FEMALE SUFFRAGE. 427 



The second star, in the order of distances, is 61 Cygni. Its parallax 

 is 0."51,.and its remoteness 37,000,000,000,000 miles, 



Of the thousands of stars which have been studied, we know the 

 distances of only twenty. Among these we may signalize Sirius, a sun 

 2,688 times larger than our own, surrounded by a system of heavenly 

 bodies, several of which are already known, and distant from us 

 82,000,000,000,000 miles ; the Polar Star, which is a double star, distant 

 292,000,000,000,000 miles; and CapeUa, distant 425,000,000,000,000 

 — a space which is traversed by light in seventy-one years and eight 

 months ; so that the luminous ray which reaches us from this fine star 

 in 1874 must have started out in 1803 ! Capella might have been ex- 

 tinguished in 1804, but we should see it still. It might go out to-day, 

 and yet the inhabitants of the earth would continue to admire it in 

 " their heavens until 1946. Conversely, if there existed, on the planets 

 gravitating round Capella, minds whose transcendent vision could 

 thence descry our little earth, lost as it is amid the sun's rays, they 

 would now see the earth of the year 1803, and would be seventy-one 

 years eight months behindhand in its history. These are the stars that 

 ave nearest to us. The others are incomparably more remote. 



There are stars whose light cannot reach us in less than 100, 1,000, 

 or 10,000 years, though light travels at the rate of 185,000 miles per 

 second ! 



To traverse the sidereal world of which we form part (the Milky- 

 Way), light takes 15,000 years. 



To reach us from certain of the nebulae, it must travel for 300 times 

 that period, or 5,000,000 years. 



Let the imagination, that is not appalled by these immensities, 

 strive to conceive of them. If it does not experience the "vertigo 

 of the infinite," let it calmly contemplate these abysses, and realize the 

 position of the earth and of man in presence of them. Thus will it 

 gain some conception of the discoveries made by sidereal astronomy. 



Such are the dimensions actually measured in the general constitu- 

 tion of the universe. As yet we are only at the vestibule of the edifice, 

 on the edge of the abyss of infinitude : and we shall never penetrate 

 very far beyond. 



FEMALE SUFFKAGE. 



By Pbotessob GOLDWIN SMITH. 



MR. FORSYTH'S bill for removing the electoral disabilities of 

 women, the second reading of which is at hand, has received 

 less attention than the subject deserves. The residuum was enfran- 

 chised for the sake of its vote by the leaders of a party which for a 

 series of years had been denouncing any extension of the sufi*rage, even 

 to the most intelligent artisans, on the ground that it would place 



