TEN YEARS: (continued 2)

With the exception of "keeping the little children in much awe," which might or might not have been desirable, these are precisely the functions which I desire to see formally renewed. The church at Blooming Grove, Orange County, N.Y., has existed, for more than a hundred years, without a creed, and is governed by seven deacons and seven deaconesses.

The following resolution was introduced by the Rev. S.J. May, at the Unitarian Conference which met at Syracuse, N.Y., in the first week of October 1866:—

"Whereas women were among the first, the most steadfast, and the most fearless disciples of Jesus Christ; whereas women have been, in all ages, the most ready to embrace the religion of the gospel, and the most constant and devoted members of the Christian Church; and whereas, in several denominations, women have been among the most effective preachers of Christianity: therefore, Resolved, That we, Liberal Christians, should do well to encourage those women among us who are moved by the Holy Spirit to devote themselves to the ministry, and should assist them to prepare themselves in the same manner, and to the same extent, as we deem necessary for young men."

The convention, having just passed a resolution to admit female delegates to the session of 1868, rather shrank from this second vote. Yet of what use to receive delegates, unless they feel free to join in discussion? and what woman, likely to be sent as a delegate by any Unitarian church, will ever address the convention until it more than welcomes the above resolution? To the local conferences, women are already being elected, and will do great good if they can get courage to accept their membership practically, and to speak when they have any thing to say.

It would not be quite honest nor fair to those women who seek to enter the pulpit, if I did not here record my own experience in connection with it.

I know very well where my natural sphere of work lay, and could I have had a theological education in my youth, or had even the paths of the ministry at large been open to women, I have every reason to believe that I should be at this moment a settled minister. As it was, it never entered my head that the thing was possible; and except that I taught steadily in Sabbath schools, and visited as steadily among the city poor, I never turned toward ministerial work. In the first year of my marriage, now twenty-two years ago, my husband was settled in the city of Baltimore, as minister at large to the degraded population, which has a special character (or want of character) in a large city, in a slaveholding State. I say has, for I cannot yet speak in the past tense. He had daily schools of girls and women, and nightly schools of boys and men. The latter were of all ages from six to forty, and had been gathered together by a great personal effort. In this state of things, my husband was taken ill. It fell to me, in the first place, not only to nurse him, but to take charge of his night-school. The ladies could do very well without me in the day-school; but there was no clergyman, nor leading man of character and culture, who could be depended upon to take the general charge of the men and boys, among whom were some desperate characters. I went first in a very stormy night; and my Irish servant took her knitting, and sat upon the steps of the platform while I addressed them. It happened that not a single teacher braved the storm; and the school, when I called the roll, responded to the number of eighty. I told them that I knew how dearly they loved my husband, that he was very ill, and that the only way in which they could help him was to behave so well that he need feel no anxiety about his work. They responded at once to this appeal, and I carried home the best possible account. As Sunday drew near,—this night-school having been held on Monday,—my husband grew more ill and more anxious. He thought of the large, mixed congregation, which met him every week, and for which no provision had been made. We were on an outpost of our faith; we could not have summoned assistance in season, nor without an expense we could not well bear. I thought the matter over; said to myself that it was only like a large Sunday school; that the fashionable ladies, who often dropped in to hear the preaching, would certainly stay away, knowing my husband to be ill: so I told him quietly that I had made arrangements for the Sunday service. He was too weak to make inquiries, but was comforted at once. He was sick several weeks,—long enough for me to relinquish reading, and take to exhortation in pure despair; but he did not find a small congregation when he resumed his place, and that was my reward. Perhaps no such step was ever taken more simply, or with less idea of its natural consequences. When I came back to Boston, radical country ministers took pains to ask me to their pulpits. I shall not soon forget the first time I preached to a large Unitarian audience, with a good mixture of city people. It was at South Hingham; the church was crowded; the country covered with a crystalline mantle of snow, over which a clear moon glimmered. The beauty of that night is a permanent possession. So it went on, till I became, I believe in the winter of 1859 and 1860, the superintendent of the Sunday school at Indiana-place Chapel, in Boston, where I remained for five years. This broke up my preaching, for I could not leave town on Sundays; but it led to my addressing various Sunday-school gatherings, and my being asked to address Sunday schools when away from home in the summer. My addressing a Sunday school in Greenfield in the summer of 1865, while the pastor of the church was absent with his regiment, led, by his kind sympathy, to my preaching in the summer of 1866 in the regular Unitarian churches at Rowe and Warwick, as well as doing irregular service in many other places. The church at Florence had always shown me a generous appreciation; and I was often asked to preach for Theodore Parker's people at the Music Hall and the Melodeon. I always declined to speak for this last society, not because I do not sympathize with their purposes in the main, but because I would not consent to be advertised for a religious and especially a devotional service in the city which I make my home. There may be women who, in the present state of things, can do this innocently and properly; but I cannot go into the pulpit myself, except in the regular sequence of my work, and at the call of duty. The gaping crowd of curious people who would come to look at a woman in the pulpit, would disturb the sphere in which it is alone possible for me to work. It was the custom of the Music-Hall society to advertise for every Sunday, and they declined to relinquish this advertisement on my account. The delivering a course of lectures in Hollis-street Vestry in connection with the Suffolk Sunday-school Union, in April, 1866, showed me that there was a work of criticism to be done,—and necessary to be done,—which I could do: so in going West to examine the condition of certain colleges, in October, 1866, I gave it to be understood, that, if I were in any Western city over Sunday, I should prefer to preach for the Unitarian minister—giving him a "labor of love"—to addressing an audience at an evening lecture. This interfered with my pecuniary advantage; but I believed it was in my power to enter some pulpits that would not be offered to all women, and I desired to do what I could to create a demand for the preaching of women. In this way, I preached for Robert Collyer in Chicago, for Carlton Staples in Milwaukee, for Mr. Hunting in Quincy, and in the chapels of Oberlin and Antioch Colleges. I took the whole service, accepting no assistance in the reading or the prayer; for it is not well that a woman who fills the pulpit should seem to shrink from any service there, and sensitive women will always find their self-possession impaired by any second influence. I received the kindest sympathy and appreciation from the churches I have mentioned; and, in every instance but one, I received the usual fee for my service, voluntarily tendered. I think at least twenty other churches would have been open to me, could I have gone to them.

I do not offer this explanation of the manner in which I have been led into the pulpit, stupidly, in ignorance of the charge of egotism and folly that may be made against me by those who read it. I have borne harder things than that charge, for the truth's sake; and I hope that the real motive of this statement will be transparent to honest and gentle hearts.

I long to see women preparing for this work, for there are very few men in the field; and, if there were more than enough, the pulpit is still an eminently fit place for a woman. The encouragement I have received, will show young women what is open to them. With a few words of counsel to those who may desire to speak in churches, I leave the subject. The dress of a woman in the pulpit should be such as will attract absolutely no attention; yet it should be thoroughly graceful and lady-like. A black silk well made, with collar and cuffs of fine linen, is the best, with no ornament whatever save the needful brooch. Peculiarity should be avoided. When we are trying to win souls for heaven, we must not lose them, because of a "dress reform," which may wait patiently, until more important things are achieved.

Again, if the woman who enters the pulpit is a temperance, an antislavery, or a woman's-rights lecturer, it will be better for her to give lectures on these subjects in the week. In the pulpit, she should subordinate these subjects to theological reform, moral appeal, and that attempt to stimulate religious interest and faith in which most men fail. Nor would I have her, whatever her station in society, refuse the fee, small or large, which shall be tendered her. If she has no need of it, her "poor" will have; and it is important to let the ministry of women fall into the same social and congregational relations as that of men.

There has been a great change in public feeling since the day, not twelve years since, when I heard Dr. Parkman refuse Lucretia Mott permission to speak in the old Federal-street Church.

Among historical instances of the theological influence of woman, that of the Countess Matilda stands pre-eminent; but a book by Capefigue, recently published at Paris, shows, that Madame de Krudener was the first to conceive the idea of the Holy Alliance, and her influence over the Emperor Alexander was sufficient to induce him to propose what his allies had no power to decline. Her purpose was finally accomplished, by her engaging the emperor in prayer. She was finally exiled, and died, I believe, in the Crimea. It was pretended that her preaching was dangerous; but, as she spoke only in French, that could hardly be true.

ART SCHOOLS.

