Sons and Daughters, my own Daughters of the Saratoga Chapter, and resident Sons, I extend to you all most cordial greeting for my sister officers and myself. It gives us the sincerest pleasure to meet you here this evening, to assist us in celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Saratoga and also the birthday of our Chapter. Not the actual anniversary of the battle, but near enough to celebrate.

"I am sure that all Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution will agree with me that the battle of Saratoga should be celebrated as much and as often as possible. It is one of the fifteen decisive battles of the world, and our National banner was carried for the first time at Bemis Heights. It seems to me that all women, societies, all Daughters, all associations, patriotic or otherwise, should this year take a new lease of life, should be inspired with more courage, and endeavor to do better work than ever before. A few weeks since was celebrated the diamond jubilee of a Queen. The central figure on whom the eyes of the world were fixed was a woman, a woman who has commanded the respect of the civilized world by her homely domestic virtues, a devoted daughter, wife and mother, a true and loyal friend, a woman of sincere piety, of great intelligence and broad culture, thoroughly versed in the politics of the day. I sometimes think that if this sovereign lady had been ruler of Great Britain during our struggle for national existence, instead of a weak and stubborn man, there would have been no war, no Declaration of Independence, no United States, no Daughters of the American Revolution celebrating the battle of Saratoga this evening."

Mrs. Walworth responded in her usual happy manner, thanking the officers for their act of hospitality to the Chapter. "It is in this happy co-operation of members and officers that the strength and enthusiasm of our Order exists. It is in this system of organization which not only bind together, but interlinks the separate parts of our Society, that our power and influence lies.

"That Americans are the true backbone of the Nation, the leaders in important movements, is illustrated by the fact that not more than two of the whole number of Presidents of the United States are wanting in the Revolutionary descent required

by our Societies, and I am told that not a single 'first lady of the land,' the wife of a President, lacks such a descent.

"Thus are the words spoken by our Regent proved true, that American women are the peers of queens. We wish to thank you especially for having called us together in this beautiful and historical building, the House of Pansa. The Republic of Rome recalled to our memories by this Roman house, made our own great Nation's Republic possible, so truly do the seeds of the past create the blossoms of the future."

Miss Forsyth, State Regent for New York, who was then introduced, responded to the address of welcome in behalf of the State, adding:

"We have learned by personal experience how much it means to come together as we do to-night, animated by one great purpose, and in the halls, as it has been said, that recall to us a republic long since passed away. By meeting together, from time to time, and as we are now doing, we become welded together in mutual sympathy, friendship and helpfulness. The higher phases of our work are brought forward, we realize it as it is not always possible to do in the routine of daily life or of business meetings, that each one enrolled in a patriotic society. is part of one of the great movements of our time."

Supper was served in the art gallery, a circular room lined with panoramic views of ancient Rome, from tables decorated with American Beauty roses and subdued rose-colored shades over lighted candles, at which several of the hostesses of the occasion presided.

It was here that the officers received the adieus of their guests and then the lights went out upon a scene which was unique in its way, having been the first if its kind held within the beautiful House of Pansa, and which promises to be the last amidst its interior decorations, as these, unfortunately for Sarotoga, are soon to be placed in the new National Museum at Washington. "From gay to grave,

Thus runs the web of life."

It is now our painful duty to chronicle the first loss which has befallen the Chapter in its three busy and growing years of activity, in the death of one of its charter members, Miss Anna D. Proudfit. Her death came with great suddenness, and is

greatly deplored by the Chapter, which attended the funeral service in a body.

At the annual election the officers of the year just closed were, with one or two exceptions, re-elected. At this meeting the membership of the Chapter was reported as numbering seventy-six, that magical number which represents the spirit of the ancestors whose memory and deeds we perpetuate in our Society. EMMA E. RIGGS CAIRNS, Historian.

ONEIDA CHAPTER.-Chapter Day of the Oneida Chapter (Utica, New York) was celebrated on the 12th of October at the home of Mrs. W. Stuart Walcott, Regent. It was a fair autumn day, and the country was beautiful with scarlet maple and golden elm, while within the pretty rooms were glowing with our National colors and fragrant flowers. The Regent, who had arranged a most interesting program, presided with her accustomed dignity, and was assisted in receiving by Mrs. J. J. Belden, State Regent of New York, by Mrs. Willis Ford, and Mrs. L. R. Proctor. After the singing of "America," a paper was read by Mrs. L. R. Proctor, giving an account of the work of the Daughters of the American Revolution for the Cubans and for the soldiers of our army. Mrs. Proctor said: "I have been asked to give a short summary of the work done by our organization during our late war with Spain.

