‘afrits' fyott-Walio. 
[ 
WOMANHOOD SUFFRAGE. 
BY MARY A. E. WAGER. 
[Miss Wager details, as introductory to what fol¬ 
lows. this history and composition Of the two rival 
factions which recently held rival anniversary meet¬ 
ings in this (N. Y.) city at the same time. Since these 
two factions are altogether the outgrowth, and for 
the grat ification, of personal a inhitions anil Interests, 
both claiming to aim nt the same objective point— 
“Womanhood Suffrage, no more and no less”—we 
are indisposed to distinguish one from the other. It 
is simply a Quarrel between rival newspaper inter¬ 
ests and their respective adherents— Beecher's 
C hristian Union and the Boston Woman's Journal on 
one side, und Tilton’s Independent and the New 
York Revolution on the other—that is all. We there¬ 
fore give simply Miss Wager’s summary of what 
was said at these conventions.—E ds. Urn a i..J 
Ulrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton 
said that, men who are abusive, tyrannical, 
dissolute, beat their wives, get drunk, are il¬ 
literate and ignorant , arc opposed to woman 
suffrage. In brief, the lower down a man is 
in the intellectual and moral scale, the nar¬ 
rower and more selfish in his thoughts and 
prejudices, the stronger opponent is he to 
woman suffrage. 
H ciary Ward needier 
said he was converted to woman’s rights in 
1856. He had made the subject a serious 
and profound study for years, aud was fully 
convinced, in his own mind, that human 
rights should only be limited liy human ca¬ 
pabilities. He gave it as his opinion that fif¬ 
teen years lienee it will lie doubted that wo¬ 
man’s right to suffrage had ever even been de¬ 
bated. He met the commonplace objections 
to woman suffrage, and in Ids characteristic 
way, demolished them, lie said, further¬ 
more, “1 am, with my whole heart, con¬ 
vinced that the nature of woman will bear 
good witness for the 8tale, and that it will 
l»e an advantage to the community when 
woman, like man, will be a participator in 
public nffairs.’’ 
Thomn* Wentworth ilieulnuoii 
met the opposition of a certain class of 
persons that with enfranchisement, women 
should be subject to military duty. Of 
course, the thing is too silly to need refuta¬ 
tion, but is trumped up, being the only one 
these brave warriors who were “nowhere” 
during the war, can invent. We wish a 
regiment of women had been stationed 
along the Canadian frontier during the war, 
to “ bring in” Americans foreign-bound just 
then! Col. IIigginhon is a tall,dark-eyed • 
man, with black hair and full heard. 
Sojourner Truth, 
the well-known, eighty-year-old colored wo¬ 
man, said:—" I worked all I could against 
slavery,and now that it is removed from the 
blacks, I want it removed from the whites. 
I do not feel to go to men to beg at all; for 
when anybody has stole anything from you, 
it. is wrong to go begging to give it back to 
you. 1 want to bring it to the minds of men 
that they have taken a thing that does not 
belong to them, and tlmt they must give it 
back, else ice icill take it /” 
Jennie Collins, 
“ The New England Factory Girl,” forty 
years old, perhaps, and a regular maga¬ 
zine of fire and tinder, hit oft’ the anti- 
woman suffragists at present plying then- 
wires at Washington, and headed by Mrs. 
Gen. Sherman. She alluded to the great 
cost at which Gen. Sherman’s honors had 
been won, and said the action of Mrs. Sher¬ 
man had insulted the widows of men quite 
as brave, if not quite as distinguished as her 
husband. Miss Collin s has evidently had 
a hard “row to hoe;” hut she is a clear¬ 
headed creature, and has no sympathy with 
aristocracy or dishonest intrigue. 
Mrs. Aildc Iliisli'lt, 
the new candidate for lyceum honors from 
Michigan, a bright-faced little woman of 
the compact, bullet style of head, and speak¬ 
ing with a dash and vim as if she would 
like to bite somebody's head off, leveled her 
sarcasm at that class of young women “ who 
don’t want to vote,” and do nothing better 
than to dress aDd flirt and ogle fora husband. 
She is too severe, and cuts with too sharp a 
knife. All women are not fools and flirts 
any more than all men are bad and irre¬ 
deemably selfish. 