An art school, which started some years ago in Boston, in private hands, finally surrendered its casts, lithographs, and so forth, to the teachers of the Free Art School of the Lowell Institute. The female classes of this school are always crowded, and are doing a great deal of good. Artists are accustomed to say very disparaging things of the school at the Cooper Institute; but I visited it in December, 1866, and found a very great improvement within a few years. Under Dr. Rimmer, a most admirable lecturer on anatomy, there has been an infusion of new life. The drawings from casts looked better than I have ever seen them. They have a good master in color, and the drawing and engraving on wood by the pupils find a ready market. Two of them, Miss Roundtree and Miss Curtis, are said to have a high reputation. I was delighted to find a large class coloring photographs; for heretofore it has been almost impossible for women to receive decent instruction in this art. The classes are all full; and three times the number of pupils might be received, if there were more light in the large rooms. It is to be hoped Mr. Cooper may some time divide them, and put in gas.

I have taken advantage of the residence in this country of a well-known member of the Royal Academy, Mrs. Elizabeth Murray, to ascertain what circumstances led to the formation of the Society of Female Artists, in London. To Mrs. Grote, the wife of the historian, and Mrs. Murray herself, this society owed its existence, somewhere in the winter of 1854 and 1855. There is no objection to it, so far as I know, except one apparent on its catalogues, the present preponderance of distinguished amateur artists on the Board of Direction. I insert here Mrs. Murray's letter in reply to my inquiries. The best artists, such as Rosa Bonheur and Mrs. Murray herself, exhibit with this society.

My dear Mrs. Dall,—On my return to England, after an absence of many years, I found that women labored under very disheartening conditions; their professional occupations consisting chiefly of teaching, music and singing, literature and the fine arts. In the latter department, they came more under my own personal observation; and I found, that, although they were countenanced by men individually, collectively they were persecuted by men, seldom being permitted membership with any public body, or, when admitted, were not allowed the full privileges accorded to men.

For instance: At the Royal Academy of London, women are not admitted at all to membership. On the walls of that exhibition may be seen the works of women, which rank among the best; but here their privilege ends. They assist in bringing their quota of the entrance fees, the main source of income of the academy, while they are debarred from all privileges and emoluments.

The two water-color societies profess to admit women as

members, which they do to a very limited extent; but even here they are subject to the same restrictions. Under these circumstances, the project occurred to me of founding a separate and independent society, which should include only the works of female artists, in order to give to those excluded from other societies, opportunities of asserting their own powers.

The first step was to get up an exhibition to excite public sympathy in favor of the scheme. This was a most difficult undertaking, as opposition was met with, not only from men, but from the very women whose interests were at stake; those who were strong in the profession fearing to lose caste, and the weaker ones being afraid to act independently.

After much perseverance and explanation, several large-minded persons of the more moneyed and influential ranks in society came forward, and assisted, by their cordial co-operation, in establishing a temporary committee. Money was freely contributed; and the society had a fair start, opening to the public a very creditable exhibition of the works of female artists.

Finding that, for the future, I must necessarily be absent from England, I retired from the Committee of Direction.

The society has continued in a more or less prosperous condition up to the present time, although my plan of establishing an adequate school of art has not been carried out. Much private good has been the result; and I think the class of women for whom the society was founded, have been raised in position. Believe me, dear madam, Very truly yours, (Signed) Elizabeth Murray. 13, Pemberton Square, Dec. 22, 1866.

In Paris, Rosa Bonheur is now the directress, under the government, of the École Impériale de Dessein, established exclusively for young women.

LABOR.[51]

The advance of women, as regards all sorts of labor, in the United States, has been such as might be expected by watchful eyes; and yet reports on the general question will not read very differently from those published ten years ago. In New York, women are still reported as making shirts at seventy-five cents a dozen, and overalls at fifty cents. These women have two Protective Unions of their own, not connected with the Workingmen's Union; and most of them have, naturally enough, sympathized with the eight-hour movement, not foreseeing, apparently, that the necessary first result of that movement would be a decrease of wages, proportioned to the limitation of time. Ever since the beginning of the war, women have been employed in the public departments, North and South. It has been a matter of necessity, rather than of choice. The same causes combined to drive women into field-labor and printing-offices. All through Minnesota and the surrounding regions, women voluntarily assumed the whole charge of the farms, in order to send their husbands to the field. A very interesting account has been recently published of a farm in Dongola, Ill., consisting of two thousand acres, managed by a highly educated woman, whose husband was a cavalry officer. It was a great pecuniary success. In New Hampshire, last summer, I was shown open-air graperies, wholly managed by women, in several different localities; and was very happy to be told that my own influence had largely contributed to the experiment. In England, field-labor is now recommended to women by Lord Houghton, better known as Mr. Monckton Milnes, who considers it a healthful resource against the terrible abuses of factory life. At a meeting of the British Association, last fall, he produced a well-written letter from a woman engaged in brick-making. This letter claimed that brick-making paid three times better than factory labor, and ten times better than domestic service. In addition to persons heretofore mentioned, in this country, as employing women in out-door work, I would name Mr. Knox, the great fruit-grower, who, on his place near Pittsburg, Pa., employs two or three hundred. I have seen it stated, that, during the last four years, twenty thousand women have entered printing-offices. I do not know the basis of this calculation; but, judging from my local statistics, I should think it must be nearly correct.

To the Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature on the eight-hour movement, the following towns report concerning the wages and labor of women, in 1866:—

Boston.—Glass Company, wages from $4.00 to $8.00 a week. Domestics, from $1.50 to $3.00 per week. Seamstresses, $1.00 a day. Makers of fancy goods, 40 to 50 cents a day.

Brookline.—Washerwomen, $1.00 a day.

Charlestown and New Bedford are ashamed to name the wages, but humbly confess that they are very low.

Chicopee pays women 90 per cent the wages of men.

Concord pays from 8 to 10 cents an hour.

Fairhaven gives to female photographers one-third the wages of men.

Hadley pays three-fourths; to domestics, one-third; seamstresses, one-quarter to one-third.

Holyoke, in its paper-mills, offers one-third to one-half.

Lancaster pays for pocket-book making from 50 to 75 cents a day.

Lee pays in the paper-mills one-half the wages of men.

Lowell.—The Manufacturing Company averages 90 cents a day. The Baldwin Mills pay 60 to 75 cents a day.

Newton pays its washerwomen 75 cents a day, or 10 cents an hour.

North Becket pays to women one-third the wages of men.

Northampton pays $5.00 a week.

Salisbury, for sewing hats, $1.00 a day.

South Reading, on rattan and shoe work, $5.00 to $10.00 a week.

South Yarmouth, half the wages of men, or less.

Taunton, one-third to two-thirds the wages of men.

Walpole pays two-thirds the wages of men.

Wareham pays to its domestics from 18 to 30 cents a day; to seamstresses, 50 cents to $1.00.

Wilmington pays two-thirds the wages of men.

Winchester pays dressmakers $1.00 a day; washerwomen, 12 cents an hour.

Woburn keeps its women to work from 11 to 13 hours, and pays them two-thirds the wages of men.

On the better side of the question, Fall River testifies that women, in competition, earn nearly as much as men.

Lawrence, from the Pacific Mills, that the women are liberally paid. We should like to see the figures. The Washington Mills pay from $1.00 to $2.00 a day.

Stoneham gives them $1.50 per week.

Waltham reports the wages of the watch-factory as very remunerative. In 1860, I reported this factory as paying from $2.50 to $4.00 a week. Here, also, we should prefer figures to a general statement.

Boston has now many manufactories of paper collars. Each girl is expected to turn out 1,800 daily. The wages are $7.00 a week. In the paper-box factory, more than 200 girls are employed; but I cannot ascertain their wages, and therefore suppose them to be low. I know individuals who earn here $6.00 a week; but that must be above the average.

The best-looking body of factory operatives that I have ever seen are those employed in the silk and ribbon mills on Boston Neck, lately under the charge of Mr. J.H. Stephenson, and those at the Florence Silk Mills in Northampton, owned by Mr. S.L. Hill. The classes, libraries, and privileges appertaining to these mills make them the best examples I know; and this is shown in the faces and bearing of the women.

We are always referred to political economy, when we speak of the low wages of women; but a little investigation will show that other causes co-operate with those, which can be but gradually reached, to determine their rates.

1. The wilfulness of women themselves, which, when I see them in positions I have helped to open to them, fills me with shame and indignation.

2. The unfair competition, proceeding from the voluntary labor, in mechanical ways, of women well to do.

For the first, we cannot greatly blame the women whom employers choose for their good looks, for expecting to earn their wages through them, rather than by the proper discharge of their duties. Their conduct is not the less shameful on that account; but I seem to see that only time and death and ruin will educate them.

