Ernestine L. Rose came to this country, as she says, from Poland, whence she was compelled to fly in pursuit of freedom. Seeing her course here, we can well imagine this to be true. In no other country in the world, save possibly one, would her infidel propagandism and preachings in regard to the social relations of life be tolerated. She would be prohibited by the powers of government from her efforts to obliterate from the world the religion of the Cross—to banish the Bible as a text-book of faith, and to overturn social institutions that have existed through all political and governmental revolutions from the remotest time. The strong hand of the law would be laid upon her, and she would be compelled back to her woman's sphere. But in this country, such is the freedom of our institutions, and we rejoice that it should be so, that she, and such as she, can give their genius for intrigue full sway. They can exhibit their flowing ringlets and beautiful hands, their winning smiles and charming stage attitudes to admiring audiences, who, while they are willing to be amused, are in the main safe from their corrupting theories and demoralizing propagandism.

The laws and the theory of our government suppose that the people are capable of taking care of themselves, and hence need no protection against the wiles of domestic or foreign mountebanks, whether in petticoats or in breeches and boots. But it never was contemplated that these exotic agitators would come up to our legislators and ask for the passage of laws upholding and sanctioning their wild and foolish doctrines. That was a stretch of folly, a flight of impudence which was hardly regarded as possible. It was to be imagined, of course, that they would enlist as their followers, here and there one among the restless old maids and visionary wives who chanced to be unevenly tempered, as well as unevenly yoked. It was also to be assumed, as within the range of possibility, that they might bring within the sphere of their attractions, weak-minded, restless men, who think in their vanity that they have been marked out for great things, and failed to be appreciated by the world, men who comb their hair smoothly back, and with fingers locked across their stomachs, speak in a soft voice, and with upturned eyes. But no man supposed they would abandon their "private theatricals" and walk up to the Capitol, and insist that the performances shall be held in legislative halls. And yet so it is.

This Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, with a train of followers, like a great kite with a very long tail, has, for a week, been amusing Senatorial and Assembly Committees, with her woman's rights performances, free of charge, unless the waste of time that might be better employed in the necessary and legitimate business of legislation, may be regarded as a charge. Those committees have sat for hours, grave and solemn as owls, listening to the outpourings of fanaticism and folly of this Polish propagandist, Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, and her followers in pantalets and short gowns. The people outside, and especially those interested in the progress of legislation, are beginning to ask one another how long this farce is to continue. How long this most egregious and ridiculous humbug is to be permitted to obstruct the progress of business before the Committees and the Houses, and whether Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose and her followers ought not to be satisfied with the notoriety they have already attained. The great body of the people regard Mrs. Rose and her followers as making themselves simply ridiculous, and there is some danger that these legislative committees will make themselves so too.

LECTURE OF THE REV. ANTOINETTE L. BROWN.—It will be seen the Rev. Antoinette L. Brown delivers a lecture at Association Hall to-morrow evening. It has been said that we have done the women's rights people injustice in charging upon them the infidelity of Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose. If we have done them injustice in this matter it is but right that we should make amends by calling attention to the lecture of Miss Brown, which, as we understand, will embrace the Bible argument in favor of the measures which they advocate. Miss Brown is a talented woman, and we have no doubt an exemplary Christian.

For the Albany Daily State Register.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS.

Mr. EDITOR:—In your paper of Monday the 6th inst., I perceive you pass judgment upon the woman's rights cause, upon those engaged in it, and particularly upon myself—how justly, I leave to your conscience to decide.

Every one who ever advanced a new idea, no matter how great and noble, has been subjected to criticism, and therefore we too must expect it. And, in accordance with the spirit of the critic, will be the criticism. Whether dictated by the spirit of justice, kindness, gentleness, and charity, or by injustice, malice, rudeness, and intolerance, it is still an index of the man. But it is quite certain that no true soul will ever be deterred from the performance of a duty by any criticism.

But there is one thing which I think even editors have no right to do, namely: to state a positive falsehood, or even to imply one, for the purpose of injuring another. And, as the spirit of charity induces me to believe that in your case it was done more from a misunderstanding than positive malice, therefore I claim at your hands the justice to give this letter a place in your paper.

