Fastest way to get thousands of db records to client in 3 tier?

[R. Alan Monroe]

Subject says it all... what's the fastest way to get many thousands of 
records to the client?

I'm trying to sketch out a traditional 3 tier client-server system. 
Multiple clients would make requests to the server. The server should 
execute sql select commands against a server-side database, then 
return the results to the client.

I tried the standard xmlrpclib and SimpleXMLRPCServer tools that came 
with Python. I liked the simplicity, but it was about 30-35 times 
slower than executing the sql directly from the client...

I intend to write both client and server in Python, and my main goal 
in the first cut is speed. Suggestions?

Alan