For the second, we must strive to develop a public sentiment, which, while it continues to hold labor honorable, will stamp with ignominy any women who, in comfortable country homes, compete with the workwomen of great cities. There are thousands of wealthy farmers' wives to-day, who just as much drive other women to sin and death as if they led them with their own hands to the houses in which they are ultimately compelled to take refuge. Still further, it has come to be known to me, that in Boston, and I am told in New York also, wealthy women, who do not even do their own sewing, have the control of the finer kinds of fancy work, dealing with the stores which sell such work, under various disguises. I cannot prove these words, but they will strike conviction to the hearts of the women themselves, and I wish them to have some significance for men; for, if these women had the pocket-money which their taste and position require, they would never dream of such competition. One thing these men should know, that such women are generally known to their employers, and their domestic relations are judged accordingly.

The recent investigations into factory labor in England concern rather the condition than the wages of the women. At flower-making, 11,000 girls are employed from fourteen to eighteen hours daily. In hardware shops and factories, they work, from six years of age, fourteen hours daily. In glass factories, 5,000 women are employed, from nine years of age and upwards, eighteen hours daily. In tobacco factories, 7,000 women are employed, under conditions of great physical suffering. As knitters, from six years old, they work fourteen hours daily for 1s. 3d. a week!

This terrible state of things is partly owing to competition with the labor of French machinery. A great deal of ignorant prejudice against machines is one of its results. In Sheffield, files are still made by hand; while here, in America, we make watches by machinery! The disposition of the whole community, both here and in Great Britain, towards this labor question, is kindly. It has become a momentous social problem. During the fifteen years that my attention has been riveted to this subject, I have seen a great change in public feeling.

I have received the Sixth Annual Report of the Society for the Employment of Women, of which the Earl of Shaftesbury is President, and Mr. Gladstone a Vice-President. This society has trained some hair-dressers, clerks, glass-engravers, book-keepers, and telegraph operators; but its greatest service consists in the constant issue of tracts, to influence developing public opinion. Such an association should be started in New York.

I should have been glad to inaugurate in Boston, during the last six years, several important industrial movements. The war checked the enthusiasm I had succeeded in rousing; and I have not been able to pause in my special work of collecting and observing facts to stimulate it afresh, or to solicit personally the necessary means. How easy it would be for a few wealthy women to test these experiments!

I would first establish a mending-school; and, having taught women how to darn and patch in a proper manner, I would scatter them through the country, to open shops of their own. As it is, I do not know a city, in which a place exists to which a housekeeper could send a week's wash, sure that it would be returned with every button-hole, button, hem, gusset, and stay in proper condition. These mending-shops should take on apprentices, who should be sent to the house to do every sort of repairing with a needle.

I would open another school to train women to every kind of trivial service, now clumsily or inadequately performed by men. If, for instance, you now send to an upholsterer to have an old window-blind or blind-fixture repaired, his apprentice will replace the entire thing at a proportionate cost, leaving the old screw-holes to gape at the gazer. I would train women to wash, repair, and replace in part, and to carry in their pockets little vials of white or red lead to fill the gaping holes. Full employment could be found for such apprentices.

At Milwaukee, in October, 1866, I found a young woman well established as a hair-dresser. She belonged to a superior class of society, and encountered great opposition in carrying out her plan. "People would treat her much better," said a resident clergyman to me, in detailing her struggles, "if she were the willing mistress of a rich man." She had no taste for teaching, but I found in her a cultivated and pleasant companion. Since the war began, a good many women have been employed as clerks in the public offices at Washington. There is now some talk of their removal. If this should occur, it would be in consequence of unfit appointments, and the habits and annoyances which demoralized women have imposed upon the departments. The proper place to begin removals is obviously with the corrupt men, who have pensioned their mistresses out of the public coffers.

In Chicago, I found Fanny Paine, a girl of thirteen, acting as paymaster to the Eagle Works Manufacturing Company. She will, in one year, pay out a quarter of a million of dollars. She keeps the time-sheets, pay-roll, and account-book of each of the four hundred men employed. She receives about five thousand dollars a week from the bank, and makes the proper balances with the cashier, after paying her men. She knows every man, earns six hundred and twenty-five dollars per annum, and is represented as perfectly robust. It gave me no pleasure to find so young a girl in a position so exposed. I would have her uncommon faculties mature in quiet. The "London Athenæum" lately said, "A phenomenon worthy of consideration is the increasing number of female players on stringed instruments in France. At the examination of the conservatory this year, Mademoiselle Boulay gained a first, Mademoiselle Castellan a second prize. The violoncello has its professional students among the gentler sex. Madame Viardot is about to turn her experience to account, by editing a classical selection of music."

A very dear friend of mine,—Charlotte Hill, of West Gouldsborough, in Maine,—born a farmer's daughter, too deaf to teach, and too delicate to sew, had an intense love for music. She taught herself the violin. She then made a profession for herself by offering to play it at rustic parties; and one year, in the pursuit of this profession, she travelled more than eight hundred miles, and laid by three hundred dollars. This money was not spent on jewelry, but on the best books that our best publishers could furnish. It takes a genius to do a thing like that,—trust in one's self, and a far deeper trust in God; but there are multitudes of women whom suggestion and sympathy would lead into such thriving ways.

I have heard recently of a young girl in Shirley, who supports herself and her father by gunning. She not only sends game to market, but prepares the breasts of birds for ornamental purposes. She has bought her own house by her profits.

When I was at Florence, Mass., in the summer of 1865, I drove over to the famous button-factory at Easthampton. This great industry was founded by a woman; and, as I had often heard mythical stories about it, I wished to get at the facts. I found Samuel Williston, a very good specimen of a fine old English gentleman. He is a man between sixty and seventy, with hair and beard as white as snow. I found him in a blue coat with bright buttons, a buff waistcoat, and white pants, and very willing to tell his wife's story, if it would "encourage other women."

"My wife's father," he went on to say, "was a Mr. Graves. He was a poor man, with a large family of children. His wife and daughters used to go over to Northampton to get knitting from the stores. One day, all the knitting had been given out; and Mrs. Graves showed her disappointment so plainly that the shopman asked her to take some buttons to cover. In those days, all our buttons came from England, where they were made by hand; but our tailor had got out, and wanted some for coats and vests in a hurry. Mrs. Graves made about a gross, all her daughters helping, and did it so well that the work was continued. Then my wife took it up. She got some of the work from her mother. That was in 1825-26,—forty years ago. I had invested in merino sheep. I had ninety ewes and a large farm; but I was a young man, and found it hard to get along. It looked as though this business would help. My wife wanted to control the work. She hired girls to help her, and took all the orders that came. J.D. Whitney and Hayden & Whitney sold all she could make. When she had had the business a year, I went to Boston, Providence, Hartford, New Haven, New York,—in short, I went all round,—with samples. I got my orders at first hand, and from that the business began.

"When we heard that machine-made buttons had been introduced into England, we sent over to buy the right to make them, and Mr. Hayden introduced them here.

"Every man must have his small beginnings," added Mr. Williston, with an embarrassed blush; "but, when a man has such a wife as mine, he is lucky."

It is said that nearly a million of dollars is invested in this button business at Easthampton. The Willistons are Congregational Christians; and the "Round Table" stated lately, that the wealth thus accumulated, besides being of great local value in developing the resources of the State, had established one seminary, built three churches, and assisted colleges and schools without number.

It is very rare that the labor of women becomes consolidated into capital; but there is no reason why it should not. The mother of James Freeman Clarke, whose name I use here in compliance with her own expressed desire, was a wonderful illustration of what common sense and determination will accomplish. The petted darling of a wealthy family, Madame Clarke found herself summoned, by her husband's illness and early death, to retrieve, almost unaided, the fortunes of six children. The first money which she could lay aside, at the head of a boarding-house, lifted the mortgage from a small property which she knew she was to inherit, and which she felt sure would increase in value. For this property she ultimately received her own price, being, to the great amazement of applicants, her own "man of business" in all negotiations. The small sum it yielded she put out at interest in new States, where money was scarce, and multiplied it tenfold before she died, not by careless speculation, but by investing it wisely in the heart of the great cities of Chicago and Milwaukee, by buying what she saw with her own eyes to be valuable. "I want women to know how to manage their own concerns as I did," she would say. "It only takes a little common sense. Women ought not to give up their property to men, or even ask their advice about it. The best men will prop up their shaky plans with a woman's money; but women should watch men, see where shrewd men put their money, and do as they do, not as they say."

I am sorry that the purpose of this volume does not permit me to show how this noble woman used the money she made for the profit, the religious advancement, and the bodily comfort of those who seemed to need its aid.

One other woman, whose name I am not permitted to mention, deserves to be spoken of in this connection. She was an orphan, and began life as a factory girl with twelve cents and a half. Her father had never dreamed of any need to educate a daughter. She took a sister into the factory with her; and, while one worked, the other went to school,—my friend opening a dressmaker's shop, at times, to speed the process. While in the mills, she secured, by a wise firmness, many privileges for the girls. She married, and, after the death of an only child, sought to make herself happy, by being of use; and opened, for the girls whose wages had been reduced, a Protective Union shoe-store, taking all that one man and eight apprentices could make daily. At last, she borrowed a hundred dollars, and went to Lynn,—the first woman that ever bought goods there. She soon controlled the prices of the trade, opened a second store, and finally bought out the Union.