In the article alluded to, you say: "Ernestine L. Rose came to this country, as she says, from Poland, whence she was compelled to fly in pursuit of freedom." It is true that I came from Poland; but it is false that I was compelled to fly from my country, except by the compulsion, or dictates of the same spirit of "propagandism," that induced so many of my noble countrymen to shed their blood in the defence of the rights of this country, and the rights of man, wherever he struggles for freedom. But I have no desire to claim martyrdom which does not belong to me. I left my country, not flying, but deliberately. I chose to make this country my home, in preference to any other, because if you carried out the theories you profess, it would indeed be the noblest country on earth. And as my countrymen so nobly aided in the physical struggle for Freedom and Independence, I felt, and still feel it equally my duty to use my humble abilities to the uttermost in my power, to aid in the great moral struggle for human rights and human freedom.

Hoping that you will acede to my (I think) just claim to give this a place in your paper,

I am, very respectfully, ERNESTINE L. ROSE. NEW YORK, Mar. 7, 1854.

WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING asks the following questions in the Albany Evening Journal:

WOMAN'S RIGHTS.

A lady actively and prominently connected with, the movement which is expected to secure "justice to woman," personally requested us to publish the following communication. It is proper to state that it is written in reply to an article of one of our morning contemporaries, published a day or two ago:

"Let us take it for granted that your pop-gun of pleasantry has killed off the six thousand 'strong-minded' women and 'weak-minded' men who signed the petitions to the Legislature for Justice to Woman. And thus having disposed of personalities, will you be pleased to pass on to a discussion of the following questions:

"1. Are women, in New York, persons, people, citizens, members of the State? If they are not, then why are they numbered in the census, taxed by assessors, and subjected to legal penalties? If they are, then why is authority exercised over them without their consent asked or granted?

"2. If among the male half of the people, only criminals, aliens, and minors are excluded from the right of suffrage are all women excluded from exercising this right, on the ground of criminality, idiocy, foreign associations, or infantile imbecility?

"3. If the mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters of New York are the peers and equals of their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, why should they not enjoy all civil and political rights equally with them? If they are, on the contrary, an inferior caste, how can a jury of men thus avowedly superior, be regarded as peers and equals of any woman whom they are summoned to try?

"4. Would the editor of The Register consider himself justly treated if he would some day find himself governed by women, without his consent, taxed by women without power of voting for his representative, tried by a jury of women under laws made and administered by women?

"5. If prosecuted under the law of libel before a court of women for his late remarks, does he think he would get his deserts?

"FAIR PLAY."

Knickerbocker, Albany, March 8, 1854: GOING IT BLIND.—The editor of The State Register is going it blind on woman's rights matters. He was out on Monday with a half column leader that touched everything except the matter in dispute. We quote a paragraph:

"People are beginning to inquire how far public sentiment should sanction or tolerate these unsexed women, who make a scoff at religion, who repudiate the Bible, and blaspheme God; who would step out from the true sphere of the mother, the wife, and the daughter, and take upon themselves the duties and the business of men; stalk into the public gaze, and by engaging in the politics, the rough controversies, and trafficking of the world, upheave existing institutions, and overturn all the social relations of life."

The Register either misunderstands matters, or else willfully misrepresents them. The leading women connected with this new movement do not scoff at religion, repudiate the Bible, nor blaspheme God. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Brown are no more opposed to God and religion than the editor of The Register is. They are educated, Christian women, and would no sooner "overturn society" than they would bear false witness against their neighbors. Before The Register again attacks the reforms proposed by the Woman's Rights Conventions, it should become acquainted with them. "Going it blind," not only exposes one's prejudices, but ignorance. Many of the innovations proposed by Mrs. Stanton are such as every common-sense man would or should vote for. We mean those improvements which she would have made in the rights of property and the care of children. There are other propositions in her platform which we should dissent from. The State Register may do the same. All the "Woman's Rights" women claim is fair play and truthful criticism. They object, however, to any misstatements. They are willing to fall before truth, but not before detraction. The State Register will please notice and act accordingly.