Oliver Johnson, 
a somewhat rugged-faced man, but extreme¬ 
ly pleasant and social, said that the woman 
suffrage question originated in the American 
Anti-Slavery Society thirty years ago. Abby 
Kelly’s name was put on one of the com¬ 
mittees, at which the entire body of clergy¬ 
men present were so horrified and scarified 
that they withdrew to a basement and reor¬ 
ganized. Dr. Marsh, of temperance tame, 
then firmly believed that if a woman spoke 
on temperance the good cause would go to 
“everlasting smash.” at once, and was so 
afraid during a temperance convention that 
Antoinette Brown (Blackwell) would 
speak in it, (as she had once before some- 
i where,) that, lie had police stationed at the 
door to prevent her entrance. 
Diary P. Davis 
of New Jersey illustrated the “ beauty and 
justice” of the law which gives the father 
TItE KIVAI, FiCirtS. 
(at least in New Jersey) entire legal right to 
the children over and above all claims of the 
mother, in whom God and nature have in¬ 
vested th e primary and superior right. 
flrnce Greenwood 
said she thought women ought to vote. She 
believed in property qualifications also ; 
thought that, in order to vote, every woman 
should own a good watch, a sewing machine, 
and a clothes wringer. She said a great 
many funuy things, which kept the audience 
convulsed with laughter. 
Jiiuic* Frcemn.ii Clark 
said his first argument in favor of woman 
suffrage is that it is straight in the direction 
of human progress and civilization; his last, 
that there is nothing to he said against, it! 
Rev. 1'liebc A. Hauaford, 
the popular and eloquent clcrgywotnan, 
pleaded that women should vole from a 
sense of duty ; that they had no moral right 
to shirk or evade such duty. She is a little 
brunette woman, with a delicious voice, and 
called, by those who know her, a most lovely 
woman. After once hearing her, it is easy 
to understand why her church is jammed 
with listeners when she preaches. She dis¬ 
arms prejudice at once, and one doesn’t feel 
like questioning the soundness of her “ call 
to preach,” as is so often the case after listen¬ 
ing to a bushel or two of stupid flatness, 
doled out by “ a man and a brother.” 
Miriam Cole, 
who has improved greatly as a speaker, for 
the comfort of those gentlemen present who 
apprehend that domestic happiness is at an 
end when women vote, sakl that nature had 
forestalled them in all their dreadful prophe¬ 
sies, by implanting a love of home and chil¬ 
dren in the hearts of women that no amount 
of voting would destroy. 
George W. Julian, EU. C., 
could not see how there could he a question 
of the right of woman to vote, as her right 
rests upon the same basis as does that of 
man ; and to argue the question of her right 
is to argue the question of his. He expected 
that women would sometimes vote wrong, 
as he had known men to do that thing occa¬ 
sionally. Believing with LINCOLN that a 
government half slave and half free cannot 
endure; that a house divided against itself 
cannot stand ; aud being unwilling to brand 
himself a political liar bj r refusing to women 
what he claimed for himself, was why lie 
had held it to be his duty to introduce into 
Congress a Sixteenth Amendment granting 
enfranchisement to women. 
Catherine Beecher, 
Henry Wakd’s sister, and whom he intro¬ 
duced as having brought up part of him, 
being responsible for most of his virtues and 
none of his faults, was present to give her 
objections to suffrage, and did so through the 
medium of Uarry Blackwell’s voice, she 
herself being aged and with a feeble voice. 
She does not object to women speaking in 
public, to their preaching, earning their own 
independence, or to the agitating or organiz¬ 
ing of women, as women, to better and ad¬ 
vance their condition. Her first objection 
to suffrage is that it is a wrong mode em¬ 
ployed to gain the right object; wrong to 
enforce by law rather than, love. Another 
objection was that it would be unjust to en¬ 
force suffrage ou women who did not want 
it, and there were many such. She believed 
women could obtain all they wanted or 
needed of men by asking them for it prop¬ 
erly ; that had been her experience. The 
gist of her objections was that women should 
use moral suasion rather than law to accom¬ 
plish their wishes. 
