EDITOR'S TABLE. 



701 



to the belief that the party which 

 is laboring to convert women into 

 voters is threatening serious injury 

 to the state both in a political and 

 in a social aspect. Her argument is 

 a very comprehensive one, as a 

 glance at the titles of her chapters 

 will show; and at every point she 

 arrives at the same conclusion, name- 

 ly, that the womau suifragists have 

 raised false issues, put forward false 

 pretensions, and generally gone about 

 as far wrong as it was possible to do. 

 We believe having read the book 

 attentively that it is destined to 

 have a potent influence in the settle- 

 ment of the question with which it 

 deals. 



The first thing that strikes us in 

 connection with Mrs. Johnson's ar- 

 gument is the high ground she takes 

 on woman's behalf. If she does not 

 claim the suffrage for women it is 

 not that she deems them incapable 

 of forming correct judgments on po- 

 litical questions ; not because she 

 recognizes any mental inferiority 

 whatsoever on their part, but be- 

 cause she believes that they consti- 

 tute that portion of society in whose 

 interest chiefly all laws are enacted 

 and the whole machinery of politics 

 is kept going. We are hardly mis- 

 taken in saying that she considers 

 that in the development and perfec- 

 tion of woman the life of society 

 finds its highest significance. The 

 poet Clough had the same thought 

 when he said that men might well 



Perish in labor for her, who is worth the de- 

 struction of empires. 



The advocates of the suffrage for 

 women will therefore have to at- 

 tack Mrs. Johnson on other grounds 

 than her depreciation of the female 

 sex. It is they, according to Mrs. 

 Johnson, who depreciate the female 

 sex in asking woman to enter upon 

 a strviggle for a position actually in- 

 ferior to that which she already pos- 



sesses, a position in which, instead of 

 assuming, as she now may, that laws 

 are made especially for her benefit, 

 she will proceed on the contrary sup- 

 position that she can not get com- 

 mon justice unless she wrenches it 

 from man at the polling booth. 



Our own view of the general 

 question has been more than once 

 stated in these columns ; and it is 

 with pleasure we note how close the 

 agreement is between what we have 

 said, writing from a masculine stand- 

 point, and the conclusions of the book 

 before us, written by a woman jeal- 

 ous for the honor of her sex and in- 

 stinct with true feminine feeling. 

 Mrs. Johnson perceives, as we do, 

 that law-making means nothing else 

 than the laying down of rules of con- 

 duct which are to be enforced, if 

 necessary, by physical compulsion, 

 and that unless we want women to 

 take up cudgels in the most literal 

 sense for the enforcement of laws we 

 should not ask them to take part in 

 making them. Those who vote for 

 laws should not only be possible com- 

 batants, but should be individuals 

 whose natures would not be essen- 

 tially injured by actual physical con- 

 flict. Women are possible combat- 

 ants, as the suffragists sometimes 

 remind us, but the essential nature 

 of woman would be injured by par- 

 ticipation in physical conflicts. Why 

 can we tolerate prize fights between 

 men, while prize fights between wom- 

 en fill us with horror and disgust ? 

 Is it not because Nature itself tells 

 us that whatever woman's physical 

 strength may be and suffragists 

 sometimes remark with their cus- 

 tomary acuteness that some women 

 are stronger than some men it is 

 not meant to be exerted in deliver- 

 ing blows ? But if a prize fight be- 

 tween two women is horrible to 

 think of, what language could be 

 applied to a prize fight between a 

 woman and a man, however evenly 