"Some of the work recorded here was undertaken before the National Board of Management met to organize aid for the war, some after; some was for the Cubans, some for our soldiers; but the only practicable method of presenting it seems to be to give, first, an outline of the work undertaken by the National Board, and then notes of work done by separate Chapters."

After mentioning the action taken by the National Board at their meeting in May in appointing a War Committee, and a War Fund Committee to communicate with individual Chapters, receive subscriptions and organize a corps of nurses for the Army and Navy, she gives the detailed work of many Chapters, showing a general spirit of liberality and devotion.

Our own Oneida Chapter held a special meeting in the latter part of March for the purpose of sending assistance to the Cuban sufferers. The result was that one thousand three hundred

and forty-three garments, many new and all good, three large boxes of canned goods and groceries, twelve boxes of condensed milk, chocolate, Scott's Emulsion, Armour's Extract of Beef, besides a large quantity of hospital supplies went to the sufferers through the Red Cross Society; we also raised $479.74, which was sent to Cuba through the same hands.

In reply to the call from the National Board, we joined the Hospital Relief Corps and raised our quota of money (besides securing the services of a capable and valuable trained nurse to go to the scene of war and suffering).

Twenty-five dollars was sent to the State Regent; $300 was paid to Mrs. Draper, Treasurer of the Hospital Relief Corps. In response to the demand for pajamas, we sent three consignments, one to Key West, one to Santiago, one to Porto Rico. In all one hundred and seventy-nine, for which $215 were subscribed. With the pajamas were sent eleven shirts and thirty yards of gingham. Also when Miss Florence Wright, our beloved and devoted nurse, went to the front, a dozen aprons valued at $13.80 were placed in her outfit. Afterwards, when she had charge of a large ward of typhoid patients in the Leiter Hospital at Chickamauga, and she let us know their great need, $95 was raised in one day and sent to her for use and distribution; besides a box of delicacies, wines, brandy, etc., mostly contributed by members of the Chapter. She has paid for her devotion by an attack of the same fever, but not until she had closed her ward with the commendation of all, did she break down, when the surgeon in charge finding her temperature 104, sent her to the Presbyterian Hospital, New York. There good nursing, under the blessing of God, has restored her to health.

I need not say that our hearts have throbbed in unison with all of our countrymen and women in joy and pride over our victories, and in sorrow and sympathy for our poor, wounded, and fever-stricken soldiers.

After another patriotic song, a very interesting address was delivered by Dr. G. Alder Bluner, entitled "On the Part Played by the Loyalists in the Revolution," being a plea for the solidarity of the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon stock.

After a brief resume of the causes which led to the American Revolution, he continued: "You will pardon me, I hope, for

dishing up this rechauffe of ancient history. You know the ingredients well, but, perhaps, a dash of Anglo-American condiment is called for just at present, to season the meal. For the present writer's purpose it seemed well to state the facts in a somewhat different way-a way more in consonance with the actual feeling between America and Great Britain, and, if I may add, more in harmony with the unvarnished facts of history. The sense of perspective suffers not by lapse of time; one hundred and thirty years after one can afford to lay aside prejudice and shift the point of view. The difference was, I submit, a differnce of point of view. Father bore arms against son, brother against brother; each was alike a patriot.

"Hardly a Daughter of this honorable Society, I imagine, but would find, if she made the search-and many of them are well aware of the fact from actual knowledge and discovery-that these loyalists, one or more, cross her ancestral lines as the composite pedigree traces itself deviously and remorselessly back to those stirring days of civil discord, and this, one may add, parenthetically, is not the least among the secondary advantages of the numerous patriotic societies to which the past decade has given birth. It has stimulated historical research through the fascinating channel of genealogical detective work. The old human passion to hunt here asserts itself. Far from being an idle pursuit, as many suppose, the eagerness with which it is indulged is a wholesome proof of advancing education as well as of a legitimate family pride. Thus it has come about that the Daughters of the American Revolution has done much as a Society to heal the breach occasioned by the Revolution; by the discovery made by many an exploring Daughter of tributaries of loyalist blood that flow here and there into the main stream of a patriot's pedigree till

""Noble her blood as the currents that met

In the veins of the proudest Plantagenet.'

"The War of Independence, brought about by the blundering folly of an imbecile king, and the selfish stupidity of his Parliament, humiliated Britain as a mother must feel humiliated in the eyes of a judging world when appearing to treat her children with unmotherly cruelty.