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 many good  speeches  made  before  on  a   so-called  festive occasion. I think I may say that at home the two or three hours after the health of Her Majesty has been drunk are generally two or three hours of misery,—sometimes intensified to such a degree as to induce the unfortunate one to fly for support to   the wine which is set  before him. I have sometimes fancied that this has come, not so much from the inability of the speakers to make good speeches,—because as a rule able men are called upon on such occasions,—as from a feeling of shame on the part of the orators. They do not like to seem to wish to shine on an occasion so trivial. The "Nil admirari" school of sentiment prevails. To be in earnest about anything, except on a very rare occasion, would almost be to be ridiculous. Consequently man after man gets up  and in  a  voice almost inaudible mumbles out a set of platitudes, which simply has the effect of preventing conversation. Here, at Pieter Maritzburg, I will not say that every speaker spoke his best. I do not know to what pitch of excellence they might have risen. But they spoke so that it was a pleasure to hear them. The health of the Chief Justice was given, and it is a pity that every word which he used in describing the manner in which he had endeavoured to do his duty to the public and the bar, and the pleasure which had pervaded his life because the public had been law-abiding, and the bar amenable, should not have been repeated in print. Judges at home have not so much to say about their offices. There was a tradesman called to his legs with reference to the commerce of Natal who poured forth such a flood of words about the trade of the Colony as to