Mrs. Stanton's address to the Legislature was laid upon the members' desks Monday morning, Feb. 20, 1854. When the order of petitions was reached, Mr. D. P. Wood, of Onondaga, presented in the Assembly a petition signed by 5,931 men and women, praying for the just and equal rights of women, which, after a spicy debate, was referred to the following Select Committee: James L. Angle, of Monroe Co.; George W. Thorn, of Washington Co.; Derrick L. Boardman, of Oneida Co.; George H. Richards, of New York; James M. Munro, of Onondaga; Wesley Gleason, of Fulton; Alexander P. Sharpe, of New York.

In the Senate, on the same day, Mr. Richards, or Warren County, presented a petition signed by 4,164 men and women, praying for the extension of the right of suffrage to women, and on his motion it was referred to the following Select Committee: George Yost, of Montgomery Co.; Ben. Field, of Orleans Co.; W. H. Robertson, of Westchester Co.

We give the report of the presentation and discussion of the petitions from The Albany Evening Journal of Feb. 20, 1854:

WOMAN'S RIGHTS.

ASSEMBLY, Monday, February 20, 1854.

Mr. D. P. WOOD: I am requested by a Committee of the Woman's Rights Convention recently assembled in this city, to present to this body their address, together with a petition signed by 5,931 men and women, asking that certain withheld rights shall be granted to the women of the State. I ask the reference of these two documents to a Select Committee of seven; and in making this motion, I wish the Speaker to waive the courtesy which would require him, under ordinary circumstances, to place me at the head of this Committee. I am already on several Committees which are pressed with business, and I would not, in my present state of health, be able to give the subject that careful consideration which the importance requires. I am satisfied, sir, that these ladies are entitled to some relief. They think so, and they say so, in language equally eloquent and impressive.

Mr. BURNETT: I hope the House will not act at all on this subject without due consideration. I hope before even this motion is put, gentlemen will be allowed to reflect upon the important question whether these individuals deserve any consideration at the hands of the Legislature. Whatever may be their pretensions or their sincerity, they do not appear to be satisfied with having unsexed themselves, but they desire to unsex every female in the land, and to set the whole community ablaze with unhallowed fire. I trust, sir, the House may deliberate before we suffer them to cast this firebrand into our midst. (Here was heard a "hiss" from some part of the chamber). True, as yet, there is nothing officially before us, but it is well known that the object of these unsexed women is to overthrow the most sacred of our institutions, to set at defiance the Divine law which declares man and wife to be one, and establish on its ruins what will be in fact and in principle but a species of legalized adultery. That this is their real object, however they may attempt to disguise it, is well known to every one who has looked, not perhaps at the intentions of all who take part in it, but at the practical and inevitable result of the movement.

It is, therefore, a matter of duty, a duty to ourselves, to our consciences, to our constituents, and to God, who is the source of all law and of all obligations, to reflect long and deliberatively before we shall even seem to countenance a movement so unholy as this. The Spartan mothers asked no such immunities as are asked for by these women. The Roman mothers were content to occupy their legitimate spheres; and our own mothers, who possessed more than Spartan or Roman virtue, asked for no repudiation of the duties, obligations, or sacred relations of the marital rite.

Are we, sir, to give the least countenance to claims so preposterous, disgraceful, and criminal as are embodied in this address? Are we to put the stamp of truth upon the libel here set forth, that men and women, in the matrimonial relation, are to be equal? We know that God created man as the representative of the race; that after his creation, his Creator took from his side the material for woman's creation; and that, by the institution of matrimony, woman was restored to the side of man, and became one flesh and one being, he being the head. But this law of God and creation is spurned by these women who present themselves here as the exponents of the wishes of our mothers, wives, and daughters. They ask no such exponents, and they repel their sacrilegious doctrines.

