The Holland Society of New York - Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 49 text:

23 secret, though printed on our menu card. In the latest vernacular, it means that the smallest Dutch word will sprout and make a boom. Now boom is Dutch, and you can never start a boom unless you start the Dutch. Think of the Dutch booms which have been started in modern times: booms in declarations of independence, booms in re- ligious freedom, booms in colonizing, booms in industry and prosperity, and booms in liberty every- where. No wonder the old Connecticut Yankee, about two hundred years ago, founded a proverb by exclaiming whenever he came upon anything which excited his admiring surprise: Why, it beats the Dutch! For it is hard to beat' the Dutch. One of the greatest empires of the world discovered the truth of that proverb some time ago. Excuse me, I allude to the empireof Charles V. Now, the .object of a Dutch dinner is to lay the foundation for a smoke. -Then, while we sit and dream away, the toasts are brought on, hot and brown, and just moist enough. If I should depart from the old Dutch words, and make use of those words which we have borrowed from the Latin race, which some of the proudest of us are now call- ing degenerate,- improperly, I think,-I would be indulging in what is termed in the newspaper vo- cabulary, post-prandial oratory, which, of course, as your presiding officer, I should not be guilty of. It would be doing violence to the object of a' Dutch dinner. But there are places, ,of course, where that kind of oratory is always on tap. Between the boroughs of lVIanhattan and Brook- lyn there is a great iron tunnel. It is used for the purpose of conveying gas. Now the gas Hows toward Brooklyn naturally. There are more banf