Part of her store she devoted to fancy goods, and, for seven years and a half, did all the buying in Boston. She then went to Philadelphia, leaving the stores in her husband's charge, and took her degree at Pennsylvania College. After this, she lectured on Physiology throughout New England, being often profitably employed by the corporations to lecture to the girls. By this time, she owned her horse and carriage, her house, and twenty thousand dollars, beside having a good practice in a country town. Circumstances then carried her to California, where, in three years and a half, she made thirteen thousand dollars, partly by her profession, and partly by buying up Government vouchers, in which the men at the Navy Yard were paid. She gave gold, and received greenbacks. Before she left the State, one of its most eminent physicians came to her to know by what secret she cured patients whom he had given up. She showed him the errors of his own practice; and, when she returned to New England, left, with perfect faith, her patients in his hands.

If this woman were not still living, I should wish to record the details of her life; but they suggest so much, that I have not thought it right to suppress them altogether.

Mr. Thayer and two ladies have lately attempted, in Boston, at No. 28, Ash Street, a small experiment in the way of a lodging-house for girls. This was first suggested to the ladies, by the misfortunes of a young woman who came under their notice. They tried to hire a house, but found it cheaper to buy; Mr. Thayer being responsible for half the expense, and each of the ladies for one-quarter. The house was furnished at the cost of friends. It has gas and water in nearly every room, and shelters 29 girls. They pay for light, rent, lodging, and fire, repairs and service, $1.50 per week, and $1.25. There are two single beds in most of the rooms. The matron keeps an exact account of her expenditure; and each week the stores are weighed by one of the ladies, the waste being charged, as well as the marketing, to the girls.

The board, so managed, costs each girl $1.75 a week. Some of the girls wash for themselves in the evening, and a woman is hired for the house once a week. They take care of their own rooms. The matron employs a cook. There are only two rules,—that every girl shall be in at 10 P.M., and that a week's notice shall be given when any inmate desires to leave. No supervision is exercised except of the stores and the matron's accounts. The house was opened Dec. 15, 1866, and is a success according to its plan.

Grateful as I am to see this attempt made, I cannot feel that this plan should be followed for the future. Girls do not wish to receive charity, nor can any experiment be thoroughly successful, which does not pay, in the long-run, a fair percentage on the cost of house and furniture. Now, $4.00 a week is, in my estimation, only the fair cost price of the style of board and living which these girls receive; and it could not be kept at that under average management.

I do not know the cost of the house, but it would certainly rent for $600. The taxes upon it would be, at least, $120.

Now, let us suppose that 30 girls occupy it, each paying the highest rent, of $1.50 per week, which is $45 a month. In 13 months, they would pay $585;—a sum less than the rent alone; the house and water taxes, light, lodging, fire, repairs, and service, being thrown in gratis. I am sure my estimate of the rent and taxes is beneath the real value of both; and it is evident, that no efforts to benefit this class, on a large scale, will succeed, unless made to pay better: companies will undertake only profitable work. I want to see girls unite to furnish themselves, in a still more modest way, with what they need; and I wish to see a system of cooking-houses established, which shall simplify the whole matter.

In New York, a Working-women's Home is about to be established, the plan of which was long since submitted to the public. A building has been purchased on Elizabeth Street, which will afford accommodations for four hundred persons. For this, $100,000 has been paid, and $25,000 more will be expended in fitting it up. Half the amount has already been raised; and the managers are making strong efforts to collect the remainder. Of its objects, the "Evening Post" says,—

"In this Home will be found clean, well-ventilated rooms, wholesome food, and facilities for education and self-improvement. Girls exposed to the temptations of a city life will be surrounded by both moral and Christian influences.

"The institution is intended to benefit a class of women who now find it impossible, with their slender means, to procure comfortable homes, and are forced to live where moral purity, as well as health, is endangered.

"It is well known that families and boarding-house keepers almost always object to female boarders, and that many thousands of sewing-women find it difficult to obtain quarters. Artificial flower-makers, book-folders, hoop-skirt manufacturers, packers of confectionery, &c., are compelled, if deprived

of parental shelter, to accept such homes and accommodations as their very limited resources will command.

"It is not intended to make this a charitable institution; but the prices will be made so moderate as to be within the means of those who are to be benefited by it, while, at the same time, the establishment will be self-sustaining."

Mr. Halliday says of it,—

"The whole expense of first purchase, alterations, and furniture, will be about $140,000. Messrs. Peter Cooper, James Lenox, James Brown, Stewart Brown, William H. Aspinwall, E.J. Woolsey, and Mrs. C.L. Spencer, have, unsolicited, each contributed one thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars has been appropriated on condition that we obtained a like amount in donations. We expect to have accommodations for nearly five hundred, and the charge for board and washing will be from three dollars and a quarter to three and a half per week.

"There will be parlors, reading room and free library, and ample bathing rooms. None of good reputation will be refused admission; no others can become members of the family."

It is hoped to open the institution by the first of June.

A Young Women's Christian Association was organized in Boston in May, 1866, under the auspices of Mrs. Henry F. Durant. Furnished rooms have been provided at 27, Chauncy Street, where young women can obtain information in regard to employment, boarding-houses, and so on. The applications average one hundred a month; and the association seeks to establish a home, where there will be a restaurant for furnishing meals, at cost, to young women only, a free reading and library room, evening schools, rooms for social purposes, and temporary lodging-rooms. This is a most desirable thing to do; but it will not be of permanent benefit, if it puts into a false position any girls capable of self-support. The funds of wise and kind people must start all such movements; but, to be useful, they must be, not only in appearance, but in reality, self-supporting.

During the summer of 1866, Octavia Hill, of London, a grand-daughter of the celebrated Dr. Southwood Smith, reports that, after conferring with John Ruskin, she had hired houses for poor tenants. She put them into good order, and kept them in it. She would allow, in her tenants, neither overcrowding nor arrears of rent. She had no middle-men. The experiment was wholly successful, and paid at once five per cent.

Mr. Ruskin's lodging-houses, as they are called, are the best that have ever been established in London. They furnish the cheapest and cleanest lodgings for the poor, yet pay a good dividend. They are entirely in the hands of Miss Hill, as Mr. Ruskin himself is more skilful to remedy any social excrescence than patient to bear with it. He forgets, I think, what he once wrote concerning the soul that denies itself an encounter with pain.

I have mentioned, in the body of this book, the great number of women who have entered printing-offices since 1860. I have thought that it might help women in some other departments of labor, to understand how some of these changes were effected, and in what manner advantages have been secured, which might easily have been lost. In a town that I know of, a weekly religious paper was printed by eight women. The most experienced acted as foreman; and when, in the second year of the war, strikes began in the printing-offices, a friend directed her attention to the fact, and showed her how to meet a strike should it come, as it did, into her own town. As soon as she heard of it, she consulted with the rest of the hands. Seeing a possible though by no means a certain advantage, they agreed to be bound by her action in such an event. At last, the hands employed on the daily evening paper of the town struck, and the publisher knew not what to do. The girl went to him, told him she would bring seven able hands with her, and was accepted at once. He was mean enough to offer half-pay, which she peremptorily refused. The eight women entered the office on full pay. They had not been there a week, before every body rejoiced in the change. There was no swearing and no drinking, but a quiet workroom. At the end of a month, the disappointed men offered to return: their services were declined, but the publisher was mean enough to go to his foreman. "My men are ready to come back," said he: "I have no fault to find with you, but I can no longer give you full wages."—"Do as you please," replied the girl: "you cannot have us for any less;" and, as the whole seven said amen, the publisher had nothing to do but to keep them. The advantage that flowed from union and good sense in this case are evident, and could easily be imitated in many directions. During the past winter, Miss Stebbens, of Chickasaw County, Iowa, has been appointed notary public; such appointments being still so rare as to make the fact worth recording.

LAW.

The "British Medical Journal" was lately reported to have said that more English women seek for admission to the bar than for entrance into medical practice. If this be true, it is in marked contrast to the state of things in this country. Some women have studied law here; many have written in lawyers' offices; but, so far as I know, not one has desired to be admitted to the bar: and, in England itself, so far as I know, Miss Shedden remains the single example of a woman pleading in a court of law.

The number of laws passed the last six years, affecting the condition of women, has been very small.

