Fund is a business Fund, and is conducted on sound, business, honourable, independent principles. It is a Fund, as many here already know, for granting annuities to such members as may be disqualified by age, sickness or infirmity from pursuing the Theatrical Profession, and also for extending aid to the sick, I think in some cases even when they are not members, and to the bereaved survivors of the dead. It is a Fund to which the members contribute periodically according to certain carefully calculated scales, very often out of very imperfect and very uncertain earnings. It is a Fund which knows no distinction whatever of Theatre, and knows no grade whatever of actors. I have had the honour of being one of its Trustees from the hour of its first establishment, and I bear testimony with admiration to the extraordinary patience, steadiness, and perseverance with which those payments are made. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, you will see that I occupy here the vantage ground of entreating you to help those who do really and truly help themselves, who do not come here tonight for a mere field-night and theatrical display, but who as it were rise to the surface once in every twelve months to assure you of their constancy and good faith and then burrow down to work again, many of them surrounded by innumerable obstacles, many of them working under great difficulties, and, believe me, with little cheer and encouragement throughout the whole toiling year, and in obscurity enough. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in defiance of all these heavy blows and great discouragement in the Actor’s life, I fearlessly add these words – If there be any creature here knowing a theatre well who knows any kind of place, no matter what, cathedral, church, chapel, tabernacle, high cross, market, change, where there is a more sacred bond of charitable brotherhood, where there is a more certain reliance to be placed on sympathy with affliction, where there is a  greater generosity in ready giving, where there is a higher and more sacred respect for family ties, where there is habitually a more cheerful, voluntary bearing of burthens on already heavily burthened backs, then let him take his money to that place, to me unknown, and not produce it here. But if he altogether fails in such knowledge, then let him communicate with Mr. Cullenford, now sitting expectant at a card table, and let him communicate to Mr. Cullenford something to this Fund’s advantage, as he respects all the true saints in the calendar, and as he defies and despises all the sham saints out of it. Now gentlemen, as I have taken upon myself to say what a good corporation the Players are among themselves, and how cheerily and readily they invariably help one another, I may not unreasonably be asked by an outsider why he should help them. If it were the claims of an individual that I was advocating here in these days, I should be met, and very properly met, by the question, ‘What is his case? What has he done?’ Moreover, as to that agglomeration of individuals, the Theatrical Profession, we are most of us constantly met with by a reference to the times when there were better actors, and when there was a better stage literature, and with a mournful shrugging of shoulders over the present state of things. Now, accepting the theatrical times exactly as they stand, and seeking to make them no better than they are, but always protesting against anybody’s seeking to make them worse, the difficulty with me standing before you is not to say what the Actor has done, but to say what he has not done, and is not doing every night. I am very fond of the play, and herein lies one of the charms of the play to me; for example, when I am in front – and when I discharge for the moment all my personal likings and friendships for those behind – when I am in front any night, and when I see, say, my friend Mr. Buckstone’s eye roll into the middle of the pit with that fine expression in it of a comically suspended opinion which I like so much, how do I know on whom it alights, or what good it does that man? Here is some surly morose creature come into the theatre bent upon the morrow on executing some uncharitable intention, and the eye of Mr. Buckstone dives into his right-hand trousers pocket where his angry hand is clenched, and opens his hand and mellows it, and shakes it in quite a philanthropic manner. I hear a laugh there from my left. How do I know how many a lout has been quickened into activity by Mr. T. P. Cooke’s hornpipe? How do I know on how many a stale face and heart Long Tom Coffin, and Nelson’s coxwain, and Black-Eyed Susan’s William, have come healthily dashing like the spray of the sea? Over and over again it is my delight to take my place in the theatre next to some grim person who comes in a mere figure of snow, but who gradually softens and mellows until I am also led to bless the face that creases with satisfaction until it realizes Falstaff’s wonderful simile of being ‘like a wet cloak ill laid up’. It is a joke in my home that generosity on the stage always unmans me, and that I invariably begin to cry whenever anybody on the stage forgives an enemy or gives away a pocket book. This is only another and droller way of experiencing and saying that it is good to be generous, and good to be open-handed, and that it is a right good thing for society, through its various gradations of stalls, boxes, pit, and gallery, when they come together with but one great, beating, responsive heart among them, to learn such a truth together. Depend upon it the very best among us are often bad company for ourselves (I know I am very often); and in bringing us out of that, and in keeping us company. and in showing us ourselves and our kind in a thousand changing forms of humour and fancy, the actor – all the solemn humbugs on the earth to the contrary notwithstanding – renders a high and inestimable service to the community every night of his life. I dare say the feeling peculiar to a theatre is as well known to everybody here as it is to me, of having for an hour or two quite forgotten the real world, and of coming out into the street with a kind of wonder that it should be so wet, and dark, and cold, and full of jostling people and irreconcilable cabs. By the remembrance of that delightful dream and waking; by all your remembrance. of it from your childhood until now; and by your remembrance of that long glorious row of wonderful lamps; and by the remembrance of that great mysterious curtain behind it; and by the remembrance of those enchanted people behind that, who are disenchanted every night and go out into the wet and worry; by all these things I entreat you not to go out into Great Queen Street by-and-by, without saying that you have done something for this fleeting fairyland which has done so much for us. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to propose to you, ‘The General Theatrical Fund’. Ladies and gentlemen, It now becomes me, like a well graced actor, to retire from the scene, and make place for a better graced actor. I have next to propose to you ‘The Drama’. Looking round the table upon my left to see whom I should call upon to return thanks for that toast, my eye lightened upon the face of a valued and esteemed friend of mine whom I last heard of at a considerable distance, in Nice, and whom I am surprised and gratified to find has graced this board tonight. Allow me to propose ‘The Drama’, and to connect with that toast the respected name of Mr. Alfred Wigan. Ladies and gentlemen, I will only assure you on behalf of myself that I am deeply indebted to you, as I always am, for your kind reception, and that I am also deeply indebted to my friend on my right for the kind and feeling terms in which he proposed my health, during which impressive speech my excellent friend Buckstone whispered in my ear that he had often nursed that young man on his knee, which I don’t believe. As I am on my legs, as the Parliamentary phrase is, I will not be off my legs without proposing to you another toast. ‘Coming events cast their shadows before’, and coming events cast their lights before also, and as we have among us tonight a gentleman highly esteemed in the City, and by all who know him, who will shortly become Lord Mayor and who has passed through the important preliminary office of Sherriff, – as to which, we were once assured by a Sheriff at this Dinner that he knew of no actor who had ever been hanged, in reply to which I had the pleasure of informing him, on the part of the Dramatic Profession, that I knew of no Sheriff who had ever been hanged – I say, that as we have among us a gentleman whom we are disposed to make so welcome, I will, if you please, propose his health in connexion with the City. Allow me to propose ‘The City of London and Alderman Phillips’. You know what the last toast always is; it is ‘The Ladies’, and upon this subject I have a very considerable crow to pick with my friend Mr. Buckstone, who has taken great credit to himself tonight for a certainly new-mooted idea in abeyance here as to whether ladies shall dine at this table. I did enunciate against this Fund the terrific threat ten years ago, that if the ladies did not dine here I never would come here again. Unless next Ash Wednesday’s experience satisfies Mr. Buckstone that the ladies ought to dine here, I shall invite the ladies to a General Theatrical Fund Supper-Dinner at the Freemasons’ Tavern, on which occasion, if they will do me the honour to allow me to receive them as their chairman, they will hear something to Mr. Buckstone’s disadvantage, which he would much rather not hear himself. We are always delighted to see the ladies anywhere, but particularly here. I have been delighted myself to see them under all manner of circumstances, and I have felt the want of them particularly. Upon a certain occasion some years ago, I was acting in Canada with some of our officers, when no ladies were to be found, and it was absolutely necessary that young and newly caught officers should supply their places; upon which occasion, in order that they might acquire something of the feminine walk it was found absolutely necessary to tie their legs. Upon another occasion I witnessed the representation of Black Eyed Susan at a country theatre, when I was delighted to find the court-martial composed of, I think, eight young ladies, with very perceptible back-hair, and very perceptible combs, who had put on the conventional notaries’ gowns and sat down at a table and represented themselves to the public as midshipmen. Still it was charming to see them, and I never was so delighted in my life to see a real midshipman as I was to see those false midshipmen. Now I have one other crow to pick with Mr. Buckstone. I particularly object to the arrangement of these tables, and I particularly object to it for two reasons. In the first place, when I preside at, or when I attend one of these dinners, I am always in the most tantalizing position possible, inasmuch as I always want to look this way, and I am obliged to look this. Also I never have so painful a sense that my hair is a little going behind. So that on this occasion – if you will take my word for it– I assure you I have overheard tonight one or two very distressing expressions upon the subject. Nay more, ladies and gentlemen, although I am always delighted to see the ladies, I really would rather see them in front of me; but here, or there, or anywhere, or everywhere, we are always delighted to see them and let us drink their health. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Royal General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1863 Description An account of the resource Speech at the Royal General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (4 April 1863). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1863-04-04 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1863-04-04_Speech_Royal-General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Royal General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival' (4 April 1863). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1863-04-04_Speech_Royal-General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1863-04-04_Speech_Royal-General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am aware that nothing I may say can add to the enthusiasm with which the toast will be received, but in proposing to you to drink the loyal toast, ‘The Queen’, I have the gratification of informing you that Her Majesty has again repeated her munificent annual donation of one hundred pounds in aid of the Royal General Theatrical Fund. Ladies and Gentlemen, It is not the least notable circumstance in the young lives of the two exalted persons who have lately engrossed so much general attention, that as each is the deserving object of the other's free choice, so the future career of both must henceforth for ever be inseparable from that of a free people deserving to be free. Surely no old poet, or painter, or sculptor ever conceived a more graceful or beautiful marriage procession than that of the other day, where all ages, all classes, all conditions of the fruition of hope or the disappointment of hope joined together in one great equal, generous enthusiasm in behalf of those two young people in the flush of life and fortune, and governed themselves and governed their tempers in honour of the interesting scene. I am sure you will agree with me in saying: never may that young Prince and Princess, and the great true-hearted English people, be less worthy of one another, or less at peace with one another, than they were that day. I beg to propose to you to drink, ‘Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family.’ Ladies and Gentlemen, It is equally the characteristic of the Army and of the Navy that the members of those two brave services very seldom talk about their duty, and always do it. I cannot better testify my respect for that noble model than by adopting it. I therefore beg to propose to you, ‘The Army and Navy and the Volunteers’, with which toast I will connect the name of Captain Ward of the Army who sits upon my right. Ladies and Gentlemen, With my present responsibilities impending over me, I happened the other night, as I sat alone, to be reading a paper in The Tatler referring to the time when Mr. Powell’s company of performing puppets was in high vogue with persons of quality. In that number of The Tatler the brilliant essayist gives a humorous description of a contest then raging between two ladies at Bath – Prudentia and Florimel – as to which of them should set the fashion to the greatest number of imitators. In the course of this noble struggle Florimel bespoke Alexander the Great to be acted by the players, and Prudentia bespoke The Creation of the World, to be acted by the puppets: at the same time darkly putting it about, for the confusion and ridicule of her rival, that the puppet Eve, whom I suppose to have been but indifferently modelled, would be found in figure ‘the most like Florimel that ever was seen’. Now what were the missing charms, what were the defective points in this wooden lady's anatomy does not appear, otherwise I should have the honour of delicately stating them to this company; but it does appear that his Worship the Mayor inclined to the wooden side of the question, and that on high moral grounds he greatly preferred those innocent creatures, the puppets, to those wicked players.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, as I have a profound veneration for Mayors and such like, this sentiment caused me to close the book and to consider how much we should gain if there were no manager now but Mr. Powell, and if there were no actors now but puppets. In the first place – and on the immense advantage to be reaped here, I have no doubt we shall be all agreed – there would be no Fund, no dinner, no chairman, and no speech. Then on Saturdays there would be no treasury, although I am told that that great point has occasionally been gained even under the existing system; there would never be any throwing up of parts, there would never be any colds, there would never be any little jealousies or dissensions; the two leading ladies might dress for any length of time in the same room without the remotest danger of ever coming to words, and the loftiest tragedian that ever was or ever will be, might be doubled up with his legs round his neck, and put away in the same box with the reddest-nosed and most flowered waistcoated of comic countrymen. Now these, I considered to myself, were the points to be gained. On the other hand there would be human interest to be lost – there would  be the human face to be lost – which after all does stand for a little – and last, not least, there would be that immense amount of comfort and satisfaction to be lost by a large number of well-meaning persons, which they constitutionally derive from slightly disparaging those who entertain them. This last high moral gratification, this cheap, this complacent self-assertion I felt could not possibly be parted with; and, therefore, I quickly came to the conclusion that we must have those wicked players after all. Ladies and gentlemen, it is an astonishing thing to me, but within my limited range of observation and experience it is nevertheless true, that there should be, and that there is, in a part of what we call the world – which certainly is in the main a kind, good-natured, always-steadily-improving world – this curious propensity to run up a little score against, and as it were to be even with, those who amuse and beguile them. ‘That man in the farce last night, made me laugh so much’, says Portman Square, Esq., at breakfast, ‘that I hope there may be nothing absolutely wrong about him, but I begin to think this morning there must be.’ ‘My Dear’, says Mr. Balham Hill to Mrs. Balham Hill, ‘I was so profoundly affected at the theatre last night, and I felt it so very difficult to repress my sobs when the poor mad King listened in vain for the breathing of his dead daughter, that I really felt it due to myself to patronize that gentleman this morning. I felt a kind of compensation to myself to regard him as an extraordinary man, having no recognized business that can be found in the Post Office Directory. I feel it necessary to put up with him, as it were, as a kind of unaccountable creature who has no counting-house any-where; in short, to bear with him as a sort of marvellous child in a Shakespearian go-cart.’ Ladies and gentlemen, this is quite true in a greater or less degree, I think, of all artists; but it is particularly true of the Dramatic artist, and it is so strange to me. Surely it cannot be because he dresses himself up. for his part, for, as you all know very well, there is an enormous amount of dressing and making-up going on in high stations all around us. I never saw a worse make-up in the poorest country theatre than I can see in the House of Commons any night when there is a message from the Lords; and I assure you, on my personal veracity, that I have known a Lord High Chancellor at twenty-five shillings a week who, in his wigs and robes, looked the part infinitely better than the real article at fifteen thousand a year. Ladies and gentlemen, I think the secret cannot lie here; I think the truth is that this little harmless disposition occupies a little quiet, out-of-the-way corner of our nature, and as I think it a little ungracious, and a little ungenerous, and certainly more so than it is meant to be, I always, whether in public or in private, on principle steadily oppose myself to it for this reason which I have endeavoured to explain to you. Although I am now going to urge upon you the case of, and am going to entreat  your active sympathy with, this General Theatrical Fund on this eighteenth anniversary, you will hear from me nothing conventional about the  Poor player   Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage,   which shall in any way separate him otherwise than favourably from the great community of us poor players, who all strut and fret our little hours upon this stage of life. His work, if he be worth anything to himself or to any other man, is at least as real and as hard to him as the banker's is to him, or the broker's is to him, or the professional man’s to him, or the merchant's to him. His Fund is a business Fund, and is conducted on sound, business, honourable, independent principles. It is a Fund, as many here already know, for granting annuities to such members as may be disqualified by age, sickness or infirmity from pursuing the Theatrical Profession, and also for extending aid to the sick, I think in some cases even when they are not members, and to the bereaved survivors of the dead. It is a Fund to which the members contribute  periodically according to certain carefully calculated scales, very often out of very imperfect and very uncertain earnings. It is a Fund which knows no distinction whatever of Theatre, and knows no grade whatever of actors. I have had the honour of being one of its Trustees from the hour of its first establishment, and I bear testimony with admiration to the extraordinary patience, steadiness, and perseverance with which those payments are made. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, you will see that I occupy here the vantage ground of entreating you to help those who do really and truly help themselves, who do not come here tonight for a mere field-night and theatrical display, but who as it were rise to the surface once in every twelve months to assure you of their constancy and good faith and then burrow down to work again, many of them surrounded by innumerable obstacles, many of them working under great difficulties, and, believe me, with little cheer and encouragement throughout the whole toiling year, and in obscurity enough. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in defiance of all these heavy blows and great discouragement in the Actor's life, I fearlessly add these words – If there be any creature here knowing a theatre well who knows any kind of place, no matter what, cathedral, church, chapel, tabernacle, high cross, market, change, where there is a more sacred bond of charitable brotherhood, where there is a more certain reliance to be placed on sympathy with affliction, where there is a  greater generosity in ready giving, where there is a higher and more sacred respect for family ties, where there is habitually a more cheerful, voluntary bearing of burthens on already heavily burthened backs, then let him take his money to that place, to me unknown, and not produce it here. But if he altogether fails in such knowledge, then let him communicate with Mr. Cullenford, now sitting expectant at a card table, and let him communicate to Mr. Cullenford something to this Fund's advantage, as he respects all the true saints in the calendar, and as he defies and despises all the sham saints out of it. Now gentlemen, as I have taken upon myself to say what a good corporation the Players are among themselves, and how cheerily and readily they invariably help one another, I may not unreasonably be asked by an outsider why he should help them. If it were the claims of an individual that I was advocating here in these days, I should be met, and very properly met, by the question, ‘What is his case? What has he done?’ Moreover, as to that agglomeration of individuals, the Theatrical Profession, we are most of us constantly met with by a reference to the times when there were better actors, and when there was a better stage literature, and with a mournful shrugging of shoulders over the present state of things. Now, accepting the theatrical times exactly as they stand, and seeking to make them no better than they are, but always protesting against anybody's seeking to make them worse, the difficulty with me standing before you is not to say what the Actor has done, but to say what he has not done, and is not doing every night. I am very fond of the play, and herein lies one of the charms of the play to me; for example, when I am in front –  and when I discharge for the moment all my personal likings and friendships for those behind – when I am in front any night, and when I see, say, my friend Mr. Buckstone’s eye roll into the middle of the pit with that fine expression in it of a comically suspended opinion which I like so much, how do I know on whom it alights, or what good it does that man? Here is some surly morose creature come into the theatre bent upon the morrow on executing some uncharitable intention, and the eye of Mr. Buckstone dives into his right-hand trousers pocket where his angry hand is clenched, and opens his hand and  mellows it, and shakes it in quite a philanthropic manner. I hear a laugh there from my left. How do I know how many a lout has been quickened into activity by Mr. T. P. Cooke's hornpipe? How do I know on how many a stale face and heart Long Tom Coffin, and Nelson’s coxwain, and Black-Eyed Susan’s William, have come healthily dashing like the spray of the sea? Over and over again it is my delight to take my place in the theatre next to some grim person who comes in a mere figure of snow, but who gradually softens and mellows until I am also led to bless the face that creases with satisfaction until it realizes Falstaff's wonderful simile of being ‘like a wet cloak ill laid up’. It is a joke in my home that generosity on the stage always unmans me, and that I invariably begin to cry whenever anybody on the stage forgives an enemy or gives away a pocket book. This is only another and droller way of experiencing and saying that it is good to be generous, and good to be open-handed, and that it is a right good thing for society, through its various gradations of stalls, boxes, pit, and gallery, when they come together with but one great, beating, responsive heart among them, to learn such a truth together. Depend upon it the very best among us are often bad company for ourselves (I know I am very often); and in bringing us out of that, and in keeping us company. and in showing us ourselves and our kind in a thousand changing forms of humour and fancy, the actor – all the solemn humbugs on the earth to the contrary notwithstanding – renders a high and inestimable service to the community every night of his life. I dare say the feeling peculiar to a theatre is as well known to everybody here as it is to me, of having for an hour or two quite forgotten the real world, and of coming out into the street with a kind of wonder that it should be so wet, and dark, and cold, and full of jostling people and irreconcilable cabs. By the remembrance of that delightful dream and waking; by all your remembrance. of it from your childhood until now; and by your remembrance of that long glorious row of wonderful lamps; and by the remembrance of that great mysterious curtain behind it; and by the remembrance of those enchanted people behind that, who are disenchanted every night and go out into the wet and worry; by all these things I entreat you not to go out into Great Queen Street by-and-by, without saying that you have done something for this fleeting fairyland which has done so much for us. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to propose to you, ‘The General Theatrical Fund’. Ladies and gentlemen, It now becomes me, like a well graced actor, to retire from the scene, and make place for a better graced actor. I have next to propose to you ‘The Drama’. Looking round the table upon my left to see whom I should call upon to return thanks for that toast, my eye lightened upon the face of a valued and esteemed friend of mine whom I last heard of at a considerable distance, in Nice, and whom I am surprised and gratified to find has graced this board tonight. Allow me to propose ‘The Drama’, and to connect with that toast the respected name of Mr. Alfred Wigan. Ladies and gentlemen, I will only assure you on behalf of myself that I am deeply indebted to you, as I always am, for your kind reception, and that I am also deeply indebted to my friend on my right for the kind and feeling terms in which he proposed my health, during which impressive speech my excellent friend Buckstone whispered in my ear that he had often nursed that young man on his knee,  which I don't believe. As I am on my legs, as the Parliamentary phrase is, I will not be off my legs without proposing to you another toast. ‘Coming events cast their shadows before’, and coming events cast their lights before also, and as we have among us tonight a gentleman highly esteemed in the City, and by all who know him, who will shortly become Lord Mayor and who has passed through the important preliminary office of Sherriff, – as to which, we were once assured by a Sheriff at this Dinner that he knew of no actor who had ever been hanged, in reply to which I had the pleasure of informing him, on the part of the Dramatic Profession, that I knew of no Sheriff who had ever been hanged – I say, that as we have among us a gentleman whom we are disposed to make so welcome, I will, if you please, propose his health in connexion with the City. Allow me to propose ‘The City of London and Alderman Phillips’. You know what the last toast always is; it is ‘The Ladies’, and upon this subject I have a very considerable crow to pick with my friend Mr. Buckstone, who has taken great credit to himself tonight for a certainly new-mooted idea in abeyance here as to whether ladies shall dine at this table. I did enunciate against this Fund the terrific threat ten years ago, that if the ladies did not dine here I never would come here again. Unless next Ash Wednesday’s experience satisfies Mr. Buckstone that the ladies ought to dine here, I shall invite the ladies to a General Theatrical Fund Supper-Dinner at the Freemasons’ Tavern, on which occasion, if they will do me the honour to allow me to receive them as their chairman, they will hear something to Mr. Buckstone's disadvantage, which he would much rather not hear himself. We are always delighted to see the ladies anywhere, but particularly here. I have been delighted myself to see them under all manner of circumstances, and I have felt the want of them particularly. Upon a certain occasion some years ago, I was acting in Canada with some of our officers, when no ladies were to be found, and it was absolutely necessary that young and newly caught officers should supply their places; upon which occasion, in order that they might acquire something of the feminine walk it was found absolutely necessary to tie their legs. Upon another occasion I witnessed the representation of Black Eyed Susan at a country theatre, when I was delighted to find the court-martial composed of, I think, eight young ladies, with very perceptible back-hair, and very perceptible combs, who had put on the conventional notaries’ gowns and sat down at a table and represented themselves to the public as midshipmen. Still it was charming to see them, and I never was so delighted in my life to see a real midshipman as I was to see those false midshipmen. Now I have one other crow to pick with Mr. Buckstone. I particularly object to the arrangement of these tables, and I particularly object to it for two reasons. In the first place, when I preside at, or when I attend one of these dinners, I am always in the most tantalizing position possible, inasmuch as I always want to look this way, and I am obliged to look this. Also I never have so painful a sense that my hair is a little going behind. So that on this occasion – if you will take my word for it– I assure you I have overheard tonight one or two very distressing expressions upon the subject. Nay more, ladies and gentlemen, although I am always delighted to see the ladies, I really would rather see them in front of me; but here, or there, or anywhere, or everywhere, we are always delighted to see them and let us drink their health. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Freemasons' Tavern Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18630506 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. I address you, Gentlemen, I hope, in that phraseology for the last time tonight, because I intend to dispense with so savage and unmeaning a conventionality, and shall commence with what I have to say concerning the great object which has called us together by using the phrase, Ladies and Gentlemen. Ladies and Gentlemen, then, it happened some years ago, immediately after the close of the great Crimean War, that I was walking in the neighbourhood of Blackheath with a civilian just come home, who had greatly distinguished himself in connexion with that event. The conversation naturally turned on the incidents he had lately witnessed, and my companion remarked that the ground upon which we happened to be standing was sufficiently like the ground on which one of the most memorable of the Crimean battles was fought to give me a very good idea of the field. ‘Put behind every one, even of the least of the furze-bushes on that heath’, said he, – ‘put behind every patch of shelter before us which could possibly conceal a crouching human form, – at least one – wounded soldier, and you will have a very clear idea of the field, supposing that soldier dead, as I saw it myself on the morning after the fight.’ ‘I suppose’, said I, ‘that the badly wounded men crept behind those bushes when they were struck to get out of fire?’ ‘Well, in part for that reason’, he said, ‘but I think only for a very small part, because I have noticed that it became a kind of instinct in a badly wounded man to creep away and crawl behind any little bit of shelter, and crouch, and die alone, like some of the lower animals.’ Gentlemen – Ladies and Gentlemen – that picture impressed my fancy very much at the time, and since then, when I have passed through any of the crowded byways of this vast London, or of any other great town or city, I have hoped within myself that it may not be in peace as it is in war, and that many of the striken among us may not retire to their miserable places of refuge – may not coil themselves up in their wretched places of shelter – and die in the midst of us, untended and alone. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the most prosperous and best cared for among men and women know full well that whosoever is hit in this great and continuing battle of life, howsoever vast the gap may be that is made, howsoever dear the companion may be that is down, we must close up the ranks, and march on, and fight out the fight. But it happens that the rank and file are many in number, and the chances against them are many and hard, and they necessarily die by thousands, when the captains and standard-bearers only die by ones and twos. How those privates live, and how they fight, and how they die, are questions of immense moment to the whole social army. If they were not felt so in these later times – if they were not felt honestly and thoroughly to be so – there can be no doubt that our own ranks would contain within themselves the certain elements of swift destruction and dissolution, and that we should need no enemy to ruin us, but our own misdeeds. Accordingly, ladies and gentlemen, and because people in general are, thank God! disposed to be humane, and to do right and to do good, this great capital teems with institutions for the relief of the indigent sick. They are not, it is true, by any means equal in number to the dire need – they are not equal in capacity to the heavy demands made upon them – but they are great institutions, nevertheless, many of them richly endowed, all of them nobly remarkable for the great medical science and skill which is freely placed at their command. Now, as I have to entreat your active interest in behalf of one of these, it may be right that I should try, always without depreciation or the shadow of disparagement of any of the others, to show in what its peculiar claims consist.  Happily for me, ladies and gentlemen, the task is an easy one. The distinguishing character of the Royal Free Hospital is amply expressed in its simple name. It is a free hospital, no recommendation is needed by the suffering creature who seeks admission; no letter from a governor or a subscriber has with difficulty to be hunted out. ‘Look at me, look at me; I am sick, I am poor, I am helpless, I am forlorn.’ Those are the patient’s credentials. Is there anybody here – is there anybody anywhere knowing that fact, whose fireside on a bleak winter night would not be the brighter and warmer for the reflection that he had done something towards the maintenance of that hospital which afforded such an easy and accessible refuge? Is there a single court or alley in that great maze of courts and alleys which now intervenes between us and the hospital itself, that does not contain at this moment some pain-worn creature to whom, as we are sitting at these abundant tables, that hospital would be a haven of refuge and a dawn of hope? Yes; but consider how many pain-worn creatures there are within that space – consider how many crowded courts and alleys – consider how much wretchedness, distress, disease, and accident; and yet this hospital, which might be made to prove so extensively serviceable, has this night not quite 100 beds to meet the whole of this demand. Ladies and gentlemen, though its sphere of action is so large, and though the demands upon its resources are so enormous, that its in- and out- patients amounted last year, I think, to no fewer than 30,000, it has at this moment not quite 100 beds. That is the worst of the case looked steadily in the face. And it is at first sight so disheartening and so dismaying, that I admit it would justify the despondent in saying, ‘This is a hopeless case, beyond our reach’, if it were not for the very encouraging statement that I can set against it. And it is briefly this. The hospital has for some years past been paying for its unusually commodious premises an annual rental of £200. Now, it occurred to one of its most valuable supporters, a gentleman who is present, and who I am proud to call my friend, a gentleman of great business knowledge, of great influence, of great charity, and of great energy – Mr. George Moore, that by an appeal to the munificence and liberality of the bankers and merchants of the city of London, a sufficient sum might be raised to purchase these premises. Well, ladies and gentlemen, although this appeal was made at the time of the prevalence of the Lancashire distress, and although many other circumstances combined against success attending such an effort – although the sum of money was so large that it had to be counted not by hundreds, but by thousands of pounds – although in simple numbers it amounted to £6,000, that gentleman’s efforts have already produced £4,000, and I most sincerely and earnestly hope that when the results of this night’s proceedings shall be declared by the treasurer, this meeting will be able to regard the hospital as henceforth and for ever saved that annual rent-charge, and as established on its own unencumbered property. The meeting may rest satisfied that the hospital is otherwise unencumbered and free from debt, and consequently this meeting will dissolve with the assurance that every shilling subscribed to the hospital fund will go straight to the advancement of its objects, and to the alleviation of pain and misery. But the hopefulness of the case, ladies and gentlemen, does not stop here. I have spoken of the hospital being a commodious building. I have made it my business to see that building, and to go over, I believe, every foot of it. It contains at this moment 130 beds, all of which could be filled if the income admitted that extension; and not only this, but it contains ample area, excellent light, cheerful galleries, capable of holding many more beds. And it is to be particularly observed that the more the capabilities of the house are brought into action, the less will be the expense attendant upon them, as the staff and plant would not need to be increased in anything like the proportion of patients; and as the building would not need to be increased at all, it indubitably follows that the larger the number received and relieved, the smaller must be the individual cost. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if I were to speak for an hour by the clock – which, happily for you, I have not the slightest intention to do – I should only weaken this strong, plain statement of facts: I could but surround it with flourishes, which, like the writing-master’s flourishes, would only obscure the text. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a sad reflection to know that in this densely-crowded city, rife with diseases, and with every casualty that can possibly befall the labouring man, this hospital has only an income sufficient to shelter and relieve 100 in-patients. This is no case of a Château en Espagne – a castle in the air – a hospital of good intentions that may or may not be built some day of fragments rescued from the infernal pavement. There it stands in solid bricks and mortar. It is as real as the poor suffering creature who lies at your feet at the door-step, as you pass home in the dark. The means of assuaging the suffering is at hand if the public will only supply the requisite funds. There was never so strong or so hopeful a cause. I believe that there are in this great town hundreds of well-disposed people so struck to the heart by the spectacles which the streets of this great city present, and still more by the dreadful spectacles they hide – they would gladly do anything to set those things right if they knew how. In its extent and degree this is how. Set up and maintain 500 beds, and it is positively certain that five times 5,000 human creatures will have laid their wretched heads upon them to recover or to die, within five years. Oh! ladies and gentlemen. I cannot but think, in speaking of this hospital today, how little the poor need to be done for them, when all is said and done. I have spoken of beds. When we talk of beds we think of a well-appointed and long-established home – we think of a luxurious room, grown to be an old and dear companion – we think, perhaps, of a number of pretty rooms surrounding it, where we have watched our children sleeping from their cradles upward. The hospital bed is a poor little frame of iron, some four feet wide, in a great bare ward the patients never saw before – a little space not much larger than a grave, in a long perspective of unrest and pain. But to the body stretched upon that little bed, come the ready hand, the soothing touch, the knowledge that can relieve pain within that suffering body; and to the softened mind within it come, at the best time, the words of the Great Friend of the sick in body, and the sick in spirit, who never raised His hand upon earth except to heal. Ladies and gentlemen, for His sake remember – for God’s sake remember – these are the things that evoke the gratitude of the sick poor; these are the things which do men lasting good – these are the blessings we can bestow upon them, at so little cost to ourselves, and by which, after all, we bridge across that great gulf between their beds and ours as we all tend to that common road on which we must be equal travellers at last. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink, ‘Prosperity to the Royal Free Hospital’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Royal Free Hospital Anniversary Description An account of the resource Speech at the Royal Free Hospital Anniversary (6 May 1863). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1863-05-06 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1863-05-06_Speech_Royal-Free-Hospital-Anniversary Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Royal Free Hospital Anniversary' (6 May 1863). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1863-05-06_Speech_Royal-Free-Hospital-Anniversary">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1863-05-06_Speech_Royal-Free-Hospital-Anniversary</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. I address you, Gentlemen, I hope, in that phraseology for the last time tonight, because I intend to dispense with so savage and unmeaning a conventionality, and shall commence with what I have to say concerning the great object which has called us together by using the phrase, Ladies and Gentlemen.  Ladies and Gentlemen, then, it happened some years ago, immediately after the close of the great Crimean War, that I was walking in the neighbourhood of Blackheath with a civilian just come home, who had greatly distinguished himself in connexion with that event. The conversation naturally turned on the incidents he had lately witnessed, and my companion remarked that the ground upon which we happened to be standing was sufficiently like the ground on which one of the most memorable of the Crimean battles was fought to give me a very good idea of the field. ‘Put behind every one, even of the least of the furze-bushes on that heath', said he, – ‘put behind every patch of shelter before us which could possibly conceal a crouching human form, – at least one – wounded soldier, and you will have a very clear idea of the field, supposing that soldier dead, as I saw it myself on the morning after the fight.’  ‘I suppose’, said I, ‘that the badly wounded men crept behind those bushes when they were struck to get out of fire?’ ‘Well, in part for that reason’, he said, 'but I think only for a very small part, because I have noticed that it became a kind of instinct in a badly wounded man to creep away and crawl behind any little bit of shelter, and crouch, and die alone, like some of the lower animals.’ Gentlemen – Ladies and Gentlemen – that picture impressed my fancy very much at the time, and since then, when I have passed through any of the crowded byways of this vast London, or of any other great town or city, I have hoped within myself that it may not be in peace as it is in war, and that many of the striken among us may not retire to their miserable places of refuge – may not coil themselves up in their wretched places of shelter – and die in the midst of us, untended and alone. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the most prosperous and best cared for among men and women know full well that whosoever is hit in this great and continuing battle of life, howsoever vast the gap may be that is made, howsoever dear the companion may be that is down, we must close up the ranks, and march on, and fight out the fight. But it happens that the rank and file are many in number, and the chances against them are many and hard, and they necessarily die by thousands, when the captains and standard-bearers only die by ones and twos. How those privates live, and how they fight, and how they die, are questions of immense moment to the whole social army. If they were not felt so in these later times – if they were not felt honestly and thoroughly to be so – there can be no doubt that our own ranks would contain within themselves the certain elements of swift destruction and dissolution, and that we should need no enemy to ruin us, but our own misdeeds. Accordingly, ladies and gentlemen, and because people in general are, thank God! disposed to be humane, and to do right and to do good, this great capital teems with institutions for the relief of the indigent sick. They are not, it is true, by any means equal in number to the dire need – they are not equal in capacity to the heavy demands made upon them – but they are great institutions, nevertheless, many of them richly endowed, all of them nobly remarkable for the great medical science and skill which is freely placed at their command. Now, as I have to entreat your active interest in behalf of one of these, it may be right that I should try, always without depreciation or the shadow of disparagement of any of the others, to show in what its peculiar claims consist.  Happily for me, ladies and gentlemen, the task is an easy one. The distinguishing character of the Royal Free Hospital is amply expressed in its simple name. It is a free hospital, no recommendation is needed by the suffering creature who seeks admission; no letter from a governor or a subscriber has with difficulty to be hunted out. ‘Look at me, look at me; I am sick, I am poor, I am helpless, I am forlorn.’ Those are the patient's credentials. Is there anybody here – is there anybody anywhere knowing that fact, whose fireside on a bleak winter night would not be the brighter and warmer for the reflection that he had done something towards the maintenance of that hospital which afforded such an easy and accessible refuge?  Is there a single court or alley in that great maze of courts and alleys which now intervenes between us and the hospital itself, that does not contain at this moment some pain-worn creature to whom, as we are sitting at these abundant tables, that hospital would be a haven of refuge and a dawn of hope? Yes; but consider how many pain-worn creatures there are within that space – consider how many crowded courts and alleys – consider how much wretchedness, distress, disease, and accident; and yet this hospital, which might be made to prove so extensively serviceable, has this night not quite 100 beds to meet the whole of this demand. Ladies and gentlemen, though its sphere of action is so large, and though the demands upon its resources are so enormous, that its in- and out- patients amounted last year, I think, to no fewer than 30,000, it has at this moment not quite 100 beds. That is the worst of the case looked steadily in the face. And it is at first sight so disheartening and so dismaying, that I admit it would justify the despondent in saying, ‘This is a hopeless case, beyond our reach’, if it were not for the very encouraging statement that I can set against it. And it is briefly this. The hospital has for some years past been paying for its unusually commodious premises an annual rental of £200. Now, it occurred to one of its most valuable supporters, a gentleman who is present, and who I am proud to call my friend, a gentleman of great business knowledge, of great influence, of great charity, and of great energy – Mr. George Moore, that by an appeal to the munificence and liberality of the bankers and merchants of the city of London, a sufficient sum might be raised to purchase these premises. Well, ladies and gentlemen, although this appeal was made at the time of the prevalence of the Lancashire distress, and although many other circumstances combined against success attending such an effort – although the sum of money was so large that it had to be counted not by hundreds, but by thousands of pounds – although in simple numbers it amounted to £6,000, that gentleman's efforts have already produced £4,000, and I most sincerely and earnestly hope that when the results of this night’s proceedings shall be declared by the treasurer, this meeting will be able to regard the hospital as henceforth and for ever saved that annual rent-charge, and as established on its own unencumbered property. The meeting may rest satisfied that the hospital is otherwise unencumbered and free from debt, and consequently this meeting will dissolve with the assurance that every shilling subscribed to the hospital fund will go straight to the advancement of its objects, and to the alleviation of pain and misery. But the hopefulness of the case, ladies and gentlemen, does not stop here. I have spoken of the hospital being a commodious building. I have made it my business to see that building, and to go over, I believe, every foot of it. It contains at this moment 130 beds, all of which could be filled if the income admitted that extension; and not only this, but it contains ample area, excellent light, cheerful galleries, capable of holding many more beds. And it is to be particularly observed that the more the capabilities of the house are brought into action, the less will be the expense attendant upon them, as the staff and plant would not need to be increased in anything like the proportion of patients; and as the building would not need to be increased at all, it indubitably follows that the larger the number received and relieved, the smaller must be the individual cost.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, if I were to speak for an hour by the clock – which, happily for you, I have not the slightest intention to do – I should only weaken this strong, plain statement of facts: I could but surround it with flourishes, which, like the writing-master's flourishes, would only obscure the text. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a sad reflection to know that in this densely-crowded city, rife with diseases, and with every casualty that can possibly befall the labouring man, this hospital has only an income sufficient to shelter and relieve 100 in-patients. This is no case of a Château en Espagne – a castle in the air –  a hospital of good intentions that may or may not be built some day of fragments rescued from the infernal pavement. There it stands in solid bricks and mortar. It is as real as the poor suffering creature who lies at your feet at the door-step, as you pass home in the dark. The means of assuaging the suffering is at hand if the public will only supply the requisite funds. There was never so strong or so hopeful a cause. I believe that there are in this great town hundreds of well-disposed people so struck to the heart by the spectacles which the streets of this great city present, and still more by the dreadful spectacles they hide – they would gladly do anything to set those things right if they knew how. In its extent and degree this is how. Set up and maintain 500 beds, and it is positively certain that five times 5,000 human creatures will have laid their wretched heads upon them to recover or to die, within five years.  Oh! ladies and gentlemen. I cannot but think, in speaking of this hospital today, how little the poor need to be done for them, when all is said and done. I have spoken of beds. When we talk of beds we think of a well-appointed and long-established home – we think of a luxurious room, grown to be an old and dear companion – we think, perhaps, of a number of pretty rooms surrounding it, where we have watched our children sleeping from their cradles upward. The hospital bed is a poor little frame of iron, some four feet wide, in a great bare ward the patients never saw before – a little space not much larger than a grave, in a long perspective of unrest and pain. But to the body stretched upon that little bed, come the ready hand, the soothing touch, the knowledge that can relieve pain within that suffering body; and to the softened mind within it come, at the best time, the words of the Great Friend of the sick in body, and the sick in spirit, who never raised His hand upon earth except to heal. Ladies and gentlemen, for His sake remember – for God's sake remember – these are the things that evoke the gratitude of the sick poor; these are the things which do men lasting good – these are the blessings we can bestow upon them, at so little cost to ourselves, and by which, after all, we bridge across that great gulf between their beds and ours as we all tend to that common road on which we must be equal travellers at last. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink, ‘Prosperity to the Royal Free Hospital’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Willis's Rooms Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18670605 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Gentlemen, Although we have not yet left behind us by the distance of nearly fifty years the time when one of the first literary authorities of this country insisted upon the speed of the fastest railway train that the legislature might disastrously sanction being expressly limited by Act of Parliament to ten miles an hour, yet it does somehow happen that this evening, and every evening, there are railway trains running pretty smoothly to Ireland and to Scotland at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Much as it was objected in its time, to vaccination, that it must have a tendency to impart to human children something of the nature of the cow, whereas I believe to this very time vaccinated children are found to be as easily defined from calves as they ever were, and certainly they have no cheapening influence on the price of veal; much as it was objected that chloroform was a contravention of the will of Providence, because it lessened providentially inflicted pain – which would be a reason for not rubbing your face if you had the toothache, or not rubbing your nose if it itched: so it was confidently predicted that the railway system, if anything so absurd could be productive of any result, would infallibly throw half the nation out of employment; whereas, you observe that the very cause and occasion of our coming here together tonight is, apart from the various tributary channels of occupation which it has opened out, that it has called into existence a specially and directly employed population of upwards of 200,000 persons. Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of 200,000 people engaged upon the various railways of the United Kingdom cannot be rich. Although their duties require great care and great exactness, and although our lives are every day, humanly speaking, in the hands of many of them, still for the mass of those places there will always be great competition, because they are not posts which require skilled workmen to hold. Wages, as you know very well, cannot be high where competition is great, and you also know very well that railway directors, in the bargains they make, and the salaries they pay, have to deal with the money of shareholders, to whom they are accountable. Thus it necessarily happens, that railway officers and servants are not remunerated, on the whole, by any means splendidly, and that they cannot hope in the ordinary course of things to do more than meet the ordinary wants and hazards of life. But it is to be observed that the hazards of life are in their case, by reason of the dangerous nature of their avocations, exceptionally great; so very great, I find, as to be stateable, on the authority of a Parliamentary paper, in the very startling round figures, that, whereas one railway traveller is killed in 8,000,000 of passengers, one railway servant is killed in in every 2,000 employed. Hence, from general, special, as well no doubt from prudential and benevolent considerations, there came to be established among railway officers and servants, nine years ago, this Railway Benevolent Association. I may suppose, therefore, as it was established nine years ago, that this is the ninth occasion of publishing from this chair the banns between this institution and the public. Nevertheless, I feel bound individually to do my duty the same as if it had never been done before, in stating to you briefly what the institution is, before asking you whether there is any just cause or impediment why these two parties – the institution and the public – should not be joined together in holy charity. As I understand the society, after having read its papers, its objects are fivefold. Firstly, to grant annuities, which, it is always to be observed, are paid out of the interest of invested capital, so that they may be always secure and safe – annual pensions of from £10 to £25, to distressed railway officers and servants incapacitated through age, sickness, or accident; secondly, to grant similar pensions to distressed widows; thirdly, to educate and maintain orphan children; fourthly to provide temporary relief for all classes until lasting relief can be guaranteed out of funds sufficiently large for the purpose; and lastly, to induce railway officers and servants to insure their lives in some well-established office, by subdividing the payments of the premiums into small periodical sums, and also by granting a reversionary bonus of ten per cent. on the amount insured, from the funds of the institution. Now this is the society we are met to assist – simple, sympathetic, practical, easy, sensible, unpretending. The number of its members, as I believe, largely and rapidly on the increase, is 12,000; the amount of its invested capital very nearly £15,000. It has done a world of good and a world of work in these first nine years of its life, and yet I am proud to say that the annual cost of its management to the institution less than ten per cent. And now, if you do not know all about it in a small compass, either I don’t know all about it myself, or the fault must be in my ‘packing’. One naturally passes from what the institution is and has done, to what it wants. Well, gentlemen, it wants to do more good, and it cannot possibly do more good until it has more money. It cannot safely, and therefore it cannot honourably, grant more pensions to deserving applicants until it grows richer, and it cannot grow rich enough for its laudable purpose of its own unaided self. The thing is absolutely impossible. The means of these railway officers and servants are far too limited. Even if they were helped to the utmost by the great railway companies, their means would still be too limited. Even if they were helped – as I hope they shortly will be – by some of the great corporations of this country, whom railways have done so much to enrich, their means would still be too limited. In a word, these railway officers and servants, on their road to a very humble and modest superannuation, can no more do without the help of the great public, than the great public, on their road from Torquay to Aberdeen, can do without them. Therefore, I desire to ask the public whether the servants of the great railways are not in fact their servants; whether they have not established, whether they do not every day establish, a reasonable claim upon the public’s liberal remembrance. Now, gentlemen, upon this point of the case there is a story once told me by a friend of mine, which seems to my mind to have a certain application. My friend was an American Sea Captain, and therefore it is quite unnecessary to say his story was a true one. He was Captain and part owner of a large American merchant liner. On a certain voyage out, in exquisite summer weather, he had for cabin passengers one beautiful young lady, and ten more or less beautiful young gentlemen. Light winds or dead calms prevailing, the voyage was slow, and before they had made half their distance, the ten young gentlemen were all madly in love with the beautiful young lady. They had all proposed to her, and bloodshed among the rivals seemed imminent, pending the young lady’s decision. In this extremity the beautiful young lady confided in my friend the Captain, who gave her this very discreet advice: ‘If your affections are disengaged, take the one whom you like the best, and settle the question.’ To which the beautiful young lady replied, ‘I cannot do that, because I like them all equally well.’ My friend the Captain, who was a man of resource, hit upon this ingenious expedient. Said he, ‘Tomorrow morning, at mid-day, when lunch is announced and they are all on deck, do you plunge bodily overboard, head foremost. I will be alongside in a boat to pick you up, and take the one of the ten who dashes to the rescue.’ The young lady highly approved of this, and did accordingly. But after she plunged in, nine of the ten more or less beautiful young gentlemen immediately plunged in after her. The tenth shed tears, and looked over the side, but remained on deck. They were all picked up together. When they musted dripping, on the deck, and stood there in a limp row, the beautiful young lady said to the Captain: ‘What am I to do now? See what a state they are in. How can I possibly choose one of the nine, when they are all equally wet?’ Then, with sudden inspiration, my friend the Captain said, ‘My dear, take the dry one!’ I am sorry to say she did so, and they lived happy ever after. Now gentlemen, in my application of this story, I exactly reverse my friend the Captain’s anecdote, and entreat the public in looking about to consider who are fit subjects for their bounty, to give their hands, with something in them, not to the dry but the wet ones, to the ready and dextrous servants constantly at their beck and call. And I would ask anyone with a doubt upon this subject, to consider what his experience of the railway servant is, from the time of his driving up to the departure platform, to the end of his journey. I know what mine is. Here he is, in velveteen or in a policeman’s dress, scaling cabs, storming carriages, finding lost articles by a kind of instinct, binding up lost umbrellas and walking sticks, wheeling trucks, counselling old ladies, with a wonderful interest in their affairs – mostly very complicated – and sticking labels upon all sorts of articles. I look around me. There he is again, in a station-master’s uniform, directing and overseeing, with the head of a general, and with the manners of a courteous host. There he is again in a guard’s belt and buckle, with a handsome figure, inspiring confidence in timid passengers. He is as gentle to the weak people as he is bold to the strong, and he has not a single hair in his beard that is not up to its work. I glide out of the station, there he is again with his flags in his hand. There he is again, in the open country, at a level crossing. There he is again at the entrance to the tunnel. At every station that I stop at, he is again as alert as usual. There he is again at the arrival platform, getting me out of the carriage as if I was his only charge upon earth. Now, is there not something in the alacrity, in the ready zeal, in the interest of these men that is not acknowledged, that is not expressed in their mere wages? May it not be agreeable to the public to consider that this institution gives them the means of enjoying that something not only without compromise of their independence, but greatly to their permanent advantage? And if your experience coincides with mine, and enables you to have this good feeling for, and to say a good word in regard of, railway servants with whom we do come into contact, surely it may induce us to have some little sympathy with those whom we do not – those signalmen for instance whom we rush past and do not distinctly see? And there are two sides to these points. If we take a human interest in them, will they not take a human interest in us? We shall not be merely the 9.30 or the 10.30 rushing by, but we shall be an instalment of the considerate public that is ready to lend a hand to the poor fellows in their risk of their lives; and we cannot fail to derive a benefit from the interest they will consequently take in us. I have, unconsciously, given you rather a long run, but I assure you that if you had done less on your part to get my steam up, I should have shut it off much sooner. Gentlemen, with a very hearty and real interest in the cause, and in the men, I beg you to drink ‘Prosperity to the Railway Benevolent Institution’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Railway Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival Description An account of the resource Speech at the Railway Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival (5 June 1867). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1867-06-05 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1867-06-05_Speech_Railway-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Railway Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival' (5 June 1867). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1867-06-05_Speech_Railway-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1867-06-05_Speech_Railway-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Gentlemen, Although we have not yet left behind us by the distance of nearly fifty years the time when one of the first literary authorities of this country insisted upon the speed of the fastest railway train that the legislature might disastrously sanction being expressly limited by Act of Parliament to ten miles an hour, yet it does somehow happen that this evening, and every evening, there are railway trains running pretty smoothly to Ireland and to Scotland at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Much as it was objected in its time, to vaccination, that it must have a tendency to impart to human children something of the nature of the cow, whereas I believe to this very time vaccinated children are found to be as easily defined from calves as they ever were, and certainly they have no cheapening influence on the price of veal; much as it was objected that chloroform was a contravention of the will of Providence, because it lessened providentially inflicted pain – which would be a reason for not rubbing your face if you had the toothache, or not rubbing your nose if it itched: so it was confidently predicted that the railway system, if anything so absurd could be productive of any result, would infallibly throw half the nation out of employment; whereas, you observe that the very cause and occasion of our coming here together tonight is, apart from the various tributary channels of occupation which it has opened out, that it has called into existence a specially and directly employed population of upwards of 200,000 persons. Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of 200,000 people engaged upon the various railways of the United Kingdom cannot be rich. Although their duties require great care and great exactness, and although our lives are every day, humanly speaking, in the hands of many of them, still for the mass of those places there will always be great competition, because they are not posts which require skilled workmen to hold. Wages, as you know very well, cannot be high where competition is great, and you also know very well that railway directors, in the bargains they make, and the salaries they pay, have to deal with the money of shareholders, to whom they are accountable. Thus it necessarily happens, that railway officers and servants are not remunerated, on the whole, by any means splendidly, and that they cannot hope in the ordinary course of things to do more than meet the ordinary wants and hazards of life. But it is to be observed that the hazards of life are in their case, by reason of the dangerous nature of their avocations, exceptionally great; so very great, I find, as to be stateable, on the authority of a Parliamentary paper, in the very startling round figures, that, whereas one railway traveller is killed in 8,000,000 of passengers, one railway servant is killed in in every 2,000 employed. Hence, from general, special, as well no doubt from prudential and benevolent considerations, there came to be established among railway officers and servants, nine years ago, this Railway Benevolent Association. I may suppose, therefore, as it was established nine years ago, that this is the ninth occasion of publishing from this chair the banns between this institution and the public. Nevertheless, I feel bound individually to do my duty the same as if it had never been done before, in stating to you briefly what the institution is, before asking you whether there is any just cause or impediment why these two parties – the institution and the public – should not be joined together in holy charity. As I understand the society, after having read its papers, its objects are fivefold. Firstly, to grant annuities, which, it is always to be observed, are paid out of the interest of invested capital, so that they may be always secure and safe – annual pensions of from £10 to £25, to distressed railway officers and servants incapacitated through age, sickness, or accident; secondly, to grant similar pensions to distressed widows; thirdly, to educate and maintain orphan children; fourthly to provide temporary relief for all classes until lasting relief can be guaranteed out of funds sufficiently large for the purpose; and lastly, to induce railway officers and servants to insure their lives in some well-established office, by subdividing the payments of the premiums into small periodical sums, and also by granting a reversionary bonus of ten per cent. on the amount insured, from the funds of the institution. Now this is the society we are met to assist – simple, sympathetic, practical, easy, sensible, unpretending. The number of its members, as I believe, largely and rapidly on the increase, is 12,000; the amount of its invested capital very nearly £15,000. It has done a world of good and a world of work in these first nine years of its life, and yet I am proud to say that the annual cost of its management to the institution less than ten per cent. And now, if you do not know all about it in a small compass, either I don’t know all about it myself, or the fault must be in my ‘packing’. One naturally passes from what the institution is and has done, to what it wants. Well, gentlemen, it wants to do more good, and it cannot possibly do more good until it has more money. It cannot safely, and therefore it cannot honourably, grant more pensions to deserving applicants until it grows richer, and it cannot grow rich enough for its laudable purpose of its own unaided self. The thing is absolutely impossible. The means of these railway officers and servants are far too limited. Even if they were helped to the utmost by the great railway companies, their means would still be too limited. Even if they were helped – as I hope they shortly will be – by some of the great corporations of this country, whom railways have done so much to enrich, their means would still be too limited. In a word, these railway officers and servants, on their road to a very humble and modest superannuation, can no more do without the help of the great public, than the great public, on their road from Torquay to Aberdeen, can do without them. Therefore, I desire to ask the public whether the servants of the great railways are not in fact their servants; whether they have not established, whether they do not every day establish, a reasonable claim upon the public’s liberal remembrance. Now, gentlemen, upon this point of the case there is a story once told me by a friend of mine, which seems to my mind to have a certain application. My friend was an American Sea Captain, and therefore it is quite unnecessary to say his story was a true one. He was Captain and part owner of a large American merchant liner. On a certain voyage out, in exquisite summer weather, he had for cabin passengers one beautiful young lady, and ten more or less beautiful young gentlemen. Light winds or dead calms prevailing, the voyage was slow, and before they had made half their distance, the ten young gentlemen were all madly in love with the beautiful young lady. They had all proposed to her, and bloodshed among the rivals seemed imminent, pending the young lady’s decision. In this extremity the beautiful young lady confided in my friend the Captain, who gave her this very discreet advice: ‘If your affections are disengaged, take the one whom you like the best, and settle the question.’ To which the beautiful young lady replied, ‘I cannot do that, because I like them all equally well.’ My friend the Captain, who was a man of resource, hit upon this ingenious expedient. Said he, ‘Tomorrow morning, at mid-day, when lunch is announced and they are all on deck, do you plunge bodily overboard, head foremost. I will be alongside in a boat to pick you up, and take the one of the ten who dashes to the rescue.’ The young lady highly approved of this, and did accordingly. But after she plunged in, nine of the ten more or less beautiful young gentlemen immediately plunged in after her. The tenth shed tears, and looked over the side, but remained on deck. They were all picked up together. When they musted dripping, on the deck, and stood there in a limp row, the beautiful young lady said to the Captain: ‘What am I to do now? See what a state they are in. How can I possibly choose one of the nine, when they are all equally wet?’ Then, with sudden inspiration, my friend the Captain said, ‘My dear, take the dry one!’ I am sorry to say she did so, and they lived happy ever after. Now gentlemen, in my application of this story, I exactly reverse my friend the Captain’s anecdote, and entreat the public in looking about to consider who are fit subjects for their bounty, to give their hands, with something in them, not to the dry but the wet ones, to the ready and dextrous servants constantly at their beck and call. And I would ask anyone with a doubt upon this subject, to consider what his experience of the railway servant is, from the time of his driving up to the departure platform, to the end of his journey. I know what mine is. Here he is, in velveteen or in a policeman’s dress, scaling cabs, storming carriages, finding lost articles by a kind of instinct, binding up lost umbrellas and walking sticks, wheeling trucks, counselling old ladies, with a wonderful interest in their affairs – mostly very complicated – and sticking labels upon all sorts of articles. I look around me. There he is again, in a station-master’s uniform, directing and overseeing, with the head of a general, and with the manners of a courteous host. There he is again in a guard’s belt and buckle, with a handsome figure, inspiring confidence in timid passengers. He is as gentle to the weak people as he is bold to the strong, and he has not a single hair in his beard that is not up to its work. I glide out of the station, there he is again with his flags in his hand. There he is again, in the open country, at a level crossing. There he is again at the entrance to the tunnel. At every station that I stop at, he is again as alert as usual. There he is again at the arrival platform, getting me out of the carriage as if I was his only charge upon earth. Now, is there not something in the alacrity, in the ready zeal, in the interest of these men that is not acknowledged, that is not expressed in their mere wages? May it not be agreeable to the public to consider that this institution gives them the means of enjoying that something not only without compromise of their independence, but greatly to their permanent advantage? And if your experience coincides with mine, and enables you to have this good feeling for, and to say a good word in regard of, railway servants with whom we do come into contact, surely it may induce us to have some little sympathy with those whom we do not – those signalmen for instance whom we rush past and do not distinctly see? And there are two sides to these points. If we take a human interest in them, will they not take a human interest in us? We shall not be merely the 9.30 or the 10.30 rushing by, but we shall be an instalment of the considerate public that is ready to lend a hand to the poor fellows in their risk of their lives; and we cannot fail to derive a benefit from the interest they will consequently take in us. I have, unconsciously, given you rather a long run, but I assure you that if you had done less on your part to get my steam up, I should have shut it off much sooner. Gentlemen, with a very hearty and real interest in the cause, and in the men, I beg you to drink ‘Prosperity to the Railway Benevolent Institution’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Willis's Rooms Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18640412 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Gentlemen, On all other occasions of this nature ‘The Army and Navy’ have but to be named, and they are sure of evoking the general admiration and respect. But they have a special interest for a school of medicine, inasmuch as the medical officers of those two services, representing equally, as they do, the noblest studies of peace and the noblest humanities of war, are among their brightest ornaments. Further it may be observed that the better our public institutions for the recovery of the sick, so much the better and stouter is the stock of which our soldiers and sailors are made. This latter remark will apply with equal strength, though in a less degree, to that fine-spirited body, the Volunteers, of whose Muscular Christianity I avow myself a devoted admirer – holding, as I do, that muscular development of anything that is good is strong presumptive proof of soundness of condition. If the various corps of Volunteers had been enrolled in the ‘school-days’ of a certain youth with whom I believe we have all made acquaintance, I have little doubt that I should have found at the head of their list the name and title of Lieut.-Col. Tom Brown. As I have searched the list in vain for that name and title, and as I cannot, therefore. have the pleasure of coupling that name with the toast, I will, with your permission, substitute the name of Lieut.-Col. Thomas Hughes. Gentlemen, My first remembrance of a certain spot in northwestern London, which I have reason for recalling, is of a very un-inviting piece of wet waste ground, and a miserable pool of water; it looked rather like a barbarous place of execution, with its poles and cross-poles erected for the beating of carpets; and it was overrun with nettles and dock-weed. Associated with this place was a story, captivating enough to my boyish imagination, concerning the ‘Field of the Forty Footsteps’; a part of the rank place so called, as I remember – and I remember it very distinctly now – because of a duel that was traditionally supposed to have been fought there between two brothers, one of whom, advancing upon the other certain paces as he retreated, to wound him mortally, the grass got trodden down by forty dreadful footsteps, upon which the grass grew never more. I remember to have gone, accompanied by an adventurous young Englishman of my own age, about eleven, with whom I had certain designs to seek my fortune in the neighbourhood of the Spanish Main, as soon as we should have accumulated forty shillings each and a rifle, which we never did, I remember to have gone, accompanied by this young pirate, to inspect this ground. I also remember to have counted forty places on which the grass indubitably did not grow – though whether grass grew anywhere thereabouts for a few feet together, without being chequered with bald patches I will not say. This ‘Field of Forty Footsteps’ was close to the site on which was afterwards built University College, and formed, generally, a part of the open space of ground on which now stands University College Hospital. On looking over the papers this morning issued by this society in illustration of the usefulness of its charity, I found the old story so strangely changed, and yet with so odd a preservation of the number four in it, that this field has become the field of 440,000 odd footsteps. For I found that it is recorded here that 440,000 odd sick and weary creatures – brothers too – had taken refuge in the hospital since its first foundation, thirty years ago. And so humanely has the old unnatural story become transformed – much as the brutes in other stories become transformed into men – that the struggle through all those years has been against death, and for the restoration of all those many brethren to life, enjoyment, industry, and usefulness. Gentlemen, you already know, as well as I do, that it is the cause of this Hospital that I have now to present to you, and that it is its claim upon the gratitude and pride of all London – I will go so far as to say of all England – that I have to urge upon your generosity. That it is much in want, sorely in need of help, I think I can make plain by the aid of as few figures as I have ever had to deal with on an occasion of this nature. The annual expenditure of the hospital is £6,000. Its annual income is not nearly half the money. And even of that insufficient income, almost one-halt is derived from the noble generosity of its medical staff, who relinquish every year to the charity all the fees paid by the students for clinical instruction. Thus there has to be got together every year, by the zealous administrators of the Hospital, no less a sum than £4,000 to supply the deficiency; and, emphatically, God knows how they do it! But that it would seem that well-gotten money must sometimes come in, as people say ill-gotten money always goes out – no man can tell how – it would be absolutely impossible that this charity should continue to exist. Add that there is a debt upon it, amounting in round numbers to the whole of a year’s expenditure, and I believe that I have stated the case of its need quite as fully as if I had taken the whole night to state it in. Of course I know very well that the mere statement of need in such a case is no claim upon the public help. I know very well, as you all do here, and as the public outside do, that a very bad institution may be in want. Therefore I will proceed, as the main part of my duty, to the question of desert. I will assume that everybody here has sufficiently considered what an immense amount of good may be done through such a means with a little money. I will assume that everybody here has reflected how narrow, how small, how insignificant is the space occupied by a single hospital-bed, yet over what a breadth of misery its relief and rest extend. So, passing at once to the claims of this institution, in its specialities on public support and aid, I think we may take them, for our present purpose, to be three. The first is the least, because comprised within the narrowest limits, but it is, nevertheless, of immense importance to the charity. The Hospital is founded in a poor district, where no such institution previously existed, and which suddenly received a great access of population. That it is of unspeakable advantage to such a population cannot be doubted, as the local clergy and others best acquainted with the people there abundantly testify. But it is to be observed, that it is not founded in a specially and exclusively poor neighbourhood such as we may find in the eastern districts of London, but exists in a quarter in which there are many large houses, which are inhabited by people who are extremely well-to-do. If the occupants of those houses would subscribe only one guinea a year each to the Hospital, they would render to it incalculable assistance. And, surely, it has this special claim upon them, that if any workman or servant in their employment received an injury, the sufferer would be carried to this Hospital straight, as a matter of course, and would there have the best assistance; while the restoration of such sufferers to their suspended labour as speedily as possible must diminish the local rates. The second speciality is a different one, because it appeals not only to the gratitude and support of north-western London, but to that of the whole country. I may take it for granted, for it is undoubted, that the establishment of the University College school of medicine has been of immense service to the cause of medical education all over England. I may venture to say that this Hospital has been in its time a school for schools, and a hospital for hospitals, and that it has discharged cured many obstinate cases of almost chronic obstruction and general debility. That herein it has conferred immense benefit upon the community, and that the community in supporting it are only supporting their best interests, I suppose no reasonable creature can doubt. The third speciality is a wider one still, and on that I lay even higher stress. And it is this – highly important in this time, and in all times. University College Hospital represents, if I understand it, the largest liberality of opinion. It excludes no one – patient, student, doctor, surgeon, nurse – because of religious creed. It represents the completest relinquishment of claims to coerce the judgement or conscience of any human being. It exacts professions from no one. It may hold, for anything I know, that the Lady Britannia, like the Lady Desdemona, ‘doth protest too much’. But, in any case, it gives all that to the winds, to be blown whithersoever it may; perhaps to take refuge at last in the Hospital for Incurables. I say that, in consistently doing this, it renders, and has always rendered, an unspeakable service, by its influence and example, not only to the cause of medical education, but to the cause of general education. I feel perfectly convinced that the high reputation attained by this Hospital has been of immense service in calling public attention to University College. I cannot separate it in my own mind from the establishment of the London University, and the granting of degrees there. I will go further, and say that I think it no great stress of imagination to pursue the wholesome influences of this place even away into the Queen’s Colleges of Ireland, and at home again into the rubbed eyes and quickened steps of those famous old universities that we all admire. Gentlemen, for all these reasons combined, I confidently submit to you that this University College Hospital holds a distinguished and exceptional position, and one that has been obtained in an equal degree by no other similar institution, however unimpeachable its benevolence. And I would beg to remind you of this fact, that it would not be easy to draw a line anywhere across the map of the world, and say, ‘This is the geographical line beyond which this influence has not been extended.’ Among the students of University College, there have been Parsees, and other native youths from the far East, who have been enabled to obtain medical education there owing to the absence of religious tests, and who have carried home to their countrymen the blessings derivable from their skill and knowledge. This liberality has been so appreciated by their own countrymen, that in one instance, a great Parsee merchant presented the Hospital with a liberal donation, expressly to mark his high estimation of that liberality. Also, among the students of University College there have been, as I perceive by looking at its records, men now distinguished in Calcutta, in Bombay, and elsewhere, for their attainments in botanical science, in medical science, and in natural science of all kinds. Also, I am delighted to find that there has been among the students of the University College Hospital, one gentlemen, at all events, who has wandered so far afield as the Celestial Empire, and has established there a hospital for the succour of the native Chinese. Now, surely it is impossible to suppose that this seed can ever have fallen upon absolutely barren ground. Surely it is impossible to suppose that those things can fail to have suggested to the man a little above the average – the man everywhere to be found, however high his cheek-bones, however long his pigtail, however lithe his figure, however brown his colour, however complicated the folds of his turban, however sacred his river, of however intolerant his caste – it is impossible to suppose that those things can have failed to have suggested to such a man, that there must be something good in the Liberty which secures such results, and in that comprehensive religion, which, without distinction of creed or faith, permits this to be done. Hence, gentlemen, it is that I present to you this Hospital for your serious consideration and your liberal support, as a Hospital your serious consideration and your liberal support, as a Hospital whose salutary influences extend, and always have extended, far beyond its walls; as a Hospital that does good to the sound, no less than to the sick; as an institution that consistently enforces – alike in the public principles on which it takes its quiet stand, and in its daily practice at the bedsides of its poor patients – that practice is infinitely better than any amount of professions, and that those who have good gifts in charge cannot possibly make a better use of them, than by diffusing them unconditionally among the whole human family. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to University College Hospital’. Before I propose the toast which I have now in charge, allow me to say that I listened with great pleasure to Mr. Jaffray’s excellent speech, until my mind seemed to misgive me that he was disposed to include me in his catalogue of ‘powerful pumps’. I sincerely hope that you will bear testimony to this not being the case, and that you will prove it by coming to the surface with your money without this species of persuasion. Now gentlemen, if anyone expressed a doubt to me about the high position of University College Hospital, or hesitated to place unbounded confidence in its treatment of the sick, I should content myself by simply referring him to its list of medical officers. Of the disinterestedness and generosity of those medical gentlemen I have already spoken. To their patience, to their unwearied attention, skill, humanity, and kindness, there are better witnesses than I am, and their name is Legion. No patient passes through this Hospital but carries out of doors his or her tale of pain relieved, disease cured, or casualty remedied, through the agency of these gentlemen. I need not remark to this company that these services, rendered without price, are above all price: and that these gentlemen are not only distinguished in the foremost ranks of their calling, but are foremost among the most generous members of the most generous profession known to civilization. I have been requested by the managers of this dinner to couple with the toast of the medical officers, that benevolent body of Ladies who now act as nurses in the Hospital; and I have particularly been requested to convey to you the earnest assurance of the managers, that the vigilance, patience, and tenderness of those Ladies, combined with their undoubted qualification for the duties they have undertaken, have given to those who have had the best opportunity of observing them, the warmest satisfaction. Also, that they have in all things most honourably observed their pledge never in the least to interfere with the religious opinions of the patients. Gentlemen, I propose to you to drink ‘The Medical Officers of the Hospital, and the Ladies of All Saints’ Home, coupled with the name of Dr. Reynolds’. I have next to propose ‘The health of the Chaplain of the Hospital, the Rev. Dr. Stebbing’. I hope that I may be excused for saying that it is personally interesting to me to have an old fellow labourer in literature in so distinguished and responsible a position. Through more years than one cares to count at a festival, I have known Dr. Stebbing to have enriched the sounder literature of the time, with various contributions strongly expressive of his ability, his industry, and his learning. And so various has he been, that I should bestow here a word of eulogy upon his verse if I were not immediately jostled by the recollection of his prose papers in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, and should recall the merits of his continuation of the History of the Church, if I were not divided between that and the merits of his Italian Poets. But sure I am, gentlemen, that the influence of these attainments upon so modest a nature and so good a man, must always tend to the advantage of his charges in the Hospital, and as I observe the wards themselves to have been recently brightened and humanized by some infusion of the arts, so I feel convinced that their occupants, who are the subjects of the Chaplain’s gentle ministration, never find it the less persuasive or the less consolatory, because of the graces of his mind. I immediately accept the duty suggested by my reverend friend, as one who has been a student, as one who knows the aspirations of a young and striving man, as one who has felt them, accompanied with that poverty which is the lot of many young men, as one who has attained to that success which is the lot of few. I beg to propose to you the health of the young and striving body, ‘The Students of the University College Hospital’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource University College Hospital Anniversary Dinner Description An account of the resource Speech at the University College Hospital Anniversary Dinner (12 April 1864). