It is not often that after-dinner speaking reaches so high
a level as it did at the Toynbee Hall Golden Jubilee dinner last Friday. The Archbishop of Canterbury and Sir John Simon, on their day and their subject, are unsurpassed, and each of them was at his best that day— or rather night. If the Master of Balliol does not equal them in form he does in matter, and Dr. Mallon, the present Warden of Toynbee, in a style completely his own, was in many ways the success of the evening. His story of the two men who came to the Poor Man's Lawyer to consult him on the negotiability of an I.O.U. from a dead man, admitting under pressure that they only " thought they saw their way to getting one," appealed equally to the politicians and prelates, the civil servants and dons and journalists and writers more eminent, who made tip a very remarkable company. So did his reference to Mr. Garvin, who came to a Toynbee discussion meeting to answer questions, but only answered one, because that took an hour and a half.
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