The New-York Assembly in February, 1865, passed a law putting the legal evidence of a married woman on the same basis as if she were a feme sole. The Massachusetts Legislature have legalized marriage ceremonies performed by an ordained woman; and in January, 1866, Mr. Peckham, of Worcester, moved for a joint special committee "to consider in what way a more just and equal compensation shall be awarded to female labor." On the 4th of April, just past, Samuel E. Sewall and others petitioned for leave to appoint women on school committees. It is difficult to conceive on what ground such petitioners had leave to withdraw. These things are only valuable as indicating that public attention is still alive.

In Richmond, Va., recently, a charge of stealing was sustained against a woman, who was afterwards acquitted, by appeal, on the ground that no married woman could own her own clothing, and the consequent flaw in the indictment. In consequence, a bill to secure the rights of property to a married woman, as if she were a feme sole, has been offered in the House, to the horror of members who gravely assert that there can be no marriages, if a man does not own his wife's wardrobe!

In Missouri, the new Constitution confers on women the right to make a will; and the Legislature is considering the subject of introducing women to the State University.

In England, a curious decision has recently been made, in the case of a clergyman, of the Church of England, who left his children to the guardianship of his wife, without expressing any opinion as to their religious education. Joint guardian with the wife was a brother clergyman, who brings action to have it decided by the Court where the children shall attend church. The mother, and a son of thirteen, desire to attend a dissenting chapel; but Sir J. Stuart, Vice-Chancellor, decided that the father's religious faith must decide the matter for the children! Such absurdity will do more than any argument to secure the future freedom of woman. The family history of Madame de Bedout, recently dead at Paris, furnishes, also, a remarkable illustration of the absurdity of the old laws.

The will of Francis Jackson, of Boston, has been recently brought before our courts to obtain instructions as to its construction. Mr. Jackson's bequest for the purpose of creating an antislavery sentiment has been sustained; but the decision reads, February, 1867:—

"The gift in the sixth article, to create a trust, unrestricted in point of time, to secure the passage of laws granting to women different rights from those belonging to them under the existing Constitution and laws, does not constitute a legal charity, and is therefore void, and is remitted to the testator's heirs-at-law."

The gift in question was intended to aid the publication of such books as the reader now holds in his hand.

A very important convention came together at Leipsic, in September, 1865. One hundred and fifty women assembled, pledged to assert the right to labor, and to bridge the gulf between the compensations of the two sexes. Madame Louise Otto Peters opened the conference in an able speech. She stated that there were five millions of women in Germany, who could each earn, if allowed, three thalers a week. A thousand women might find employment as chemists, on salaries of one hundred and fifty thalers a year, exclusive of board and lodging. Another thousand might be employed as boot-closers. The foundation of industrial and commercial schools was urged. The weak point of the speech, as reported, appeared to be, that it took no cognizance of the fact, that an influx of five millions of laborers must necessarily lower the current rate of wages she proposed. I mention this convention in a legal connection, believing that it was intended to remove some local legal barriers.

A petition from sixty women of Potter County, Penn., has just been presented to the Legislature of that State, praying for the passage of an act to enable widows, on the death of a husband, to control the property acquired by joint labor, in the same manner as the husband does on the death of the wife.

When Freeman Clarke was Comptroller of the United-States Currency, he decided that a woman, not being a citizen, could not be a bank director. I consider this logical and satisfactory. I wish more decisions of this kind could be made. If the position that woman is not a citizen were pushed to its extreme, it would become untenable, her property could not be taxed, and the necessary remedy would be applied. One bank remonstrated against the comptroller's decision, desiring to retain the services of women "hitherto satisfactory." I see, by a Washington paper, that another national bank desires leave to diminish the number of its directors; so many of its shares being held by women, that nine men could not be found to fill the office.

Now, let some bright women buy up, through a broker, all the shares of such a bank, elect their own president and directors, and see what the Government can do. The absurdity of such a position, practically, is evident to all who know how business is done in our country towns.

SUFFRAGE.

Dr. Hunt and a few other women have continued their annual protests, without intermission. In somewhat the same way have petitions recently been sent to Congress in behalf of universal suffrage. We had no expectation that any favorable reception would await such petitions; but it was a duty to put them on record, if we could do it without perplexing public business. What fate they met in Congress, you have so recently heard, that I have no occasion to record it. Minnesota, New York, and other States, have petitioned their Legislatures to the same effect.

On the 7th of February, 1867, the House of Representatives in Kansas decided, in concurrence with the Senate, to amend a resolution for the amendment of the Constitution, by striking out the words "white" and "male," and making intelligence the basis of suffrage after 1870. This action has been since rescinded in some way, only the word "white" being stricken out. In Congress, Mr. Noel, of Missouri, offered a series of resolutions in favor of extending suffrage to women, and authorizing the calling of a convention to amend the Constitution in the State of Missouri. The acting Vice-President, the Speaker of the Senate, in recording his protest against the Suffrage Bill of the District of Columbia, said, "Make it intelligent suffrage, and I will not only vote for that, but for women also."

At the recent election of officers for the Philadelphia Mercantile Library, the female stockholders were admitted to the ballot.

The "New-York Express" says:—

"The exercise of the elective franchise for women was practically illustrated in the election of officers for the Mercantile Library, Philadelphia, on Tuesday. A poll was opened for the female stockholders, who, to the number of a hundred and fifty-six, cast their votes. Both sexes voted together; and the proceedings were conducted with the utmost propriety, there being no confusion or disorder, as is too often the case where men vote alone. The ladies walked up, and deposited their ballots with as much sang froid as if they were accustomed to the privilege. As illustrating how the thing might be done, this voting at the library election should be noted."

Some doubts having been expressed as to the fact of women having voted in New Jersey, first published by me, on information given by Thomas Garratt, in my lectures upon Law, I append here a history of the Constitution of New Jersey in that regard, which has been gathered by Lucy Stone and Antoinette Blackwell, as well as an account of my own recent interview with a member of the House of 1807, which finally repealed the obnoxious clause.

During the recent important discussion in the Senate upon the proposition to extend the ballot to the women of the District of Columbia, New Jersey was alluded to as a precedent. The precedent being disputed, the following statement was published in the "Newark Daily Advertiser:"—

"In 1709 a provincial law confined the privilege of voting to 'male freeholders having one hundred acres of land in their own right, or fifty pounds current money of the province in real and personal estate;' and, during the whole of the colonial period, these qualifications continued unchanged.

"But on the 2d of July, 1776 (two days before the Declaration of Independence), the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, at Burlington, adopted a Constitution, which remained in force until 1844, of which sect. 4 is as follows: 'Qualifications of Electors for Members of Legislatures. All inhabitants of this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation-money, clear estate in the same, and have resided within the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for representatives in Council and Assembly, and also for all other public officers that shall be elected by the people of the county at large.'

"Sect. 7 provides that the Council and Assembly jointly shall elect some fit person within the colony to be Governor. This Constitution remained in force until 1844.

"Thus, by a deliberate change of the terms 'male freeholder' to 'all inhabitants,' suffrage and ability to hold the highest office in the State were conferred both on women and negroes.

"In 1790, a committee of the Legislature reported a bill regulating elections, in which the words 'he or she' are applied to voters; thus giving legislative indorsement to the alleged meaning of the Constitution.

"In 1797 the Legislature passed an act to regulate elections, containing the following provisions:—

"Sect. 9. 'Every voter shall openly, and in full view, deliver his or her ballot, which shall be a single written ticket, containing the names of the person or persons for whom he or she votes,' &c.

"Sect. 11. 'All free inhabitants of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation-money, and have resided within the county in which they claim a vote for twelve months immediately preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for all public officers which shall be elected by virtue of this act; and no person shall be entitled to vote in any other township or precinct than that in which he or she doth actually reside at the time of the election.'

"Mr. William A. Whitehead, of Newark, in a paper upon this subject, read by him in 1858 before the New-Jersey Historical Society, states that, in this same year (1797), women voted, at an election in Elizabethtown, for members of the Legislature. 'The candidates between whom the greatest rivalry existed were John Condit and William Crane, the heads of what were known, a year or two later, as the "Federal Republican" and "Federal Aristocratic" parties, the former the candidate of Newark and the northern portions of the county, the latter that of Elizabethtown and the adjoining country, for Council. Under the impression that the candidates would poll nearly the same number of votes, the Elizabethtown leaders thought, that, by a bold coup d'état, they might secure the success of Mr. Crane. At a late hour of the day, and, as I have been informed, just before the close of the poll, a number of females were brought up, and, under the provisions of the existing laws, allowed to vote. But the manœuvre was unsuccessful; the majority for Mr. Condit in the county being ninety-three, notwithstanding.'

