[Speech of Horace Porter at the seventy-second annual dinner of the
New England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1877. The
President, William Borden, said: "Gentlemen, in giving you the next
toast, I will call upon one whom we are always glad to listen to. I
suppose you have been waiting to hear him, and are surprised that
he comes so late in the evening; but I will tell you in confidence,
he is put there at his own request. [Applause.] I give you the
eleventh regular toast: 'Internal Improvements.'--The triumph of
American invention. The modern palace runs on wheels.
'When thy car is loaden with [dead] heads,
Good Porter, turn the key.'