Dll's. U. 11. T. Cutler 
of Ohio answered these oppositions. She is 
a matronly looking woman, elegantly attired, 
and a good speaker. Instead of telling Miss 
Beecher, as a lady buck of us did us, that 
her objections came from the “ dark ages,” 
she dealt kindly with the venerable lady, 
and informed her that all women did not 
have ;e Beecher for a father, or such broth¬ 
ers to ask of as she had. She told her it 
was unjust to deny the ballot to women who 
did want it. Nobody was obliged to vote in 
this country, if they did not wish. Only 
fifty per cent, of the men voted. She knew 
moral suasion did a great deal, but that 
moral suasion, with the arm of the law to 
enforce it, could do a great deal more, do it 
more effectually and with less trouble. She 
illustrated one point by referring to her love 
of study when a girl, and how she learned 
Latin at her spinning wheel, and how her 
father was so alarmed at her getting a Latin 
grammar that he called in the family physi¬ 
cian for counsel. He thought any girl who 
had aspirations beyond dish washing or a 
spinning wheel must be insane. 
Miss Waster’s Hpuecli. 
We have room lor no more sayings, only 
this for ourself. We think it is high time 
for property in human beings to end. When 
men are murdered and women traduced for 
giving aid aud comfort to a wretched woman 
fleeing from death to life, because she is the 
wife of a brute and a madman, und therefore 
his property , nobody having a legal right to 
help her after escaping from his clutches—so 
long as such things are or may he the result 
of purely man's legislation, for God’s and 
Heaven’s sake, for the sake of noble men and 
pure women, for the sake of marriage and 
not bondage, for the sake of civilization and 
the honor of our country, which boasts of in¬ 
dividual freedom, let us have an end of it. 
This Woman’s Suffrage question has 
assumed too much magnitude aud power to 
any longer fail to claim the serious and 
earnest attention of every woman in the 
United States. One cannot fail to see 11 which 
way the wind blows.” The women will win! 
Time only is required to make what is now 
a question a fact. We do not suppose that 
the majority of women in country places 
apprehend the near approach of the day 
when they will he endowed with the elective 
franchise. But to prepare themselves for the 
intelligent use of the ballot now demands 
their equally intelligent attention. 
--- 
THE RIVAL PETS. 
Our illustration, with its sweet and charm¬ 
ing grace, needs no descriptive words. The 
pets fairly spctilc for themselves. The whole 
scene is a tender revelation of country child¬ 
hood,—such as should carry all backward 
who were horn outside city walls and town 
noises. A revelation and a memory; and 
though all revelations are not pleasing, nor 
all memories happy, this pictured blending 
of the two is both pleasant and glad, ami 
deserves the tribute of meditative study. 
It is a pitiable nature that has no love for 
pets. And it seems to us that it must be a 
perverted one, as well. A regard for all 
God’s creatures characterizes broad and 
sympathetic souls; un especial liking for 
some particular creature, or a number of 
creatures, is but the natural consequence. 
It argues well for a man that he loves his 
dog,—for a woman, that she gives some of 
her womanly affection to her cat Or her bird. 
Be wo young or old, pets seem somehow es¬ 
sential to us. We do not read that Adam 
and Eve indulged in them, but it must, be 
that they did, else Adam was not the man 
we have all along believed him, and Eve 
was chargeable with one more grave fault 
than is commonly attributed to her! 
-- 
The lash that man does not object to hav¬ 
ing laid on his shoulder— the eye-lash of a 
pretty girl. 
THE EVER ABSENT. 
BY A. A. UOPKIN 8 . 
I CANNOT niako her dead : I see her yet. 
Her smile a sudden glory shining through, 
As if her Ilfo could never quite forget 
A gladder being that it sometime know, 
And all the memory warmed within her fnco 
With catching glimpse# of some olden grace! 
Her smile—It had a radiance all its own. 
Though possibly the angel* bask in uuch ; 
And haply her sweel taco hail somewhere known 
The added sweetness of uu angel's touch, 
And this was what it ne’er forgot the while, 
But thought upon serenely In Its smile 1 
For somewhere angels do their impress lend 
Upon the faces Unit wo dearest prir.e, 
Somewhere—somctlmo; and then when comes the 
end 
And tluwo we love, despite our moaning cries. 
