He has done yeoman service in making known the splendid fruit of the golden State, and it was mainly through his efforts while in the service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the California wines and fruit are now on sale in nearly all the grocery and wine houses of Northern Europe. It was through his initiative work that the exports of our Indian corn was so largely increased from 24,000,000 bushels the year he commenced the propaganda to over 213,000,000 last year. If he had devoted the last fifteen of the best years of his life with the same enthusiasm and energy that he has given to this work in any legitimate business, he might have been a well-to-do man to-day. Colonel Murphy spoke as follows:-- =Comrades of the Mexican war=: I am asked to give some recollections of the Mexican War, but little remains for me to say after the comprehensive and eloquent history of that war by Judge McKay, of South Carolina. It would be presumptuous of me, after what we have just heard from the Judge and Colonel Hungerford, to say another word. Larger gatherings this magnificent Hotel Continental has often had within its walls, for time has thinned the ranks of the Mexican veterans even more woefully than did Mexican shot and shell, but it may be doubted whether caravansary ever sheltered a party with more enthusiasm than is shown here to-night in Paris, the gay capital of France, by the few comrades gathered here to celebrate victories in which we were humble participants nearly 50 years ago. The thought of the days of 1847 helps me to feel young again, and brings vividly to my mind the gay, rollicking little army that marched out of Puebla on that bright August morning (alas! how many never to return), when General Scott left Puebla with his little army of 10,000 men to fight an army of 35,000 veteran troops of Mexico, in trenches, in mountain gorges, fortified cities, surrounded by impassable marshes, your base, if you had any, hundreds of miles away, you faced the men that had showed the quality of their mercy at Mier and the Alamo. You felt that defeat meant death. ’Tis not becoming in soldiers to boast, but who, among all of you that assemble on this glorious anniversary, will not straighten up an inch taller when he says, “I was one of that little army.”