But again, sir, our old views of matrimony were, that it was a holy rite, having holy relations based on mutual love and confidence; and that while woman gave herself up to man, to his care, protection, and love, man also surrendered something in exchange for this confidence and love. He placed his happiness and his honor, all that belongs to him of human hopes and of human happiness, in the keeping of the being he received in the sacred relationship of wife. I say, sir, that this ordinance, sought to be practically overthrown by these persons, was established by God Himself; and was based on the mutual love and confidence of husband and wife. But we are now asked to have this ordinance based on jealousy and distrust; and, as in Italy, so in this country, should this mischievous scheme be carried out to its legitimate results, we, instead of reposing safe confidence against assaults upon our honor in the love and affection of our wives, shall find ourselves obliged to close the approaches to those assaults by the padlock. (The "hiss" was here repeated).

Mr. LOZIER: Mr. Speaker, twice I have heard a hiss from the lobby. I protest against the toleration of such an insult to any member of this House, and call for proper action in view of it.

The SPEAKER: The chair observed the interruption, and was endeavoring to discover its source, but has been unable to do so. If, however, its author can be recognized, the chair will immediately order the person to the bar of the House.

Mr. BURNETT: I have nothing further. The leading features of this address are well known; and I do not wish at present to further enter upon the argument of its character. I merely wish that members be afforded time for consideration. I therefore move to lay the pending motion on the table.

D. P. WOOD: I am surprised that the gentleman from Essex, who professes to desire light, and to afford members time for examination, should make a motion which, if carried, will preclude light and prevent examination. The gentleman sees fit to regard the memorial of these 6,000 men and women as a firebrand. I do not believe the ladies who presented it intended it as such; and they will be surprised to learn that a gentleman of his age and experience should have taken fire from it. Their requests are simple. They ask for "justice and equal rights," and this simple request is made the excuse for an attack upon them as unheard of as it is unjust. They ask only for "justice and equal rights." If the House does not see fit to grant them what they ask, let my motion be voted down, and send the memorial to the Judiciary Committee, of which the gentleman from Essex is chairman. Let such a disposition be made of it, and there will then be no danger that any one will be fired up by it, for it will then be sure to sleep the sleep of death.

Sir, when a petition like this comes before the Legislature, it should not only be respectfully received, but courteously considered; particularly when it asks, as this petition does, a review of the entire code of our statute laws. It should not be sent to a Committee adverse to its request. That would be unparliamentary and the end of it. If sent to such a Committee it would be smothered. The House, I am sure, is not prepared for any such disposition of the matter, but is willing to look candidly at the alleged grievances, and, if consistent with public policy, redress them, although in doing so we may infringe upon time-honored notions and usages.

Mr. PETERS: I am not surprised at the direction which the gentleman from Essex seeks to give this memorial. Any gentleman who would assail these ladies as he has done, would be prepared to make any disrespectful disposition of their rights. I may regret that he has sought to deny a hearing to these petitioners, but I am not surprised that he has done so. I trust that no other member on this floor will refuse, practically, to receive this petition—refuse to our mothers, wives, and sisters, what we every day grant to our fathers, brothers, and sons. These women come here with a respectful petition, and we should give them a candid and respectful hearing. If it be true, and true it is, that there are real grievances complained of, I hope they may be redressed after careful and candid consideration.

The time has gone by, sir, when we may say progress must stop. It is well known that in many particulars the laws are glaringly unjust in regard to the female sex. The education of the sex is defective; and this fact unfolds the secret germ of this movement. We should review the structure of our institutions of learning, and see whether there be not there room for reform. I do not believe it to be a part of the duty of women to sit in the jury-box, to vote, or to participate in all the tumultuous strifes of life; but I do believe that those who differ from me in opinion should have respectful hearing. Nor, because women are not allowed to vote, do I admit that they are precluded from all agency in the direction of national affairs. They, more than their husbands, have power over the future history of the country, by imparting a correct fireside education to their sons. But there are legal disabilities imposed upon women which I would be willing to see removed, in regard to property, etc. Whether those disabilities are of a character to justify affirmative action on the part of this House or not, is not now the question. The question simply is, shall this petition be received? I trust that it may be, and that it may afterward be sent to a select committee.

