Mr. Duck sat down amidst shouts of applause.
In the Old Times of yesterday we find the following report of some part of the entertainment, which we were unfortunate enough to miss--we take the liberty of borrowing it:
"Mr. Watson said that he was present, a few evenings since, at a Lecture delivered by Dr. Birkbeck, on the utility of the machine to supersede the necessity of the climbing-boy. The Doctor, he admitted, argued candidly and fairly on the subject, and produced an improvement in Glass's machine, which was unquestionably the best invention of the kind; yet, with all its perfections, he (Mr. Watson) was convinced that it would never answer the expectations of those who entertained such a favourable opinion of its efficacy in cleansing chimnies. In the course of the lecture the Doctor said that the machine must succeed in all cases where it is used, if the prejudices of the master chimney-sweepers did not interfere with the trial. It was true that the machine so eloquently eulogized by the Doctor would answer in cleansing perpendicular chimnies, but where there were impediments from various causes, no machine, however pliable, would overcome them.
"Several master chimney-sweepers addressed the chair in the course of the afternoon. One of them commenced 'I'm blowed, but if we had Dr. Bucbuck, or whatever you may call him, here at our dinner, I think we should soon make a conwert of him to our opinions. Gemmen, I say it is impossible that ere chimney (pointing to the chimney in the room) can be swept unless one of us goes up it; and I'll give you a proof of it now.' The speaker here began to doff his long coat, and would have run up the chimney in earnest, had he not been prevented by some of his brother tradesmen, who caught hold of him by the legs just as his body was about disappearing from the company. When he alighted on the floor, he said that he did not mind a fig getting a sooty shirt, so that he succeeded in showing the strangers present, how little danger was to be apprehended in doing the work as it should be done, and that was by encouraging climbing-boys. He had ascended upwards of 5,000 chimnies in his life, of all sorts and sizes, and never yet met with an accident."