Go outward from us where we may not see 
And leave behind them but a memory, 
Methtnks the angels call them fondly thence, 
To see H vestige of their touch remains,— 
To see if, wild the waiting and suspense, 
The carping care, the porlls and the pains, 
A trace of slgnot, holy lingers there: 
And afterwards their presence cannot spare! 
And so I think she went, she heard the call, 
And said " I come,” with that rare snillo of hers, 
Leaving the earth,—Its many beauties all. 
Her pet* that were her willing worshipers. 
Her friends that clasped her close and prayed her 
star, - 
And sweetly walked along the unknown way ; 
Till, seeing through the darkened way she wont 
The glory of her smile so radiant shine, 
The angels mother, lovingly intent, 
And led her up the wearying Incline, 
And finding nothing of their Impress tied, 
Forever choose that wo should think her dead ! 
evo 
torus for fumilists. 
THE OLD HOUSE, 
BY MILLY LEE. 
[Concluded from page 33S, last No.] 
The old, old story of rapid strides down¬ 
ward, began to be whispered months before 
Mrs. Dascome could believe that, Fred was 
more than amused by the idle company ho 
sought. But one evening in March, a year 
from the day that lie had brought him home 
to commence life, Jack Burrell overtook 
him as he was reeling uncertainly along, and 
for the first time. Fred was assisted home, 
drunk. This was the last drop in Mrs. Das- 
come’s cup of bitterness. The meek, unde¬ 
monstrative woman covered her face with 
her faded apron, and moaned anti cried 
without restraint; while rude, khul-hcarted 
Jack Burrell put the maudlin repentant 
to bed, vowing, by all the supernaturals, to 
take the matter in hand himself. 
And Jack was as good as his word. As 
Fred, with aching head, aud shamed aud 
miserable face, was passing down the ron,d, 
to get away from home and his mother’s 
suffering face, wishing ho could get, away 
from himself as well, he met Jack Burrell. 
“ Where arc you going, Fred V” stopping 
squarely before him. 
“ Oh, nowhere in particular; why ?” 
“Because that’s just where you’ve no 
business to go. You’ve been there altogether 
too much already, and it’s time you went 
about your business, I should say.” 
“ And 1 should say,” said Fred, flashing 
up, “ that your advice might be wortli keep¬ 
ing for your own use.” 
“ You mean that I’d better mind my own 
business; and that’s just what I’m doing, 
and have been. Last summer, when 1 seen 
you pitchin’ in, an’ slickin’ up the old place, 
I said, ‘Fred D.vscome’s his mother’s own 
boy, but lie don’t need yon to tell him so,’ 
j and I minded my own business. This fall 
an’ winter, when I seen you goin’ up to the 
Corners day after day, more ’n all, when I 
heard of your drinkiu’ and playin’, I said, 
‘Fred Dascome’ a in a bad way, but fellers 
must have their time;’ sc) I minded my busi¬ 
ness. Last night, when [ saw you plungin’ 
along, and took and towed you home, I 
’lowed I was mindin’ my business; aud when 
I saw your mother that lives a slave’s life, 
’twixt that old carkiss settin’ there, and you 
off carousin’, when t saw her just breakin’ 
her hearL over you, I said here's some of my 
business. If’twas only you an’ the old man, 
you might go to destruction, if you was fool 
enough; but as ’tis, I’m willing to make you 
mad, for the sake of tellin' you how mighty 
mean, ancl sneakin’, and cowardly, and un¬ 
grateful, and—and— soft, it, is in you to make 
your mother’s life ten thousand times harder 
by your beastly selfishness.” 
Fkkd was angry. He had felt condemned 
for degrading himself by such conduct and 
associates. That his mother’s life was made 
sadder, he knew, though he had given iL lit¬ 
tle thought. His own lamentable position 
had so engrossed liis mind that this version 
of his conduct startled as much as it angered 
him; anti he was too much confused to re¬ 
ply. Jack observed his blank face, and a 
real good-will made him add— 
“ I don’t want to be hard on you, Fred, 
for though all I’ve said is true, I don’t think 
you meant to abuse your mother; and if 
there's anything I could do for you, there’s 
nobody I’d sooner helpand he proffered 
his hand amicably. 
But Fred pushed it away indignantly, and 