Mr. BENEDICT: The gentleman from Onondaga asks that this petition shall be sent to a select committee of seven, although he admits that the Judiciary Committee would be more appropriate, if it would not be sure, if sent to that Committee, to sleep the sleep of death. Sir, I am one of that Committee, and protest against any such imputation upon it. I will not only not vote to reject any petition offered the House, but I will give every petition sent to any committee of which I am a member a respectful hearing. This is a petition signed by some 6,000 men and women. They ask "justice" and relief. What kind of relief they may desire is no matter. It is enough for me to know that they ask to be heard. I shall vote to give them a hearing; and I can assure the gentleman from Onondaga that if sent to the Judiciary Committee it will sleep no sleep of death, but will be respectfully considered. A contrary intimation is an unjust reflection on that Committee.

Mr. WOOD: My remark was not intended to reflect upon that Committee. I referred merely to the great amount of business before it.

Mr. BENEDICT: There the gentleman is equally at fault. That Committee is a working Committee, and disposed of all the business before it on Friday last. I am, however, in favor of the motion for a select committee, and desire that the petition should receive legitimate and careful consideration, not only because the petition is largely signed, but because every petition from any portion of the people on any subject, should receive a respectful hearing from the people's representatives. I I hope, therefore, that not a single member may vote against the reception of this petition, whatever his views may be in regard to granting its prayer. I am in favor of the right of petition.

Mr. BURNETT: It was not my wish in the motion I made to have this petition rejected. Had I intended any such thing I should have said so; for I always go directly at what I want to accomplish, and never fail to call things by their right names. I merely wished, before any disposition was made of the petition, that the members should have time to examine the address, which is the key of the whole subject. This is all I desire; and it was simply an expression of this desire that has awakened all this windy gust of passion. After members shall examine the address which accompanies this petition, they can make such disposition of the petition itself as they shall deem wise and proper. This is the length and breadth of my object and desire.

Mr. WOOD: I think the House understands the subject sufficiently to justify action upon my motion of reference.

The motion for the Select Committee prevailed, ayes, 84; the Committee appointed, and Mr. Wood excused from serving.

REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE.

IN ASSEMBLY, MONDAY, March 27, 1854.

The Select Committee, to whom was referred the various petitions requesting "the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York to appoint a joint committee to revise the Statutes of New York, and to propose such amendments as will fully establish the legal equality of women with men," report: That they have examined the said petition, and have heard and considered the suggestions of persons who have appeared before them on behalf of the petitioners.

Your Committee are well aware that the matters submitted to them have been, and still are, the subject of ridicule and jest; but they are also aware that ridicule and jest never yet effectually put down either truth or error; and that the development of our times and the progression of our age is such, that many thoughts laughed at to-day as wild vagaries, are to-morrow recorded as developed principles or embodied as experimental facts.

A higher power than that from which emanates legislative enactments has given forth the mandate that man and woman shall not be equal; that there shall be inequalities by which each in their own appropriate sphere shall have precedence to the other; and each alike shall be superior or inferior as they well or ill act the part assigned them. Both alike are the subjects of Government, equally entitled to its protection; and civil power must, in its enactments, recognize this inequality. We can not obliterate it if we would, and legal inequalities must follow.

The education of woman has not been the result of statutes, but of civilization and Christianity; and her elevation, great as it has been, has only corresponded with that of man under the same influences. She owes no more to these causes than he does. The true elevation of the sexes will always correspond. But elevation, instead of destroying, show? more palpably those inherent inequalities, and makes more apparent the harmony and happiness which the Creator designed to accomplish by them.

Your Committee will not attempt to prescribe, or, rather, they will not attempt to define the province and peculiar sphere which a power that we can not overrule has prescribed for the different sexes. Every well-regulated home and household in the land affords an example illustrative of what is woman's proper sphere, as also that of man. Government has its miniature as well as its foundation in the homes of our country; and as in governments there must be some recognized head to control and direct, so must there also be a controlling and directing power in every smaller association; there must be some one to act and to be acted with as the embodiment of the persons associated. In the formation of governments, the manner in which the common interest shall be embodied and represented is a matter of conventional arrangement; but in the family an influence more potent than that of contracts and conventionalities, and which everywhere underlies humanity, has indicated that the husband shall fill the necessity which exists for a head. Dissension and distraction quickly arise when this necessity is not answered. The harmony of life, the real interest of both husband and wife, and of all dependent upon them, require it. In obedience to that requirement and necessity, the husband is the head—the representative of the family.

