A Banquet in Boston

                 THE BOSTON BANQUET TO PAUL MORPHY

The banquet at the Revere House, Boston, in honor of Paul
Morphy, last week, was most brilliantly successful: a worthy
ovation to the distinguished hero of the occasion.

Among the prominent guests were Chief Justice Shaw, President
Walker of Harvard College, Senator Wilson, Hon. Charles Hale,
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Jared Sparks,
Mayor Lincoln, Professor Agassiz, Dr. Holmes, Hon. Mr.
Burlingame, Rev. T. Starr King, James Russell Lowell and Hon.
Josiah Quincy, Jr. We print Hon. Charles Hale's speech, on
account of the reference made in it to Mr. Morphy's engagement
to edit a chess department in the Ledger. We think it will
interest our readers. Mr. Hale is editor of the "Boston Daily
Advertiser," and Speaker of the Massachusetts House of
Representatives.

The Newspaper Press - Announcing with fidelity the events in
the daily history of the world, it has also adorned its columns
with the brilliant record of American victories in chess and
declared their intellectual significance.

Mr. Charles Hale was called upon to respond. He said - I had
felicitated myself, Mr. President, that there was no possible
ground on which I could be expected to speak this evening; but
since you call upon me, I see the point; for do we not all know
that the indefatigable Bonner - to whose net only the biggest
of whales and the prettiest of goldfishes come - has "secured"
(this I believe is the phrase) - has "secured" our young friend
and honored guest "to be chess editor of the Ledger?" - Paul
Morphy is now an editor; - and so I am to suppose that the
honor devolves upon me of welcoming him to the journalists'
rank, and extending to him the right hand of fellowship! This
last distinction, then, was reserved to culminate a career of
triumphs.

It was nothing to be feted by Dukes and Earls, to receive
golden presents, to be the theme of poetry and of eloquence,
and the object of lovely woman's smiles; one more glory was
wanting, and the Morphy has achieved - admitted to the sacred
order and dubbed a Knight of the Press, here in Boston, where
was erected the first printing press in America, we give him
his golden spurs and bid him go on and conquer in the field of
journalism!

The old story of the origin of chess represents that many
centuries before the Christian era, India was ruled by a cruel
tyrant; that during his reign, a learned Brahmin, who felt much
compassion for the suffering people, tasked his ingenuity to
discover some means to give the King a lesson; and having no
Advertiser, and no Ledger, in those benighted days, in which to
fulminate thunders against the corrupted and depraved
administration, he invented and taught the King this charming
game to bring to his mind the fact that however strong and
powerful the King might be, he was nothing without the support
of the other members of the State, his Knights, his Bishops,
and even his humble Pawns.

It was the reciprocal of that other lesson which not long
afterwards, the Roman hero undertook to teach the rebels on the
Sacred Mount by the grosser fable of the Belly and the Members.
The casus belli in that instance was reduced by much the same
process as our Indian Brahmin adopted, but the delicacy and
refinement of the two nationalities is well contrasted in the
various means employed.

The Brahmin invented chess; the King learned its hidden lesson,
and the groaning people were relieved. But, in the process of
time, the world has become so wise on this side the Atlantic as
to find that Kings and all the rest are useless trumpery: "a
church without a Bishop, and a State without a King," is our
theory and our practice. We have neither king, nor queen, nor
privileged order of knights nor clergy - all descend to the
place of pawn or rather the pawns occupy all the high places.
The Japanese in pride told the shipwrecked Yankee sailor that
they had ten sovereigns, and asked him how many his people had?
"We have 27,000,000," was the prompt reply.

One further moral must the game of chess convey; and so young
America goes forth to show the world in precise conformity with
the genius of our equal institutions, that Kings, Queens,
Knights and Bishops are all mere puppets and playthings in the
hands of one American citizen! After some further allusions to
Mr. Morphy's triumphs, Mr. Hale concluded with renewed
expressions of congratulation.