"The 'Newark Sentinel,' about the same time, states that 'no less than seventy-five women were polled at the late election in a neighboring borough.' In the presidential election of 1800, between Adams and Jefferson, 'females voted very

generally throughout the State; and such continued to be the case until the passage of the act (1807) excluding them from the polls. At first, the law had been so construed as to admit single women only: but, as the practice extended, the construction of the privilege became broader, and was made to include females eighteen years old, married or single, and even women of color; at a contested election in Hunterdon County in 1802, the votes of two or three such actually electing a member of the Legislature.

"That women voted at a very early period, we are informed by the venerable Mr. Cyrus Jones, of East Orange, who was born in 1770, and is now ninety-seven years old. He says that 'old maids, widows, and unmarried women very frequently voted, but married women very seldom;' that 'the right was recognized, and very little said or thought about it in any way.'

"In the spring of 1807, a special election was held in Essex County, to decide upon the location of a court-house and jail; Newark and its vicinity struggling to retain the county buildings, Elizabethtown and its neighborhood striving to remove them to 'Day's Hill.'

"The question excited intense interest, as the value of every man's property was thought to be involved. Not only was every legal voter, man or woman, white or black, brought out; but, on both sides, gross frauds were practised. The property qualification was generally disregarded; aliens, and boys and girls not of full age, participated; and many of both sexes 'voted early, and voted often.' In Aquackanonk Township, thought to contain about three hundred legal voters, over eighteen hundred votes were polled, all but seven in the interest of Newark.

"It does not appear that either women or negroes were more especially implicated in these frauds than the white men. But the affair caused great scandal, and they seem to have been made the scapegoats.

"When the Legislature assembled, they set aside the election as fraudulent; yet Newark retained the buildings. Then they passed an act (Nov. 15, 1807), restricting the suffrage to white male adult citizens twenty-one years of age, residents in the county for the twelve months preceding, and worth fifty pounds proclamation-money. But they went on, and provided that all such whose names appeared on the last duplicate of State or county taxes should be considered worth fifty pounds; thus virtually abolishing the property qualification.

"In 1820, the same provisions were repeated, and maintained until 1844, when the present State Constitution was substituted.

"Thus it appears, that, from 1776 to 1807,—a period of thirty-one years,—the right of women and negroes to vote was admitted and exercised; then from 1807 to 1844—by an arbitrary act of the Legislature, which does not seem to have been ever contested—the constitutional right was suspended, and both women and negroes excluded from the polls for thirty-seven years more. The extension of suffrage, in the State Constitution of 1776, to 'all inhabitants' possessing the prescribed qualifications, was doubtless due to the Quaker influence, then strong in West Jersey, and then, as now, in favor of the equal rights of women.

"Since 1844, under the present Constitution, suffrage is conferred upon 'every white male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of this State one year, and of the county in which he claims a vote five months next before the election,' excepting paupers, idiots, insane persons, and criminals.

"This Constitution is subject to amendment by a majority of both Houses of two successive Legislatures, when such amendment is afterward ratified by the people at a special election.

"Lucy Stone, H.B. Blackwell."

In a recent visit to Perth Amboy, a friend directed my attention to a figure in a broad-brimmed hat, very much like that which used to adorn the cover of Poor Richard's Almanac. "That man is ninety-five years old," said he. "He spent his youth in preventing the New-Jersey people from running their slaves off South. A prospective emancipation act had been passed, which made the young negroes a poor investment; but our friend Parker, there, looked after them without any fee. We think he looks like Benjamin Franklin." The next day, I took a drive with Mr. Parker himself, and I found he possessed another claim on my interest. The original Constitution of New Jersey, adopted in 1776, left women free to vote, by leaving out the word "male." In 1790, when the Constitution was revised, a Quaker member, "Friend Hooper," rose to say that among his people the women were allowed their natural share of influence. At his instance, the matter was made clearer by the insertion of the words "he or she." In 1807, after an election contested with singular virulence, these words were expunged, and the word "male" inserted. I had never expected to see a member of the Legislature who repealed this phrase; but Friend Parker was there, and helped do it. He assured me that the women were not at that time anxious to retain the privilege; but that, if they had been, the Legislature was so irate, that the change would have taken place. Lads, both white and colored, and under age, had dressed in women's clothes, to swell the ballot, which was more than double what it should have been; the irritating question being the possible removal of the county buildings.

A few days since, I cut from the paper the following paragraph:—

"In the Kentucky House of Representatives, on Friday last, an address was received by the Speaker, from Mrs. ——, of New York, and read by the Clerk, asking the Legislature of the Southern States to grant suffrage to white women in the South, so as to give the Democratic party the advantage over the negro votes, if Congress passes a general negro-suffrage law. By following out this plan, Mrs. —— thinks the South can govern the country, as in the days of Jefferson."

I suppress the name, which was printed in full, in this paragraph, because it is the name of a woman I respect; and I earnestly hope the whole charge is false. If women seek to advance their own cause by mean and meretricious tricks,—such as those which have dishonored the policy of men,—may God for ever disappoint their hope! I would rather be defeated with the friends of liberty than crowned with its foes. It is because I believe woman strong enough to withstand the low and loose and degrading temptations of public life that I would lead her towards it. If she cannot enter it as an inspiration, may she be for ever shut out!

Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, assisted by Lucy Stone and Antoinette Blackwell, have been busy in agitating all legal questions, and especially the right of suffrage, ever since the formation of the Equal-Rights Association, in New York, in May, 1866. Wherever there is any prospect of a convention to change a State Constitution, it would seem wise to agitate the matter; but here, in Massachusetts, almost every thing has been done that should be to protect women, except to give them the right of suffrage. That question we are too wise to agitate, until the country recovers somewhat from the anxieties and perplexities of the war. We have no desire to win from an unjust judge, for our importunity's sake, a right which could never be useful, unless it were accorded with the hearty sympathy of the best part of the community. On March 16, 1867, a motion was made in the Massachusetts House to instruct the Judiciary Committee to report an amendment to the State Constitution, granting the right of suffrage to women. The yeas and nays were taken, and the motion was lost: yeas 44, nays 97.

In New York, Illinois, and Michigan, the question is to be brought before the Constitutional Convention. Wisconsin is our banner State, both branches of her government having concurred, April 4, 1867, in a resolution to submit it to the people. In New York, last year, Mrs. Stanton proposed herself as a candidate for Congress, and received, I think, thirty votes. It was so well understood that her election was impossible, that her card excited neither ridicule nor discussion. No one cared to turn aside from more pressing interests to consider it. It was therefore a waste of strength. I saw, with pain, that some women did not shrink from employing last year a politician's trick, and sent to Democratic members of the Senate and House the petitions for the right of suffrage for women, with which they knew them to possess no sympathy. Had these petitions been sent to Republican members of either House, they might have been overlooked in the press of graver anxieties. Mischievously sent to men like Cowan, women must have known that the petition would be produced, if it was only to annoy and perplex our honest friends of the Republican party. In what would our influence upon politics be better than that of men, if we resort to such measures? During the past year, I drew up, and forwarded to the Hon. Charles Sumner, a petition for the right of suffrage, and afterwards sustained it by two or three letters. I think Mr. Sumner never brought it forward; but I gladly defer to his judgment as to that. It was my duty to keep the subject in mind, and see that we did not appear, even in the tumult left by civil war, to lose sight of our claim. I am glad to offer public thanks to the Hon. George Thompson, who, in the meeting of the Equal-Rights Association, held in Philadelphia on Jan. 17, 1867, defeated a resolution of thanks to Mr. Cowan, and condemnation to Mr. Sumner, on precisely these grounds. "To thank men like Cowan, who did not desire to enfranchise woman any more than the negro, was to stultify ourselves," he said. "To condemn Sumner, because he did not think this the time to push the claims of woman, was not honorable to the long-tried friend of human progress."

Abroad, such things look better. The clean hands of John Stuart Mill—which no noble woman need fear to touch—have presented to Parliament the petition of fifteen hundred women for the right of franchise. This petition is so moderate and sensible, that it deserves to be preserved.

"The humble petition of the undersigned showeth,—

"That it having been expressly laid down by high authorities, that the possession of property, in this country, carries with it the right to vote in the election of representatives in Parliament, it is an evident anomaly, that some holders of property are allowed to use this right, while others, forming no less a constituent part of the nation, and equally qualified by law to hold property, are not able to exercise this privilege; that the participation of women in the government is consistent with the principles of the British Constitution, inasmuch as women in these islands have always been held capable of sovereignty, and women are eligible for various public offices.

"Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray your honorable House to consider the expediency of providing for the representation of all householders, without distinction of sex, who possess such property or rental qualification as your honorable House may determine. And your petitioners will ever pray.

"Mrs. W.B. Carpenter, 56, Regent's Park Road, London, N.W.

C.M. Clarkson, Hatfield Road, Wakefield.