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1864-04-12 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1864-04-12_Speech_University-College-Hospital-Anniversary-Dinner Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the University College Hospital Anniversary Dinner' (12 April 1864). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1864-04-12_Speech_University-College-Hospital-Anniversary-Dinner">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1864-04-12_Speech_University-College-Hospital-Anniversary-Dinner</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Gentlemen, On all other occasions of this nature ‘The Army and Navy’ have but to be named, and they are sure of evoking the general admiration and respect. But they have a special interest for a school of medicine, inasmuch as the medical officers of those two services, representing equally, as they do, the noblest studies of peace and the noblest humanities of war, are among their brightest ornaments. Further it may be observed that the better our public institutions for the recovery of the sick, so much the better and stouter is the stock of which our soldiers and sailors are made. This latter remark will apply with equal strength, though in a less degree, to that fine-spirited body, the Volunteers, of whose Muscular Christianity I avow myself a devoted admirer – holding, as I do, that muscular development of anything that is good is strong presumptive proof of soundness of condition. If the various corps of Volunteers had been enrolled in the ‘school-days’ of a certain youth with whom I believe we have all made acquaintance, I have little doubt that I should have found at the head of their list the name and title of Lieut.-Col. Tom Brown. As I have searched the list in vain for that name and title, and as I cannot, therefore. have the pleasure of coupling that name with the toast, I will, with your permission, substitute the name of Lieut.-Col. Thomas Hughes.  Gentlemen, My first remembrance of a certain spot in northwestern London, which I have reason for recalling, is of a very un-inviting piece of wet waste ground, and a miserable pool of water; it looked rather like a barbarous place of execution, with its poles and cross-poles erected for the beating of carpets; and it was overrun with nettles and dock-weed. Associated with this place was a story, captivating enough to my boyish imagination, concerning the ‘Field of the Forty Footsteps’; a part of the rank place so called, as I remember – and I remember it very distinctly now – because of a duel that was traditionally supposed to have been fought there between two brothers, one of whom, advancing upon the other certain paces as he retreated, to wound him mortally, the grass got trodden down by forty dreadful footsteps, upon which the grass grew never more. I remember to have gone, accompanied by an adventurous young Englishman of my own age, about eleven, with whom I had certain designs to seek my fortune in the neighbourhood of the Spanish Main, as soon as we should have accumulated forty shillings each and a rifle, which we never did, I remember to have gone, accompanied by this young pirate, to inspect this ground. I also remember to have counted forty places on which the grass indubitably did not grow – though whether grass grew anywhere thereabouts for a few feet together, without being chequered with bald patches I will not say. This ‘Field of Forty Footsteps’ was close to the site on which was afterwards built University College, and formed, generally, a part of the open space of ground on which now stands University College Hospital. On looking over the papers this morning issued by this society in illustration of the usefulness of its charity, I found the old story so strangely changed, and yet with so odd a preservation of the number four in it, that this field has become the field of 440,000 odd footsteps. For I found that it is recorded here that 440,000 odd sick and weary creatures – brothers too – had taken refuge in the hospital since its first foundation, thirty years ago. And so humanely has the old unnatural story become transformed – much as the brutes in other stories become transformed into men – that the struggle through all those years has been against death, and for the restoration of all those many brethren to life, enjoyment, industry, and usefulness.   Gentlemen, you already know, as well as I do, that it is the cause of this Hospital that I have now to present to you, and that it is its claim upon the gratitude and pride of all London – I will go so far as to say of all England – that I have to urge upon your generosity. That it is much in want, sorely in need of help, I think I can make plain by the aid of as few figures as I have ever had to deal with on an occasion of this nature. The annual expenditure of the hospital is £6,000. Its annual income is not nearly half the money. And even of that insufficient income, almost one-halt is derived from the noble generosity of its medical staff, who relinquish every year to the charity all the fees paid by the students for clinical instruction. Thus there has to be got together every year, by the zealous administrators of the Hospital, no less a sum than £4,000 to supply the deficiency; and, emphatically, God knows how they do it! But that it would seem that well-gotten money must sometimes come in, as people say ill-gotten money always goes out – no man can tell how – it would be absolutely impossible that this charity should continue to exist. Add that there is a debt upon it, amounting in round numbers to the whole of a year’s expenditure, and I believe that I have stated the case of its need quite as fully as if I had taken the whole night to state it in. Of course I know very well that the mere statement of need in such a case is no claim upon the public help. I know very well, as you all do here, and as the public outside do, that a very bad institution may be in want. Therefore I will proceed, as the main part of my duty, to the question of desert. I will assume that everybody here has sufficiently considered what an immense amount of good may be done through such a means with a little money. I will assume that everybody here has reflected how narrow, how small, how insignificant is the space occupied by a single hospital-bed, yet over what a breadth of misery its relief and rest extend. So, passing at once to the claims of this institution, in its specialities on public support and aid, I think we may take them, for our present purpose, to be three. The first is the least, because comprised within the narrowest limits, but it is, nevertheless, of immense importance to the charity. The Hospital is founded in a poor district, where no such institution previously existed, and which suddenly received a great access of population. That it is of unspeakable advantage to such a population cannot be doubted, as the local clergy and others best acquainted with the people there abundantly testify. But it is to be observed, that it is not founded in a specially and exclusively poor neighbourhood such as we may find in the eastern districts of London, but exists in a quarter in which there are many large houses, which are inhabited by people who are extremely well-to-do. If the occupants of those houses would subscribe only one guinea a year each to the Hospital, they would render to it incalculable assistance. And, surely, it has this special claim upon them, that if any workman or servant in their employment received an injury, the sufferer would be carried to this Hospital straight, as a matter of course, and would there have the best assistance; while the restoration of such sufferers to their suspended labour as speedily as possible must diminish the local rates. The second speciality is a different one, because it appeals not only to the gratitude and support of north-western London, but to that of the whole country. I may take it for granted, for it is undoubted, that the establishment of the University College school of medicine has been of immense service to the cause of medical education all over England. I may venture to say that this Hospital has been in its time a school for schools, and a hospital for hospitals, and that it has discharged cured many obstinate cases of almost chronic obstruction and general debility. That herein it has conferred immense benefit upon the community, and that the community in supporting it are only supporting their best interests, I suppose no reasonable creature can doubt. The third speciality is a wider one still, and on that I lay even higher stress. And it is this – highly important in this time, and in all times. University College Hospital represents, if I understand it, the largest liberality of opinion. It excludes no one – patient, student, doctor, surgeon, nurse – because of religious creed. It represents the completest relinquishment of claims to coerce the judgement or conscience of any human being. It exacts professions from no one. It may hold, for anything I know, that the Lady Britannia, like the Lady Desdemona, ‘doth protest too much’. But, in any case, it gives all that to the winds, to be blown whithersoever it may; perhaps to take refuge at last in the Hospital for Incurables. I say that, in consistently doing this, it renders, and has always rendered, an unspeakable service, by its influence and example, not only to the cause of medical education, but to the cause of general education. I feel perfectly convinced that the high reputation attained by this Hospital has been of immense service in calling public attention to University College. I cannot separate it in my own mind from the establishment of the London University, and the granting of degrees there. I will go further, and say that I think it no great stress of imagination to pursue the wholesome influences of this place even away into the Queen’s Colleges of Ireland, and at home again into the rubbed eyes and quickened steps of those famous old universities that we all admire.  Gentlemen, for all these reasons combined, I confidently submit to you that this University College Hospital holds a distinguished and exceptional position, and one that has been obtained in an equal degree by no other similar institution, however unimpeachable its benevolence. And I would beg to remind you of this fact, that it would not be easy to draw a line anywhere across the map of the world, and say, ‘This is the geographical line beyond which this influence has not been extended.’ Among the students of University College, there have been Parsees, and other native youths from the far East, who have been enabled to obtain medical education there owing to the absence of religious tests, and who have carried home to their countrymen the blessings derivable from their skill and knowledge. This liberality has been so appreciated by their own countrymen, that in one instance, a great Parsee merchant presented the Hospital with a liberal donation, expressly to mark his high estimation of that liberality. Also, among the students of University College there have been, as I perceive by looking at its records, men now distinguished in Calcutta, in Bombay, and elsewhere, for their attainments in botanical science, in medical science, and in natural science of all kinds. Also, I am delighted to find that there has been among the students of the University College Hospital, one gentlemen, at all events, who has wandered so far afield as the Celestial Empire, and has established there a hospital for the succour of the native Chinese. Now, surely it is impossible to suppose that this seed can ever have fallen upon absolutely barren ground. Surely it is impossible to suppose that those things can fail to have suggested to the man a little above the average –  the man everywhere to be found, however high his cheek-bones, however long his pigtail, however lithe his figure, however brown his colour, however complicated the folds of his turban, however sacred his river, of however intolerant his caste – it is impossible to suppose that those things can have failed to have suggested to such a man, that there must be something good in the Liberty which secures such results, and in that comprehensive religion, which, without distinction of creed or faith, permits this to be done. Hence, gentlemen, it is that I present to you this Hospital for your serious consideration and your liberal support, as a Hospital your serious consideration and your liberal support, as a Hospital whose salutary influences extend, and always have extended, far beyond its walls; as a Hospital that does good to the sound, no less than to the sick; as an institution that consistently enforces – alike in the public principles on which it takes its quiet stand, and in its daily practice at the bedsides of its poor patients –  that practice is infinitely better than any amount of professions, and that those who have good gifts in charge cannot possibly make a better use of them, than by diffusing them unconditionally among the whole human family. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to University College Hospital’. Before I propose the toast which I have now in charge, allow me to say that I listened with great pleasure to Mr. Jaffray’s excellent speech, until my mind seemed to misgive me that he was disposed to include me in his catalogue of ‘powerful pumps’. I sincerely hope that you will bear testimony to this not being the case, and that you will prove it by coming to the surface with your money without this species of persuasion.  Now gentlemen, if anyone expressed a doubt to me about the high position of University College Hospital, or hesitated to place unbounded confidence in its treatment of the sick, I should content myself by simply referring him to its list of medical officers. Of the disinterestedness and generosity of those medical gentlemen I have already spoken. To their patience, to their unwearied attention, skill, humanity, and kindness, there are better witnesses than I am, and their name is Legion. No patient passes through this Hospital but carries out of doors his or her tale of pain relieved, disease cured, or casualty remedied, through the agency of these gentlemen. I need not remark to this company that these services, rendered without price, are above all price: and that these gentlemen are not only distinguished in the foremost ranks of their calling, but are foremost among the most generous members of the most generous profession known to civilization. I have been requested by the managers of this dinner to couple with the toast of the medical officers, that benevolent body of Ladies who now act as nurses in the Hospital; and I have particularly been requested to convey to you the earnest assurance of the managers, that the vigilance, patience, and tenderness of those Ladies, combined with their undoubted qualification for the duties they have undertaken, have given to those who have had the best opportunity of observing them, the warmest satisfaction. Also, that they have in all things most honourably observed their pledge never in the least to interfere with the religious opinions of the patients. Gentlemen, I propose to you to drink ‘The Medical Officers of the Hospital, and the Ladies of All Saints’ Home, coupled with the name of Dr. Reynolds’.  I have next to propose ‘The health of the Chaplain of the Hospital, the Rev. Dr. Stebbing’. I hope that I may be excused for saying that it is personally interesting to me to have an old fellow labourer in literature in so distinguished and responsible a position. Through more years than one cares to count at a festival, I have known Dr. Stebbing to have enriched the sounder literature of the time, with various contributions strongly expressive of his ability, his industry, and his learning. And so various has he been, that I should bestow here a word of eulogy upon his verse if I were not immediately jostled by the recollection of his prose papers in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, and should recall the merits of his continuation of the History of the Church, if I were not divided between that and the merits of his Italian Poets. But sure I am, gentlemen, that the influence of these attainments upon so modest a nature and so good a man, must always tend to the advantage of his charges in the Hospital, and as I observe the wards themselves to have been recently brightened and humanized by some infusion of the arts, so I feel convinced that their occupants, who are the subjects of the Chaplain’s gentle ministration, never find it the less persuasive or the less consolatory, because of the graces of his mind. I immediately accept the duty suggested by my reverend friend, as one who has been a student, as one who knows the aspirations of a young and striving man, as one who has felt them, accompanied with that poverty which is the lot of many young men, as one who has attained to that success which is the lot of few. I beg to propose to you the health of the young and striving body, ‘The Students of the University College Hospital’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Adelphi Theatre Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18640511 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Ladies and Gentlemen, Fortunately for me, and fortunately for you, it is the duty of the chairman on an occasion of this nature, to be very careful that he does not anticipate those speakers who come after him. Like Falstaff, with a considerable difference, he has to be the cause of speaking in others. It is rather his duty to sit and hear speeches with exemplary attention than to stand up and make them; so I shall confine myself, in opening these proceedings as your business official, to as plain and short an exposition as I can possibly give you of the reasons why we come together. First of all I will take leave to remark that we do not come together in commemoration of Shakespeare. We have nothing to do with any commemoration, except that we are of course humble worshippers of that mighty genius, and that we propose by-and-by to take his name, but by no means to take it in vain. If, however, the Tercentenary celebration were a hundred years hence, or a hundred years past, we should still be pursuing precisely the same object, though we could not pursue it under precisely the same circumstances. Well, then, the facts are these. – There is, as you know, in existence an admirable institution called the Royal Dramatic College, which is a place of honourable rest and repose for veterans in the dramatic art. The charter of this college, which dates some five or six years back, expressly provides for the establishment of schools in connexion with it; and I may venture to add that this feature of the scheme, when it was explained to him, was especially interesting to his Royal Highness the late Prince Consort, who hailed it as evidence of the desire of the promoters to look forward as well as to look back; to found educational establishments for the rising generation, as well as to establish a harbour of refuge for the generation going out, or at least having their faces turned towards the setting sun. The leading members of the dramatic art, applying themselves first to the more pressing necessity of the two, set themselves to work on the construction of their harbour of refuge, and this they did with the zeal, energy, good-will, and good faith that always honourably distinguish them in their efforts to help one another. Those efforts were very powerfully aided by the respected gentleman under whose roof we are assembled, and who, I hope, may be only half as glad of seeing me on these boards as I always am to see him there. With such energy and determination did Mr. Webster and his brothers and sisters in art proceed with their work, that at this present time all the dwelling-houses of the Royal Dramatic College are built, completely furnished, fitted with every appliance, and many of them inhabited. The central hall of the College is built, the grounds are beautifully planned and laid out, and the estate has become the nucleus of a prosperous neighbourhood. This much achieved, Mr. Webster was revolving in his mind how he should next proceed towards the establishment of the schools when, this Tercentenary celebration being in hand, it occurred to him to represent to the National Shakespeare Committee their just and reasonable claim to participate in the results of any subscription for a monument to Shakespeare. He represented to the committee that the social recognition and elevation of the followers of Shakespeare’s own art, through the education of their children, was surely a monument worthy even of that great name. He urged upon the committee that it was certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the public good sense would immediately appreciate and approve. This claim the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to understand that if the committee had never been in existence, if the Tercentenary celebration had never been attempted, those schools, as a design anterior to both, would still have solicited public support. Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in fact, to found a new self-supporting public school; with this additional feature, that it is to be available for both sexes. This, of course, presupposes two separate distinct schools. As these schools are to be built on land belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be from the first no charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important head. It is, in short, proposed simply to establish a new self-supporting public school, in a rapidly increasing neighbour-hood, where there is a large and fast accumulating middle-class population, and where property in land is fast rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project is a project of the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the schools are to be built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give the followers of Shakespeare’s art a prominent place in them. With this view, it is confidently believed that the public will endow a foundation, say, for forty foundation scholars – say, twenty girls and twenty boys – who shall always receive their education gratuitously, and who shall always be the children of actors, actresses, or dramatic writers. This school, you will understand, is to be equal to the best existing public school. It is to be made to impart a sound, liberal, comprehensive education, and it is to address the whole great middle class at least as freely, as widely, and as cheaply as any existing public school. Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design. There are foundation scholars at Eton, foundation scholars at most or all our old schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a noble part of our standard national literature, and in remembrance of a great humanizing art, will do this thing for these children, it will at the same time be doing a wise and good thing for itself, and will unquestionably find its account in it. Taking this view of the case – and I cannot be satisfied to take any lower one – I cannot make a sorry face about ‘the poor player’. I think it is a term very much misused and very little understood, being I venture to say appropriated in a wrong sense by the players themselves. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can only present the player to you exceptionally in this wise: that he follows a peculiar and precarious vocation, a vocation very rarely affording the means of accumulating money: that that vocation must, from the nature of things, have in it many undistinguished men and women to one distinguished one; that it is not a vocation the exerciser of which can profit by the labours of others, but in which he must earn every loaf of his bread in his own person, with the aid of his own face, his own limbs, his own voice, his own memory, and his own life and spirits; and these failing, he fails. Surely this is reason enough to render him some little help in opening for his children their paths through life. I say their paths advisedly, because it is not often found, except under the pressure of necessity, or where there is strong hereditary talent – which is always an exceptional case – that the children of actors and actresses take to the stage. Persons, therefore, need not in the least fear that by helping to endow these schools they would help to overstock the dramatic market. They would do directly the reverse, for they would divert into channels of public distinction and usefulness those good qualities which would otherwise languish in that market’s over rich superabundance. This project has received the support of the head of the most popular of our English public schools. On the committee stands the name of that eminent scholar and gentleman, the Provost of Eton. You justly admire this liberal spirit, and your admiration – which I cordially share – brings me naturally to what I wish to say, that I believe there is not in England any institution so socially liberal as a public school. It has been called a little cosmos of life outside, and I think it is so, with the exception of one of life’s worst foibles – for, as far as I know, nowhere in this country is there so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, to mere position, to mere riches as in a public school. A boy there is always what his abilities or his personal qualities make him. We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools, I apprehend there can be no kind of question. It has happened in these latter times that objection has been made to children of dramatic artists in certain little snivelling private schools, but in public schools never. Therefore, I hold that the actors are wise, and gratefully wise, in recognizing the capacious liberality of a public school, in seeking not a little hole-and-corner place of education for their children exclusively, but in addressing the whole of the great middle class, and proposing to them to come and join them, the actors, on their own property, in a public school, in a part of the country where no such advantage is now to be found. I have now done. The attempt has been a very timid one. I have endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or, rather, like the possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed condition. I have laid a trifle of timber here and there, and grubbed up a little brushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think I can descry in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for the courtesy with which you have heard me, and not at all doubting that we shall lay a strong foundation of these schools today, I will call, as the mover of the first resolution, on Mr. Robert Bell. As master of the school now breaking up, I am very happy to dismiss you for a holiday. I beg to assure my young friends that their patient and unremitting attention to their studies has afforded me the liveliest satisfaction. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Public Meeting for the Establishment of the Shakespeare Foundation Schools Description An account of the resource Speech at the Public Meeting for the Establishment of the Shakespeare Foundation Schools (11 May 1864). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1864-05-11 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1864-05-11_Speech_Public-Meeting-for-the-Establishment-of-the-Shakespeare-Foundation-Schools Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Public Meeting for the Establishment of the Shakespeare Foundation Schools' (11 May 1864). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1864-05-11_Speech_Public-Meeting-for-the-Establishment-of-the-Shakespeare-Foundation-Schools">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1864-05-11_Speech_Public-Meeting-for-the-Establishment-of-the-Shakespeare-Foundation-Schools</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, Fortunately for me, and fortunately for you, it is the duty of the chairman on an occasion of this nature, to be very careful that he does not anticipate those speakers who come after him. Like Falstaff, with a considerable difference, he has to be the cause of speaking in others. It is rather his duty to sit and hear speeches with exemplary attention than to stand up and make them; so I shall confine myself, in opening these proceedings as your business official, to as plain and short an exposition as I can possibly give you of the reasons why we come together. First of all I will take leave to remark that we do not come together in commemoration of Shakespeare. We have nothing to do with any commemoration, except that we are of course humble worshippers of that mighty genius, and that we propose by-and-by to take his name, but by no means to take it in vain. If, however, the Tercentenary celebration were a hundred years hence, or a hundred years past, we should still be pursuing precisely the same object, though we could not pursue it under precisely the same circumstances. Well, then, the facts are these. – There is, as you know, in existence an admirable institution called the Royal Dramatic College, which is a place of honourable rest and repose for veterans in the dramatic art. The charter of this college, which dates some five or six years back, expressly provides for the establishment of schools in connexion with it; and I may venture to add that this feature of the scheme, when it was explained to him, was especially interesting to his Royal Highness the late Prince Consort, who hailed it as evidence of the desire of the promoters to look forward as well as to look back; to found educational establishments for the rising generation, as well as to establish a harbour of refuge for the generation going out, or at least having their faces turned towards the setting sun. The leading members of the dramatic art, applying themselves first to the more pressing necessity of the two, set themselves to work on the construction of their harbour of refuge, and this they did with the zeal, energy, good-will, and good faith that always honourably distinguish them in their efforts to help one another. Those efforts were very powerfully aided by the respected gentleman under whose roof we are assembled, and who, I hope, may be only half as glad of seeing me on these boards as I always am to see him there. With such energy and determination did Mr. Webster and his brothers and sisters in art proceed with their work, that at this present time all the dwelling-houses of the Royal Dramatic College are built, completely furnished, fitted with every appliance, and many of them inhabited. The central hall of the College is built, the grounds are beautifully planned and laid out, and the estate has become the nucleus of a prosperous neighbourhood. This much achieved, Mr. Webster was revolving in his mind how he should next proceed towards the establishment of the schools when, this Tercentenary celebration being in hand, it occurred to him to represent to the National Shakespeare Committee their just and reasonable claim to participate in the results of any subscription for a monument to Shakespeare. He represented to the committee that the social recognition and elevation of the followers of Shakespeare’s own art, through the education of their children, was surely a monument worthy even of that great name. He urged upon the committee that it was certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the public good sense would immediately appreciate and approve. This claim the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to understand that if the committee had never been in existence, if the Tercentenary celebration had never been attempted, those schools, as a design anterior to both, would still have solicited public support. Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in fact, to found a new self-supporting public school; with this additional feature, that it is to be available for both sexes. This, of course, presupposes two separate distinct schools. As these schools are to be built on land belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be from the first no charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important head. It is, in short, proposed simply to establish a new self-supporting public school, in a rapidly increasing neighbour-hood, where there is a large and fast accumulating middle-class population, and where property in land is fast rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project is a project of the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the schools are to be built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give the followers of Shakespeare’s art a prominent place in them. With this view, it is confidently believed that the public will endow a foundation, say, for forty foundation scholars – say, twenty girls and twenty boys – who shall always receive their education gratuitously, and who shall always be the children of actors, actresses, or dramatic writers. This school, you will understand, is to be equal to the best existing public school. It is to be made to impart a sound, liberal, comprehensive education, and it is to address the whole great middle class at least as freely, as widely, and as cheaply as any existing public school. Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design. There are foundation scholars at Eton, foundation scholars at most or all our old schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a noble part of our standard national literature, and in remembrance of a great humanizing art, will do this thing for these children, it will at the same time be doing a wise and good thing for itself, and will unquestionably find its account in it. Taking this view of the case – and I cannot be satisfied to take any lower one – I cannot make a sorry face about ‘the poor player’. I think it is a term very much misused and very little understood, being I venture to say appropriated in a wrong sense by the players themselves. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can only present the player to you exceptionally in this wise: that he follows a peculiar and precarious vocation, a vocation very rarely affording the means of accumulating money: that that vocation must, from the nature of things, have in it many undistinguished men and women to one distinguished one; that it is not a vocation the exerciser of which can profit by the labours of others, but in which he must earn every loaf of his bread in his own person, with the aid of his own face, his own limbs, his own voice, his own memory, and his own life and spirits; and these failing, he fails. Surely this is reason enough to render him some little help in opening for his children their paths through life. I say their paths advisedly, because it is not often found, except under the pressure of necessity, or where there is strong hereditary talent – which is always an exceptional case – that the children of actors and actresses take to the stage. Persons, therefore, need not in the least fear that by helping to endow these schools they would help to overstock the dramatic market. They would do directly the reverse, for they would divert into channels of public distinction and usefulness those good qualities which would otherwise languish in that market’s over rich superabundance.  This project has received the support of the head of the most popular of our English public schools. On the committee stands the name of that eminent scholar and gentleman, the Provost of Eton. You justly admire this liberal spirit, and your admiration – which I cordially share – brings me naturally to what I wish to say, that I believe there is not in England any institution so socially liberal as a public school. It has been called a little cosmos of life outside, and I think it is so, with the exception of one of life’s worst foibles – for, as far as I know, nowhere in this country is there so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, to mere position, to mere riches as in a public school. A boy there is always what his abilities or his personal qualities make him. We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools, I apprehend there can be no kind of question. It has happened in these latter times that objection has been made to children of dramatic artists in certain little snivelling private schools, but in public schools never. Therefore, I hold that the actors are wise, and gratefully wise, in recognizing the capacious liberality of a public school, in seeking not a little hole-and-corner place of education for their children exclusively, but in addressing the whole of the great middle class, and proposing to them to come and join them, the actors, on their own property, in a public school, in a part of the country where no such advantage is now to be found.  I have now done. The attempt has been a very timid one. I have endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or, rather, like the possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed condition. I have laid a trifle of timber here and there, and grubbed up a little brushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think I can descry in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for the courtesy with which you have heard me, and not at all doubting that we shall lay a strong foundation of these schools today, I will call, as the mover of the first resolution, on Mr. Robert Bell. As master of the school now breaking up, I am very happy to dismiss you for a holiday. I beg to assure my young friends that their patient and unremitting attention to their studies has afforded me the liveliest satisfaction. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Freemasons' Tavern Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18650509 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dr. Johnson’s experience of that club, the members of which had travelled over one another’s minds in every direction,’ is not to be compared with the experience of the perpetual President of a society like this, who, having on previous occasions said everything about it that he could possibly find to say, is again produced, with the usual awful solemnities, to say anything about it that he can not possibly find to say. It struck me, when Dr. Frederick Jones was referring just now to Easter Monday, that the case of such an ill-starred President is very like that of the stag at the Epping Hunt on Easter Monday. The unfortunate animal, when he is uncarted at the tavern where the meet comes off, generally makes away, I am told, at a cool trot, venturesomely followed by the whole field, to the yard where he lives, and there subsides into a quiet inoffensive existence, until he is again brought out, to be again followed by exactly the same field, over exactly the same ground, under exactly the same circum-stances, next Easter Monday. Ladies and gentlemen, the difficulties of the situation – and here I mean the President’s and not the stag’s – are greatly increased in such an instance as this by the peculiar nature of the institution. In its unpretending solidity, reality, and usefulness, believe me – for I have carefully considered the point – it presents no opening whatever of an oratorical nature. If it were one of those costly charities, so-called, whose yield of wool bears no sort of proportion to their cry for cash, I very likely might have a word or two to say on the subject. If its funds were lavished on patronage and show, instead of being honestly expended in providing small annuities for hard-working people who have themselves contributed to its funds; if its management were entrusted to people who could by no possibility know anything about it, instead of being invested in plain, practical, business hands; if it hoarded when it ought to spend, and if it got by cringing and fawning what it never deserved, I might possibly impress you with my indignation. If the managers could tell me that it was insolvent, that it was in a hopeless condition, that its accounts had been kept by Mr. Edmunds, or by ‘Tom’, or if its treasurer had only done me the favour of running away with the money-box, then I might have made a pathetic appeal to your feelings. But I have no such chance. And just as the nation is happy whose records are barren, so is the society fortunate that has no history, and its President unfortunate. I can only assure you that our institution continues its plain, unobtrusive, useful career, and that the objects of its care and the bulk of its members are faithful hard-working servants of the public, who minister to their wants at untimely hours, in all seasons, and in all weathers; at their own doors, at the street corners, at every railway train, at every steam-boat; equally through the agency of enormous establishments and the tiniest little shops; and that whether regarded as master or regarded as man, their profits are very modest and their risks numerous, while their trouble and responsibility are very great. The newsvendors and newsmen are no doubt a very subordinate part of that wonderful engine, the Newspaper Press; but I think we all know very well that they are to the fountain-head what a good service of water pipes is to a good water-supply. Just as a goodly store of water, say at Watford, would be a mere tantilization to thirsty London if it were not brought hither and skilfully laid on, so would any amount of news accumulated at Printing House Square, or Fleet Street, or the Strand, be a mere mockery of the public impatience if there were no skill and enterprise engaged in its dissemination. We are all of us in the habit of saying in our everyday life, that ‘we never know the value of anything until we lose it’. Try the news-vendors by that test. A few years ago we discovered one morning that there was a strike of cab-drivers in London. Now, let us imagine a similar strike of newsmen. Imagine all the morning trains waiting in vain for all the newspapers. Imagine all sorts and conditions of men dying to know the shipping news, the commercial news, the legal news, the criminal news, the foreign news and domestic news – paralysis on all the provincial exchanges, the silence and desertion on the newsmen’s exchange in London, the circulation of the blood of the country standing still, the clock of the world stopped! Why, even Mr. Reuter, the great Reuter whom I am always glad to imagine slumbering at night by the side of Mrs. Reuter, with a galvanic battery under the bolster, telegraph wires to the head of his bed, and an electric bell at each ear even he would click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his to little purpose, if it were not for the humble, and by comparison, slow activity, which gathers up the stitches of the electric needle, and scatters them over the land. It is curious to consider – and the thought occurred to me today, when I was out for a stroll pondering over the duties of this evening, then looming in the distance, and, to confess the honest truth. not half so far off in the distance as I could have desired – I found it very curious to consider that though the newsman must be allowed to be a very unpicturesque rendering of Mercury, or Fame, or whatnot conventional messenger from the clouds, and although we must allow that he is of this earth, and often has a great deal of it on his boots, poor fellow, still that he has two very remarkable characteristics to which none of his celestial predecessors can lay the slightest claims. One is that he is always the messenger of civilization; the other, that he is at least equally so not only in what he brings, but in what he ceases to bring. The time was, and not so many years ago either, when the newsman constantly brought home to our doors (though I am afraid not to our hearts, which were custom-hardened then) the most terrific accounts of numbers of our fellow creatures being publicly put to death for what we should now call trivial offences, in the very heart of London, regularly every Monday morning. In the same times the newsmen regularly brought to us accounts of other savage punishments, which were demoralizing to the innocent parts of the community, while they did not operate as punishments in deterring offenders from the perpetration of crime. In the same times also, the newsman brought to us daily accounts of a regularly accepted and received system of loading the unfortunate insane with chains, littering them down on straw, starving them on bread and water, denying them their clothes, soothing them under their tremendous affliction with the whip, and making periodical exhibitions of them at a small charge, rendering our public asylums a kind of demoniacal Zoological Gardens. He brought us constant accounts of the destruction of machinery which was destined to supply unborn millions with employment. In the same times he brought us accounts of riots for bread, which were constantly occurring and undermining the State, of the most terrible animosity of class against class, and of the habitual employment of spies for the discovery, if not for the organization of plots, in which that animosity on both sides found in those days some relief. In the same times the same newsmen were apprising us of the state of society all around us in which the grossest sensuality and intemperance were the rule, and not as now the ignorant, the wicked, or inexcusably vicious exception – a state of society in which the professional bully was rampant, and in which the deadliest of duels were daily fought for the absurdest and most disgraceful causes. All this the newsman has ceased to tell us. This state of society has discontinued in England for ever. And when we remember the undoubted truth, that the change could never, never, never have been effected without the aid of the load the newsman bears, surely it is not very romantic to claim for him from the public some little token of that sympathetic remembrance which we are all of us so glad to bestow on the messengers of good news and the bearers of blessed tidings. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will be glad to hear that I am coming to a conclusion; and for the conclusion I have a familiar precedent. You all of you know how often it happens when you have been away from home for a short excursion, that you find on your return a delicate intimation that ‘the collector has called’. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am the collector for this district, and I hope that you will bear in mind, coming back from the excursion into which I have betrayed you, that I have respectfully called. Regarding the institution on whose behalf I have presented myself, I need only say technically two things. First, that its annuities are granted out of the interest on its funded capital, and that therefore it is literally as safe as the Bank; and, secondly, they are attainable by such a slight exercise of prudence and foresight, that a payment of twenty-five shillings extending over a period of five years, entitles a subscriber if a male to an annuity of sixteen pounds a year, and if a female to one of twelve pounds. Pray bear in mind that this is the plain, practical institution on behalf of which the collector has called, leaving behind him the assurance that what you can give to one of the most faithful of your servants, will be thoroughly well bestowed, and faithfully applied to the purposes which you intend to further, and to those purposes alone. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival 1865 Description An account of the resource Speech at the Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival (9 May 1865). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1865-05-09 Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Newsvendors' Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival' (9 May 1865). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1865-05-09_Speech_Newsvendors-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1865-05-09_Speech_Newsvendors-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival</a>. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1865-05-09_Speech_Newsvendors-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dr. Johnson’s experience of that club, the members of which had travelled over one another’s minds in every direction,’ is not to be compared with the experience of the perpetual President of a society like this, who, having on previous occasions said everything about it that he could possibly find to say, is again produced, with the usual awful solemnities, to say anything about it that he can not possibly find to say. It struck me, when Dr. Frederick Jones was referring just now to Easter Monday, that the case of such an ill-starred President is very like that of the stag at the Epping Hunt on Easter Monday. The unfortunate animal, when he is uncarted at the tavern where the meet comes off, generally makes away, I am told, at a cool trot, venturesomely followed by the whole field, to the yard where he lives, and there subsides into a quiet inoffensive existence, until he is again brought out, to be again followed by exactly the same field, over exactly the same ground, under exactly the same circum-stances, next Easter Monday. Ladies and gentlemen, the difficulties of the situation – and here I mean the President’s and not the stag’s – are greatly increased in such an instance as this by the peculiar nature of the institution. In its unpretending solidity, reality, and usefulness, believe me –  for I have carefully considered the point – it presents no opening whatever of an oratorical nature. If it were one of those costly charities, so-called, whose yield of wool bears no sort of proportion to their cry for cash, I very likely might have a word or two to say on the subject. If its funds were lavished on patronage and show, instead of being honestly expended in providing small annuities for hard-working people who have themselves contributed to its funds; if its management were entrusted to people who could by no possibility know anything about it, instead of being invested in plain, practical, business hands; if it hoarded when it ought to spend, and if it got by cringing and fawning what it never deserved, I might possibly impress you with my indignation. If the managers could tell me that it was insolvent, that it was in a hopeless condition, that its accounts had been kept by Mr. Edmunds, or by ‘Tom’, or if its treasurer had only done me the favour of running away with the money-box, then I might have made a pathetic appeal to your feelings. But I have no such chance. And just as the nation is happy whose records are barren, so is the society fortunate that has no history, and its President unfortunate. I can only assure you that our institution continues its plain, unobtrusive, useful career, and that the objects of its care and the bulk of its members are faithful hard-working servants of the public, who minister to their wants at untimely hours, in all seasons, and in all weathers; at their own doors, at the street corners, at every railway train, at every steam-boat; equally through the agency of enormous establishments and the tiniest little shops; and that whether regarded as master or regarded as man, their profits are very modest and their risks numerous, while their trouble and responsibility are very great.  The newsvendors and newsmen are no doubt a very subordinate part of that wonderful engine, the Newspaper Press; but I think we all know very well that they are to the fountain-head what a good service of water pipes is to a good water-supply. Just as a goodly store of water, say at Watford, would be a mere tantilization to thirsty London if it were not brought hither and skilfully laid on, so would any amount of news accumulated at Printing House Square, or Fleet Street, or the Strand, be a mere mockery of the public impatience if there were no skill and enterprise engaged in its dissemination. We are all of us in the habit of saying in our everyday life, that ‘we never know the value of anything until we lose it’. Try the news-vendors by that test. A few years ago we discovered one morning that there was a strike of cab-drivers in London. Now, let us imagine a similar strike of newsmen. Imagine all the morning trains waiting in vain for all the newspapers. Imagine all sorts and conditions of men dying to know the shipping news, the commercial news, the legal news, the criminal news, the foreign news and domestic news – paralysis on all the provincial exchanges, the silence and desertion on the newsmen’s exchange in London, the circulation of the blood of the country standing still, the clock of the world stopped! Why, even Mr. Reuter, the great Reuter whom I am always glad to imagine slumbering at night by the side of Mrs. Reuter, with a galvanic battery under the bolster, telegraph wires to the head of his bed, and an electric bell at each ear even he would click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his to little purpose, if it were not for the humble, and by comparison, slow activity, which gathers up the stitches of the electric needle, and scatters them over the land. It is curious to consider – and the thought occurred to me today, when I was out for a stroll pondering over the duties of this evening, then looming in the distance, and, to confess the honest truth. not half so far off in the distance as I could have desired – I found it very curious to consider that though the newsman must be allowed to be a very unpicturesque rendering of Mercury, or Fame, or whatnot conventional messenger from the clouds, and although we must allow that he is of this earth, and often has a great deal of it on his boots, poor fellow, still that he has two very remarkable characteristics to which none of his celestial predecessors can lay the slightest claims. One is that he is always the messenger of civilization; the other, that he is at least equally so not only in what he brings, but in what he ceases to bring. The time was, and not so many years ago either, when the newsman constantly brought home to our doors (though I am afraid not to our hearts, which were custom-hardened then) the most terrific accounts of numbers of our fellow creatures being publicly put to death for what we should now call trivial offences, in the very heart of London, regularly every Monday morning. In the same times the newsmen regularly brought to us accounts of other savage punishments, which were demoralizing to the innocent parts of the community, while they did not operate as punishments in deterring offenders from the perpetration of crime. In the same times also, the newsman brought to us daily accounts of a regularly accepted and received system of loading the unfortunate insane with chains, littering them down on straw, starving them on bread and water, denying them their clothes, soothing them under their tremendous affliction with the whip, and making periodical exhibitions of them at a small charge, rendering our public asylums a kind of demoniacal Zoological Gardens. He brought us constant accounts of the destruction of machinery which was destined to supply unborn millions with employment. In the same times he brought us accounts of riots for bread, which were constantly occurring and undermining the State, of the most terrible animosity of class against class, and of the habitual employment of spies for the discovery, if not for the organization of plots, in which that animosity on both sides found in those days some relief. In the same times the same newsmen were apprising us of the state of society all around us in which the grossest sensuality and intemperance were the rule, and not as now the ignorant, the wicked, or inexcusably vicious exception – a state of society in which the professional bully was rampant, and in which the deadliest of duels were daily fought for the absurdest and most disgraceful causes. All this the newsman has ceased to tell us. This state of society has discontinued in England for ever. And when we remember the undoubted truth, that the change could never, never, never have been effected without the aid of the load the newsman bears, surely it is not very romantic to claim for him from the public some little token of that sympathetic remembrance which we are all of us so glad to bestow on the messengers of good news and the bearers of blessed tidings. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will be glad to hear that I am coming to a conclusion; and for the conclusion I have a familiar precedent. You all of you know how often it happens when you have been away from home for a short excursion, that you find on your return a delicate intimation that ‘the collector has called’. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am the collector for this district, and I hope that you will bear in mind, coming back from the excursion into which I have betrayed you, that I have respectfully called. Regarding the institution on whose behalf I have presented myself, I need only say technically two things. First, that its annuities are granted out of the interest on its funded capital, and that therefore it is literally as safe as the Bank; and, secondly, they are attainable by such a slight exercise of prudence and foresight, that a payment of twenty-five shillings extending over a period of five years, entitles a subscriber if a male to an annuity of sixteen pounds a year, and if a female to one of twelve pounds. Pray bear in mind that this is the plain, practical institution on behalf of which the collector has called, leaving behind him the assurance that what you can give to one of the most faithful of your servants, will be thoroughly well bestowed, and faithfully applied to the purposes which you intend to further, and to those purposes alone.