It was strongly urged upon your Committee that women, inasmuch as their property was liable to taxation, should be entitled to representation. The member of this House who considers himself the representative only of those whose ballots were cast for him, or even of all the voters in his district, has, in the opinion of your Committee, quite too limited an idea of his position on this floor. In their opinion he is the representative of the inhabitants of his district, whether they be voters or not, whether they be men or women, old or young; and he who does not alike watch over the interests of all, fails in his duty and is false to his trust.

Your Committee can not regard marriage as a mere contract, but as something above and beyond; something more binding than records, more solemn than specialties; and the person who reasons as to the relations of husband and wife as upon an ordinary contract, in their opinion commits a fatal error at the outset; and your Committee can not recommend any action based on such a theory.

As society progresses new wants are felt, new facts and combinations are presented which constantly call for more or less of addition to the body of our laws, and often for innovations upon customs so old that "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary thereof." The marriage relation, in common with everything else, has felt the effects of this progress, and from time to time been the subject of legislative action. And while your Committee report adversely to the prayer of the petitions referred to them, they believe that the time has come when certain alterations and amendments are, by common consent, admitted as proper and necessary.

Your Committee recommend that the assent of the mother, if she be living, be made necessary to the validity of any disposition which the father may make of her child by the way of the appointment of guardian or of apprenticeship. The consent of the wife is now necessary to a deed of real estate in order to bar her contingent interest therein; and there are certainly far more powerful reasons why her consent should be necessary to the conveyance or transfer of her own offspring to the care, teaching, and control of another.

When the husband from any cause neglects to provide for the support and education of his family, the wife should have the right to collect and receive her own earnings and the earnings of her minor children, and apply them to the support and education of the family free from the control of the husband, or any person claiming the same through him.

There are many other rules of law applicable to the relation of husband and wife which, in occasional cases, bear hard upon the one or the other, but your Committee do not deem it wise that a new arrangement of our laws of domestic relations should be attempted to obviate such cases; they always have and always will arise out of every subject of legal regulation.

There is much of wisdom (which may well be applied to this and many other subjects) in the quaint remark of an English lawyer, philosopher, and statesman, that "it were well that men in their innovations would follow the example of time, which innovateth greatly but quietly, and by degrees scarcely to be perceived. It is good also in states not to try experiments, except the necessity be urgent and the utility evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation."

In conclusion, your Committee recommend that the prayer of the petitioners be denied; and they ask leave to introduce a bill[127] corresponding with the suggestions hereinbefore contained.

The report was signed by James L. Angle and all the members of the Committee except Mr. Richards.

Of the report on the petitions, Mr. Weed says:

Mr. Angle, from the Select Committee of the Assembly, to which the woman's rights petitions were referred, made a report last evening, which we publish elsewhere to-day. It is a compact, lucid, and ably drawn document, highly creditable to its author, and becomingly respectful to the petitioners. The Committee report adversely to the petitions, but recommend one or two changes in our existing law, which will, we think, commend themselves as well to the opponents, as to the advocates of woman's rights.

The work in the State of New York was now thoroughly systematized. Susan B. Anthony was appointed General Agent, and it was decided to hold a series of Conventions in all the counties and chief cities of the State, in order to roll up mammoth petitions with which to bombard the Legislature at every annual session. Two appeals[128] were issued to the women of the State, one in June, prepared by Mr. Channing, and one in December, by Mrs. Stanton. A number of able speakers[129] joined in the work, and the State was thoroughly canvassed every year until the war, and petitions presented by the thousands until the bill securing the civil rights of married women was passed in March, 1860.

Lest our readers should think that there was no variety to our lives in these early days, that we did nothing but resolve, complain, petition, protest, hold conventions, and besiege Legislatures, we record now and then some cheerful item from the Metropolitan papers concerning some of our leading women.

