CORRESP ONDENCE. 



415 



tering would thus be made, which the blind 

 could decipher by feeling. 



It is true, the printing would be re- 

 versed, but in spite of this the type-writer 

 for the blind would have advantages which, 

 it seems to me, no other instrument of the 

 kind yet invented possesses. 



E. F. Andrews. 



Macon, Ga., Novertiber 1, 1S3S. 



[Ordinary type-writers are used by hun- 

 dreds of blind operators for writing to see- 

 ing persons. A blind person, having once 

 learned the arrangement of the keys, has 

 little difficulty ia operating the instrument. 

 This is one of the uses proposed for it by 

 the inventor of the earliest form of type- 

 writer, Charles Thurber, in 1843, and one 

 of his machines is now in existence which 

 had originally raised letters on the keys to 

 facilitate such use. In order that the pi'int- 

 ing shall be legible to the blind, of course 

 some mode of pricking or embossing the 

 paper would have to be employed, and the 

 reversing of the print, to which our corre- 

 spondent alludes, could easily be obviated 

 by reversing the type. — Editor.] 



TUB EXTENSION OP THE SUFFRAGE TO 



WOMEN. 

 Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



In Prof. Cope's " Relation of the Sexes 

 to Government," in the October number of 

 the " Monthly," he makes intellectual infe- 

 riority, physical inabilit)', and the social posi- 

 tion of woman the practical objections to 

 granting her the "privilege" of suffrage, 

 and favors its restriction rather than an ex- 

 tension. 



But even if men are on the whole su- 

 perior to women, the difference is not so 

 great but that, if the same restrictive process 

 v/ere applied to women and men, a consider- 

 able minority of the women would fulfill the 

 conditions which a not very large majority 

 of the men could fulfill. Although any 

 system of suffrage can only be an approxi- 

 mation to what might be best, it is a poor 

 approximation indeed that will shut out a 

 hu-ge minority of one sex because the major- 

 ity of that sex fail to fulfill the qualifications 

 for suffrage. That is majority-rule with a 

 vengeance. 



It is declared that " woman suffrage be- 

 comes government by women alone on every 

 occasion where a measure is carried by the 

 aid of woman's votes." Then government 



by a successful party, whose candidate is 

 elected by a majority of one thousand in a 

 " deciding State," becomes government by 

 five hundred and one men ; and government 

 everywhere becomes government by the 

 smallest possible majority of the majority by 

 which a party elects its candidate. What 

 becomes of popular government ? It is fur- 

 ther declared that, if women vote with their 

 husbands, suffrage becomes a farce. It is a 

 very plain social fact that men who associate 

 much come to think alike, especially on sub- 

 jects that are much thought upon. Like 

 teacher, like student ; like father, like son. 

 Politics runs in families almost as much as 

 features do. If all who acquire their polit- 

 ical leanings from their constant associates 

 shall not vote, a very large majority of the 

 sons of the country must be disfranchised, 

 and in a generation there will be no voters 

 at all. And if the women of the land, by 

 exercising suffrage, run the danger of becom- 

 ing the mothers of a " generation of moral 

 barbarians," are the fathers of the race so 

 entirely different in quality from the mothers 

 that the transmission of a very large amount 

 of barbarism might not be prevented by a 

 wholesale restriction of the suffrage ? 



Physical inability to execute the laws 

 when they are made, and to defend them in 

 a military capacity, is made a principal objec- 

 tion to the granting of suffrage to women. 

 " This consideration alone, it appears to me, 

 puts the propriety of female suffrage out of 

 the question." But only a small proportion 

 of men are willing to be executors of the 

 law, as policemen and sheriffs ; and, as for 

 the judicial positions, an even smaller pro- 

 portion is jittcd to fill them. Restriction of 

 the suffrage would be a good thing ; let it 

 be applied under the principle of immunity 

 from military senice, and who would be dis- 

 franchised ? War demands able-bodied men ; 

 only men that are perfectly regular in form 

 and sound in health can be soldiers. If im- 

 munity from service is to form the boundary- 

 line of suffrage, all the rest, a vast number, 

 would be shut out. This excluded list would 

 include perhaps the best class of voters the 

 nation has — the older men — because they 

 are exempt from military duty. But I am 

 sure the professor himself would be unwill- 

 ing to begin restriction under the principle 

 he has enunciated, and reduce the elders of 

 the nation to the condition of Gulliver's 

 Luggnaggian struldbritgs. 



Frank Cramer. 

 Appleton, "Wis., Octoler 10, 18S8. 



