Accustomed to speak in the language of others, I feel quite at a loss for terms wherein to clothe the sentiments excited by the present occasion.

(Applause.) The nature of the institution which has sought your fostering patronage, and the objects which it contemplates, have been fully explained to you.

But, gentlemen, the relief which it proposes is not a gratuitous relief, but to be purchased by the individual contribution of its members towards the general good.

This Fund lends no encouragement to idleness or improvidence, but it offers an opportunity to prudence in vigour and youth to make provision against the evening of life and its attendant infirmity.

A period is fixed at which we admit the plea of age as an exemption from professional labour.