370 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



To J. S. Mill, Esq., M.P. 



July 3, 1867. 



1867. MY DEAR SIR, A person described by you as a remarkable 



working man, and your correspondent, is one whose case is 

 more than usually worth looking into. He had better write 

 to me direct, and state in some detail what he knows, and, as 

 well as he can, what he wants. I dare say I shall be able to 

 shorten his route. He must specify arithmetic, his knowledge 

 and habits, geometry, algebra, physics, if any. You need 

 not tell him that the glimpse I shall get of his mind is one of my 

 data. I hope you are lifelike in spite of Reform debates. 

 1 Confound this rope ! ' said the Irishman who was hauling in the 

 slack, ' sure somebody has cut off the other end of it ! ' Do you 

 not begin to suspect that somebody has stolen the third reading ? 



Yours very truly, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



To J. S. Mill, Esq., M.P. 



91 Adelaide Road, August 2, 1867. 



MY DEAR SIR, As touching your proposal to me to join the 

 committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage, I 

 cannot accede. I never join political agitations, or associations 

 for procuring changes in the political machine. I remember 

 signing a petition which, as I understood it, was for franchise to 

 be granted to single women having the property qualification. 

 Your Society, as its title is worded, contemplates a full female 

 suffrage e.g. a vote for a man and another for his wife. Sup- 

 posing me willing to join a political agitation, I should hardly be 

 ready for such a one as this. I should think better of two 

 votes given to the couple jointly i.e. the two to agree upon the 

 two. I almost thought this was the meaning of the phrase 

 'compound householder,' when I first heard people mention it. 1 

 I got as far as joining the Decimal Coinage, but this was for the 



1 I cannot help thinking my husband wrote this for the sake of play- 

 ing on the expression ' compound householder,' as he can scarcely have 

 missed seeing that the result of one vote to each of two people has the 

 exact effect of two votes to both if they agree, except only in the case 

 of one of the two not voting at all. S. E. DE M. 