Frances Power Cobbe, 26, Hereford Square, London, S.W.

Elizabeth Garrett, L.S.A., 20, Upper Berkeley Street, London, W.

Mary Ann Gaskell, Plymouth Grove, Manchester.

Matilda M. Hays, Great Malvern.

Mary Howitt, West Hill Lodge, Highgate, N.

M.S. Kinglake, 50, Upper Brunswick Place, Brighton.

Isa Craig Knox, 14, Clyde Terrace, New Cross, S.E.

S.J. Lewin, Birkenhead.

Harriet Lupton, St. Asaph.

Elizabeth Mallison, Camp Cottage, Wimbledon.

Harriet Martineau, The Knoll, Ambleside.

Jane Martineau, 21, Tariton Street, London, W.C.

Jane Moxon, 1, Cundall's Yard, Leeds.

Mrs. Elizabeth Pease Nichol, Huntly Lodge, Edinburgh.

Bessie R. Parkes, 15, Wimpole Street, London, W.

Elizabeth Proctor, Polam Hall, Darlington.

C. Sturch, Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, N.W.

Mrs. Thomas Taylor, Aston House, Oxfordshire.

Sarah Unwin, Hale Lodge, Edgeware, Middlesex.

Anna Mary Howitt Watts, 24, Grove Terrace, Highgate Road."

I append to the above petition a few of the fifteen hundred names, which will serve to give it identity, and interest in this country. We miss, among the names, many names of the beloved dead; and many would doubtless be there that we know, could it be signed by any save property-holders.

A very powerful influence was brought to sustain this petition in Parliament; and among its advocates were James Martineau, Herbert Spencer, Professor Huxley, and Goldwin Smith. Mr. Mill seems to have presented a second petition, headed by Lady Goldschmid, and signed by three thousand persons; and another was offered, at the same time, by Mr. Russell Gurney. On April 11, 1867, the subject of female suffrage was first discussed in the House of Commons without being greeted with a laugh. A petition presented by Mr. Duncan Maclaren, from Edinburgh, was signed by eight university professors, six doctors of law, eighteen clergymen, eight barristers, ten physicians, ten officers, and two thousand other persons. Two women are said to have been lately elected parish overseers: Mrs. Slocomb for Brittadon, and Mrs. Craig for Bratton Fleming. The step-daughter of John Stuart Mill, Miss Helen Taylor, contributed to the January number of the "Westminster" an article which worthily sustained the far more comprehensive statement of her mother in 1851. It would be difficult to imagine a paper, however, that would appeal more forcibly to the English people. There is in England a Woman-Suffrage Association, which proposes to circulate that article as a tract. Mrs. P.A. Taylor and Frances Power Cobbe are among its most active members. Mrs. Bodichon has recently brought out two pamphlets on this subject. They contain one instance, which is not familiar, of the inconvenience of withholding the franchise from English women. Owners of estates seek to further their own interest through the voting power of their tenantry, and frequently eject women from farms, to replace them by men who have a freehold. On one Suffolk farm, seven women have been ejected. Among the instances which Mrs. Bodichon adduces to show the need of female votes are the neglect of female education; the refusal of leases, or the ejection of old tenants; the want of proper public spirit, which women might be expected to infuse into affairs; and the condition of workhouses, and charitable appropriations in general. In Austria, information furnished to one of Mrs. Bodichon's papers seems to show that the women have the same electoral rights as men, only that in a few cases they are compelled to vote by proxy. They vote as nobles, in their corporate capacity as nuns, and as tax-payers or merchants; but I need not say that there is much uncertainty in the Austrian administration of such a law.

In connection with the name of Fredrika Bremer, I have mentioned the great changes in Swedish law, mainly due to her influence. An indirect right of suffrage was further granted to women in 1862; but in December, 1865, the Reform Bill gave the election of members of the Upper Chamber to municipal and county bodies. In the election of these bodies, women take part. They must be unmarried or widows, be twenty-five years old, and have more than four hundred rixdollars per annum.

Article 15 of the Italian electoral law provides "that the taxation paid by a widow, or by a wife separated from her husband, shall give a vote to whichever of her children or near relatives she may select."

A curious petition has been lately presented to the Hungarian Diet. It is signed by a number of widows and other women who are landed proprietors, and asks for them the same equality of political rights with the male inhabitants of the country, as they possessed in 1848. These ladies represent that they have much more difficulty in bringing up their children, and attending to the estates, than men; that they have to bear the same State burdens; that they are not allowed to take part in the communal elections; and that, although many of them possess much more ground than the male electors, they have no political rights.

In 1848, these women were, for the first time, excluded from the franchise.

PROGRESS.

The real gain of a reform, starting from the heart of the family, must necessarily be very slow. I remember, that some years ago, when I printed my book on Labor, one of my kindest critics congratulated the public, that, of my nine lectures, I had published only these. He thought it was useless to contend for more book-learning for women, and the subject of civil rights still disgusted his sensitive ear. The common sense of the book on Labor ought to have shown him how I should treat the subject of education. He could not understand how the woman who gets an education which does not make her a "bread-winner," is essentially defrauded, nor how a woman, well paid for her labor, is essentially wronged, when she is denied the privilege of protecting it by her vote. There is, however, a surely growing sense of this, shown in the substantial advance of her civil rights.

1. In the early part of 1865, the people of Victoria, in Australia, assembled to elect a member of Parliament, were surprised to find the whole female population voting. Some quick-sighted woman had discovered that the letter of the new law permitted it; and their votes were accepted, and wisely given. The "London Times," in the month of May, says, that, in a country like Australia, it can easily believe that such an extension of the franchise will be a marked improvement, and thinks that the precedent will stand!

2. The government of Moravia has also, within the past year, granted the municipal franchise to widows who pay taxes.

3. In January, 1864, the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin, Ireland, restored to woman the old right of voting for town commissioners. The justice (Fitzgerald) desired to state that ladies were entitled to sit as town commissioners as well as to vote for them; and the chief-justice took pains to make it clear that there was nothing in either duty repugnant to womanly habits.

4. The inhabitants of Ain (or Aisne), in France, lately chose nine women into their municipal council.

5. At Bergères, the whole council consisted of women; and the mayor, not being prepared for such good fortune, resigned his office.

6. Our cause has found able advocates in John Stuart Mill, the "New-York Evening Post," and Theodore Tilton. If I were asked, whether, in connection with this gain, we have lost any ground, I should reply that we have decidedly lost it in connection with the daily press. I do not know any newspaper, if I except the "Boston Commonwealth," which will print a letter touching civil rights, from any woman, precisely as it is written. I think what we need most is to purchase the right to a daily use of half a column of the "New-York Tribune."

RECORD AND OBITUARIES.

I have been accustomed to connect with reports of this kind some honorable mention of distinguished women obscure or recently dead. I cannot do this at any length, after a pause of so many years; but a few names must be mentioned, a few facts recorded.

I had occasion, some years ago, to commemorate the services of Maria Sybilla Merian, painter, engraver, linguist, and traveller, who published, at Amsterdam, two volumes of engravings of insects and sixty magnificent plates, illustrating the metamorphoses of the insects of Surinam. I did not, at that time, know that some of her statements had been held open to suspicion. In the first place, she asserted, that a certain fly, the Fulgoria Lantanaria, emitted so much light, that she could read her books by its aid; still further, that one of the large spiders, called Mygale, entered the nests of the humming-bird in Surinam, sucked its eggs, and snared the birds. To all the contention which arose over these statements, Madame Merian could oppose only her word. Men who knew that her statements in regard to Europe were indisputable decided that her word could not be taken in Asia. A very common folly; but two hundred years have passed, 1866 arrives, and her justification with it. An English traveller, named Bates, has recently rescued quite large finches from the Mygale, and poisoned himself with its saliva, in preparing them for his cabinet.

I do not know how many years Madam Baring, the mother of the great banker, has been dead. It is only recently that I have heard, that to her prudence, activity, and business habits, the family attribute the sure foundation of their fortunes. Matthew Baring came to Larkbeare, near Exeter, from Bremen. His wife superintended, in his day, the long rows of "burlers," or women who picked over the woollen cloth he made. Her sons, John and Francis, sought a wider field for the fortune their father left, but did not forget to erect a monument to their mother's industry.

About a year since, Eliza W. Farnham laid down her weary head. I did not know her, nor did I sympathize in her theories. They were sustained by her imagination rather than her reason; by her impulses rather than any practical judgment. No moral superiority can justly be conferred on either sex of a being possessed of intellect and conscience. God has conferred no such superiority; yet I gladly name Mrs. Farnham here as a woman whose life—a bitter disappointment to herself—was useful to all women, and whose books, published since her death, show a marvellous mental range.

