“‘MR. H. B. PLANT, Atlanta, Ga.--My dear Sir:--On behalf of the Savannah Board of Trade I congratulate you most heartily upon this auspicious occasion of your seventy-sixth birthday. You have, in the providence of infinite power, been permitted to dwell among your fellows beyond the allotted period of man, and it has also been your most favored privilege in that period to bring to completion undertakings of vast magnitude for the uplifting of the South especially, and for the whole country in general, which will stand a monument to your foresight, zeal and patriotic devotion to our common country long after the shaft or statues of marble or bronze have lost their significance as finger posts pointing to martial renown or the triumph of the forum. For your works, engraven upon the hearts of your generation with the stylus of commercial probity, will always be recalled with pleasant memory because free from the painful associations of sanguinary fields or the bitter words of fierce debates. May the mighty God, in His providence, as He spares you for the years to come, continue to bless you with bodily strength to pursue your active career of usefulness, until your eyes can look upon the full fruition of the great works in the interests of commerce, with which your name will ever be inseparably associated in fruitful memory through the multiplying cycles of time. With profound esteem, very truly and sincerely yours, “‘D. G. PURSE, “‘President Savannah Board of Trade.’ “The resolutions were adopted by a rising vote. “The Plant System employees were represented by Hon. A. A. Wiley, who spoke as follows: “‘Mr. President, Mr. Plant, Ladies, and Gentlemen: These men who wear these badges to-day, whether they come from South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, or Alabama, are the employees of the Plant System, consisting of telegraph, express, railway, and steamship lines. They number perhaps three thousand, but represent more than twelve thousand employees, and have come from the smoke and the dust of the workshop, from the railway car, from the locomotive, from express and law offices, to pay their tribute of respect, and to manifest their love for our distinguished chief, their admiration and appreciation of him. [Applause and cheers.] “‘This great day becomes a national day, because it is replete with mighty consequences to both North and South. “‘Here we may forget our business cares and worldly contests, for the soft hand of kindness, friendship, and hospitality smoothes down the ruffled brow. A quarter of a century ago, ruthless and unpitying war, with all the devastations that follow in its wake, swept with relentless fury over our fair and fruitful fields.