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 when ever
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.
SPEECH: LONDON, MARCH 29, 1862.
[At a Dinner of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, the
following Address was delivered by Mr. Charles Dickens from the
chair.-]
Seven or eight years ago, without the smallest expectation of ever
being called upon to fill the chair at an anniversary festival of
the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, and without the
remotest reference to such an occasion, I selected the
administration of that Charity as the model on which I desired that
another should be reformed, both as regarded the mode in which the
relief was afforded, and the singular economy with which its funds
were administered. As a proof of the latter quality during the
past year, the cost of distributing 1,126 pounds among the
recipients of the bounty of the Charity amounted to little more
than 100 pounds, inclusive of all office charges and expenses.
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