During the last year, Madame Charles Lemonnier died in Paris. She devoted her life to the professional education of women. For six years she found it so difficult to raise the necessary funds, that she had to content herself with sending her pupils to institutions in Germany. In 1862 the Society for the Professional Instruction of Women was at last constituted, and opened a school in the Rue de Perle. Two other schools have since been opened,—one in the Rue de Val Sainte Catherine; the other, in the Rue Roche. The morning is occupied in these schools with general studies; the afternoon, with industrial drawing, wood-engraving, the making-up of garments, linen, &c. She died after initiating a thoroughly successful work.

In July, 1865, there died at Corfu a Dr. Barry, attached to the medical staff of the British army. He was remarkable for skill, firmness, decision, and great rapidity in difficult operations. He had entered the army in 1813, and had served in all quarters of the globe, with such distinction as to ensure promotion without interest. He was clever and agreeable, but excessively plain, weak in stature, and with a squeaking voice which provoked ridicule. He had an irritable temper, and answered some jesting on the topic by calling out the offender, and shooting him through the lungs. In 1840 he was made medical inspector, and transferred from the Cape to Malta. He went from Malta to Corfu; and, when the English Government ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece, resigned his position in the army, and remained at Corfu. There he died last summer, forbidding, with his latest breath, any interference with his remains. The women who attended him regarded this request with the shameless indifference now so common; and unable to believe, that an officer, who had been forty-five years in the British service, had received a diploma, fought a duel, and been celebrated as a brilliant operator, was not only a woman, but at some period in her life a mother; they called in a medical commission to establish these facts. A sad, sad picture, which those of us who inquire into the fortunes of women can readily understand.

Last November deprived us of Mrs. Gaskell and Fredrika Bremer, of whom a fuller record will be found in the body of this work.

In Paris recently died Mrs. Severn Newton. She was the daughter of the artist Severn, the friend of Keats, who is now British Consul at Rome. About five years since, she married Charles Newton, Superintendent of Greek Antiquities at the British Museum. She was a person in whom power and delicacy were singularly blended. Ary Scheffer was accustomed to hold up her work as a model for his pupils. Her renderings of classic sculpture were so true that they were termed translations; and she had recently devoted herself to oil painting with great success. She died of brain fever at the early age of thirty-three, one of the most honored of female English artists.

The common sense of society accepts the need of education for women. It begs that they may be permitted to earn their bread; but let society once grant the suffrage to woman, and she will take care of her own interests. She will found colleges, distribute opportunities, and protect vocations.

Education must, in time, earn independence for most women. Independence, taxed and made a citizen of, will insist, in the course of years, upon its suffrage; but whoso will help to reverse the process, and grant suffrage, so that woman may herself indicate what education she wishes to receive, and what labor she wishes to perform, will speed the process by scores of years.

It was pleasant to see four hundred young women, of the highest health, the best breeding, of good social standing, and abundant means, blossoming like so many tulips, at Vassar,—we must add, also, of good ability, and more than average education; for only good scholars could pass the rigid examination required of those who enter. It was pleasant to see, that between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, when society offers its greatest allurements, four hundred wealthy girls could be found, ready to devote themselves in seclusion, and without even the stimulus existing at Oberlin or Antioch, to higher things. And then, if the want of public sympathy makes it a painful work to be always pushing the interests of women, such teachers and officers as one finds at Vassar compensate one for any amount of struggle. Miss Hannah Lyman, who is now the principal; Miss Mitchell, the astronomer; Dr. Avery, the resident physician; and Miss Powell, the professor of gymnastics,—it is only necessary to name to Eastern ears: but, besides these women, Vassar employs twenty others, in whom it would be hard to find a fault, and some of whom, we were glad to see, had taken their degree at Oberlin. Going westward to Antioch, it was pleasant to find other women who had taken their degrees, and were now teaching Greek and Latin. One of the graduates, employed as a teacher of mathematics, had won her own education in the college by teaching one year,—sometimes in distant district-schools,—and studying the next. At Oberlin, the picture was still more inspiring: for Oberlin has, I suppose, more pupils than any college in the land, if we except Michigan University; and one-half of them are girls and women. The practical working of this college is beautiful to see. It has been fortunate in the magnificent faith communicated to it by Dr. Finney. Most of the women who were its early students, and stamped its character, so that no scandal dared invade its borders, are now the wives of its professors, and many of them are still engaged in teaching. Mrs. Dascomb, who is the wife of the professor of chemistry, has been with the college from the beginning: she is as fine a person for her position, as lady-principal, as Miss Lyman; yet how differently have the two been trained! Mrs. Dascomb, by isolation, persecution, contact with the rudest elements in Western life, yet keeping, through all, a noble faith in manhood and womanhood; Miss Lyman, starting from the most distinguished social circle in Northampton, holding a high place among what Dr. Holmes would call the "Brahmins" of Montreal, and finally polished by a European tour, and holding control with a power as imperceptible as it is firm. At Milwaukee, beside Dr. Ross, to whose ten years of successful practice I have alluded, I found another physician, in happy partnership with one of the brothers of the craft, a Dr. Glass. He has lately moved from Minnesota to Wisconsin, where he has been several years in partnership with Miss Fairchild, and testifies that he has never seen her superior as a practical physician. Here, also, a young lady, of one of the best families, has lately opened a hair-dresser's store. Dr. Ross gives her sweet sympathy and cheer; but, as a proof that the world still needs converting, she has had a good deal of that insolence to subdue which pains just as much as if it were worth minding. Any thing like the number of female lecturers which I heard of in Illinois, I had never imagined. The medical women are readily accepted in most places, even without proper vouchers; and it is astonishing, how far common sense contrives to supply the place of education. But the want of vouchers is a serious evil, which must soon be met. In Chicago I heard wonderful stories of the business capacity of certain women. One lady, very well known on Michigan Avenue, brought one hundred thousand dollars' worth of Chicago City bonds to Boston and New York, and safely sold them for her husband. A farmer's wife, from the centre of the State, came up, while I was there, to speculate in corn. She said her husband had lost money several years in succession, and now she was going to try. By her first speculation, she made five thousand dollars; and this she put into competent hands, for re-investment. It gained her twenty thousand dollars. The Chicago merchants thought that she would go on speculating until she lost it all; but I do not. I think our Pleasant-street Hospital has proved that women are more cautious than men, and are willing to bear a good deal of obloquy rather than permit rash ventures to be made.

In the country, everywhere, I heard charming anecdotes of the vigor and self-sacrifice women showed in the early settlement of the States.

It happened one spring, that, when the ice broke up on the Fox River, a terrible storm of wind and sleet and rain came with it. Not a man in the State, however great the emergency, would have thought that he could cross. In this state of things, a woman was taken in childbirth, some two or three miles from the ferry. Just as the ferry-woman was going to bed, in the "outer darkness" of that terrible storm, she heard her name shouted from the opposite bank. She listened, and a grievous story was shouted across. She went to the stable and saddled her mare, and, all alone, forded the stream: the floating ice, heaped into walls, struck the sides of the faithful beast, and tore the woman's skirt to tatters. Now and then a flash of lightning showed her what progress she had made. At last, she struggled to the bank, and gave the needful help. Nobody ever asked how she got back. On the grass about Elgin, a whole ship's load died of cholera, nearly forty years ago. All the neighborhood stood back in dread; but I saw one aged woman, who closed the eyes of nine, and received the foreign blessing, which she felt, although she could not understand. In Quincy, I found two ladies just establishing a high school for girls, whom I have previously mentioned as having pushed through the endowment, for women, of the State University at Lawrence, and having opened a class in modelling in clay, under Professor Volkers. At the Cooper Institute I found more women at work than ever before, and to better advantage. A large class had just been formed to color photographs on glass, porcelain, and paper. Under such circumstances, we need not be disheartened because an ignorant woman, in a man's costume, has found the way to attract some attention in Europe and some contempt from Tom Hughes. Neither need it dismay us that the "Boston Advertiser" thinks the Equal-Rights meetings, in New York, have not been largely attended. There are those who want the suffrage, who do not care to encourage women to offer themselves for Congress before public opinion can accept them, and who are sufficiently disgusted by what looks like a mannish coalition with Democrats, to keep away from public meetings.

Meanwhile, the women of Parma clamor for the right to vote for Victor Emanuel. A freedwoman, Charlotte Scott, proposes a monument, on behalf of her emancipated race, to President Lincoln; and the noble inspiration of Harriet Hosmer carries out the thought.

But the very things we turn from force the necessary issues on the world. Wise action would never have brought the recent debate in Congress; nor prudent measures have secured thirty votes for Mrs. Stanton, and nine senatorial ballots for female suffrage. Once agitated in these quarters, the matter draws nearer to a final test.