Part 16 (1/2)

But the carriage is only the beginning of the polite attentions that will soon appear When we see the transforone by every ferryboat and every railway station, so soon as it co-places will experience the sae? They will soon have--at least in the ”ladies' departance instead of disco-chairs, and no need of spittoons Very possibly they may have all the isters, teakettles, Washi+ngton pies, and a young lady to give checks for bundles Who knohat elaborate comforts, what queenly luxuries, -places, when the time has finally arrived to sue for their votes?

The common impression has always been quite different from this People look at the coarseness and dirt now visible at so -places, and say, ”Would you expose women to all that?” But these places are not dirtier than a railway s-car; and there is no more coarseness than in any ferryboat which is, for whatever reason, used by men only You do not look into those places, and say with indignation, ”Never, if I can help it, shall randmother travel by steamboat or by rail!” You know that with these exemplary relatives will enter order and quiet, carpets and curtains, brooms and dusters Why should it be otherard rooms and town halls?

There is not an ato a decorous ladies' roo-place, than for a post-office or a railway station; and it is as si thus easily practicable, all men will desire to provide it And the exaes shows that the parties will vie with each other in these pleasing arrangements They will be driven to it, whether they wish it or not The party which has most consistently and resolutely kept woman away from the ballot-box will be the very party cohts”

agreeable to her when once she gets them A few stupid or noisy men may indeed try to make the polls unattractive to her, the very first time; but the result of this little experiment will be so disastrous that the offenders will be sternly suppressed by their own party leaders, before another election day comes It will soon beco votes the surest lies in treating woooddone all he could to prevent wo allowed to vote on school questions, was finally coht that he should at least secure his wife's vote for a pet schoolhouse of his own Election day came, and the newly enfranchised es She made breakfast as usual, went about her housework, and did on that perilous day precisely the things that her anxious husband had always predicted that women never would do under such circu short of the best pair of horses and the best wagon finally sufficed to take the farmer's wife to the polls I a a rude or disagreeable arrange treated too well, and being too much attacked and allured by these cheap cajoleries But woo to the polls, even in first-class carriages

EDUCATION _via_ SUFFRAGE

I know a rich bachelor of large property who fatigues his friends by perpetual denunciations of everything Ae He rarely votes; and I wasan expensive schoolhouse, to see hi asked his reason, he explained that, while we labored under the calaate its evils by educating the voters In short, he wished, as Mr Lowe said in England when the last Reform Bill passed, ”to prevail upon our future masters to learn their alphabets”

These enerous; but the schoolhouses, when they are built, are just as useful Even girls get the benefit of theot their share came in part from the want of this obvious stiuarantees schoolhouse and school The ument: ”We must educate the masses, if it is only to keep them from our throats”

But there is a wider way in which suffrage guarantees education At every election ti coht and day to print newspaper extras; clerks sit up all night to send out congressional speeches; the most eloquent men in the conorant Of course each party affords only its own point of view; but every hbor who is put under treat all ill listen to his provoking and pestilent counter-statements All the common school education of the United States does not equal the education of election day; and as in some States elections are held very often, this popular university seems to be kept in session almost the whole year round The consequence is a ree of political affairs,--a training which American women now miss, but which will come to them with the ballot

And in still another way there will be an education coe It will cohest to lowest We often hear it said that after enfranchisenorant will But Mrs Howe admirably pointed out, at a Philadelphia convention, that theduty of the more educated women, even in self-protection, to train the rest The very fact of the danger will be a stimulus to duty, omen, as it already is with men

It has always seemed to me rather childish, in a man of superior education, or talent, or wealth, to complain that when election day comes he has no more votes than the man who plants his potatoes or puts in his coal The truth is that under the e the man of wealth or talent or natural leadershi+p has still a disproportionate influence, still casts a hundred votes where the poor or ignorant or feeble es of New York elections turned out to be caused by the fact that the leading rogues had used their brains and energy, while the men of character had not When it came to the point, it was found that a few caricatures by Nast and a few coluures in the ”Ti It is always so Andrew Johnson, with all the patronage of the nation, had not the influence of ”Nasby” with his one newspaper The whole Chinese question was perceptibly and instantly modified when Harte wrote ”The Heathen Chinee”

