OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



but with its workings. The fact is, that if 

 the curse of the country is politics, a still 

 worse curse has been the indifference of the 

 best citizens to politics. I say 'has been,' for 

 a brighter day is dawning, and the enlight- 

 ened voter of the Eastern cities, who in the 

 past has so often declined to go to the polls 

 because it isn't worth while his one vote won't 

 stem the dirty tide, and he has no fancy for 

 handling pitch is very slowly, but it is to be 

 hoped surely, being relegated to that past. As 

 for women of the better sort betraying interest 

 in politics, I well remember the shock that ran 

 through the assembled company when in the 

 first year of my sojourn on this side I failed 

 to drop, with the other women, immediately 

 out of the conversation when politics came 

 to the front. That English politics are not 

 necessarily and inevitably defiling, and that 

 as a consequence the average Englishwoman 

 might feel an interest in the politics of her 

 newly-adopted country, was not at that date 

 generally understood. Also, the American 

 women who were interested were for the 

 most part of the howling, woman's-rights, 

 would-be-masculine variety. Now that the 