These things being so, it indicates feebleness or dyspepsia when an educated , about election ti It is his business to enlighten and control that ignorance With a voice and a pen at his command, with a town hall in every town for the one, and a newspaper in every village for the other, he has such advantages over his ignorant neighbors that the only doubt is whether his privileges are not greater than he deserves For one, in writing for the press, I areatness, not by the littleness, of the power I wield And what is true of men will be true of woy enough to control, in the long run, the votes of the ignorant women around them, they will deserve a severe lesson, and will be sure, like the men in New York, to receive it And thenceforward they will educate and guide that ignorance, instead of evading or cringing before it

But I have no fear about the matter It is a libel on Ao anywhere or do anything which is for the good of their children and their husbands Travel West on any of our great lines of railroad, and see o their households to their new ho, and the endless answers to the endless questions, and the toil to keep little Sarah warm, and little Johnny cool, and the baby cory, tired, jaded, forlorn , in the soiled and breathless railway-car! Yet that household group is As and queens, the little princes and princesses, of this land Now, is the one for the transportation of these children all this enorht additional labor of going to the polls to vote whether those little ones shall have schools or ruht is an absurdity A few fine ladies in cities will fear to spoil their silk dresses, as a few foppish gentleent American women will vote, as do the o thirty thousand ton, with a few staff-officers, rode along the mountain-side The action of the leaders' minds, in any direction, has a value out of all proportion to their nun there is a council of officers,--Grant and Sher minority, yet what they plan the whole army will do; and such is the faith in a real leader, that, were all the restraints of discipline for the eneral officers see to be the best to-day, the sergeants and corporals and private soldiers will usually see to be best to-morrow

In peace, also, there is a silent leadershi+p; only that in peace, as there is more time to spare, the leaders are expected to persuade the rank and file, instead of co in the end The uides, and if you wish to know the future, keep your eye on them If you wish to knohat is already decided, ask the majority; but if you wish to find out what is likely to be done next, ask the leaders

It is constantly said that the majority of women do not yet desire to vote, and it is true But to find out whether they are likely to wish for it, we must keep our eyes on the women who lead their sex The representative women,--those who naturally stand for the rest, those e and self-devotion,--how do they view the thing? The rank and file do not yet deeneral officers?

Now, it is a remarkable fact, about which those who have watched this movement for twenty years can hardly be mistaken, that almost any woman who reaches a certain point of intellectual orthe ballot for her sex If this be so, it predicts the future It is the judgainst that of the average private soldier of the Two Hundredth Infantry Set aside, if you please, the specialists of this particular agitation,--those ere first known to the public through its advocacy There is no just reason why they should be set aside, yet concede that for a moment The fact renized as ablest in other spheres, before they took this particular duty upon them--are extree of developaret Fuller first came forward into literature, she supposed that literature was all she wanted It was not till she came to write upon woman's position that she discovered o her ae, did not foresee, perhaps, that she shouldher own enfranchisement from the soldiers she had befriended Lydia Maria Child, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa Alcott, came to the claim for the ballot earlier than a million others, because they were the intellectual leaders of American wohest place They were the recognized representatives of their sex before they gave in their adhesion to the new dement of the council of officers, while Flora McFlined recruit But if the generals ements for a battle, the chance is that John Smith will have to take a hand in it, or else run away

It is a rare thing for the petition for suffrage from any town to comprise the majority of women in that town It makes no difference: if there are feomen in the toant to vote, there is asas if there were tenas the ht to stay at hohed as well as counted, the character, the purity, the intelligence, the social and domestic value of the petitioners is seldonorant, the narrow-erous classes:” they represent the best class in the cohest standard They are the natural leaders What they now see to be right will also be perceived even by the foolish and the ignorant by and by

In a poultry-yard in spring, when the first brood of duckling's goes toddling to the waterside, no doubt all the younger or feebler broods, just hatched out of sis, think these innovators dreadfully mistaken

”You are out of place,” they feebly pipe ”See how happy we are in our safe nests Perhaps, by and by, when properly introduced into society, we may run about a little on land, but to swi and diving in ecstasy; and, so surely as they are born ducklings, all the rest will swim in their turn The instinct of the first duck solves the problem for all the rest It is a mere question of time Sooner or later, all the broods in the most conservative yard will follow their leaders

HOW TO MAKE WOMEN UNDERSTAND POLITICS

An English o, that the stupidestof political questions than the brightest woman He did not find it convenient to say what must be the condition of a nation which for n; but he certainly said bluntly what many men feel It is not indeed very hard to find the source of this feeling It is not merely that women are inexperienced in questions of finance or adnorant of these But it is undoubtedly true of a large class of more funda at Washi+ngton,--which even many clear-headed woeneral training comprehend them entirely