NEW YORK, March 14, 1854.

ANNIVERSARY OF THE 83D BIRTHDAY OF ROBERT OWEN AT 600 BROADWAY.

When the reporter entered the room he found the ladies and gentlemen assembled there tripping the light fantastic toe to the music of a harp, piano, and violin. Ernestine L. Rose was president of the occasion, and gave a very interesting sketch of the life and labors of this noble man. After which they had a grand supper, and Lucy Stone replied to the toast, "Woman, coequal with man." The ladies not only danced and made speeches, but they partook of the supper. They did not sit in the galleries, as the custom then was, to look at the gentlemen eat, and listen to their after-dinner speeches, but enjoyed an equal share in the whole entertainment. Mrs. Rose and Miss Stone seemed to feel as much at home on this festive occasion, as amid the more important proceedings of a convention.

As the agitation was kept up from year to year with frequent conventions, ever and anon some prominent person who had hitherto been silent, would concede a modicum of what we claimed, so timidly, however, and with so many popular provisos, that the concessions were almost buried in the objections. It was after this manner that Henry Ward Beecher, then in the zenith of his popularity, vouchsafed an opinion. He believed in woman's right to vote and speak in public. There was no logical argument against either, but he would not like to see his wife or mother go to the polls or mount the platform. This utterance called out the following letter from Gerrit Smith in The Boston Liberator:

PETERBORO, N. Y., Nov. 19, 1854.

DEAR GARRISON:—I am very glad to see in your paper that Henry Ward Beecher avows himself a convert to the doctrine of woman's voting. But I regret that this strong man is nevertheless not strong enough to emancipate himself entirely from the dominion of superstition. Mr. Beecher would not have his wife and sister speak in public. Of course he means that he would not, however competent they might be for such an exercise. I will suppose that they all remove to Peterboro, and that a very important, nay, an entirely vital question springs up in our community, and profoundly agitates it; and I will further suppose that the wife and sister of Mr. Beecher are more capable than any other persons of taking the platform and shedding light upon the subject. Are we not entitled to their superior light? Certainly. And certainly therefore are they bound to afford it to us. Nevertheless Mr. Beecher would have them withhold it from us. Pray what is it but superstition that could prompt him to such violation of benevolence and common-sense? Will Mr. Beecher go to the Bible for his justification? That blessed book is to be read in the life of Jesus Christ; and in that life is the fullness of benevolence and common-sense, and no superstition at all. Will Mr. Beecher limit his wife and sisters in the given case to their pens?[130] Such limitation would he then be bound in consistency to impose upon himself. Would he impose it? Again, it takes lips as well as pens to carry instruction to the utmost.

Your friend, GERRIT SMITH.

SARATOGA CONVENTIONS,

August, 1854-'55.

Seeing calls for two national conventions, by the friends of Temperance, and the Anti-Nebraska movement, to be held in Saratoga the third week of August, the State Woman Suffrage Committee decided to embrace that opportunity to hold a convention there at the same time.[131] As it was at the height of the fashionable season it was thought much good might be accomplished by getting the ear of a new class of hearers.

But after the arrangements were all made, and Miss Anthony on the ground, she received messages from one after another of the speakers on whom she depended, that none of them could be present. Accordingly, encouraged by the Hon. William Hay, she decided to go through alone. Happily, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Sarah Pellet being in Saratoga, came forward and volunteered their services, and thus was the Convention carried successfully through.[132] The meeting was held in St. Nicholas Hall, which was well filled throughout, three-hundred dollars being taken at the door. The following resume of this occasion is from the pen of Judge William Hay, in a letter to The North Star of Rochester (Frederick Douglass, editor):

THE SARATOGA CONVENTION.

Miss Sarah Pellet addressed an audience of six hundred persons in the afternoon, most of whom returned with others to St. Nicholas Hall in the evening, thus manifesting their satisfaction with what they had heard and their interest in the cause, which was farther discussed by Mrs. Gage, whose address was an elaborate argument for the removal of woman's legal and social disabilities. Among other authorities she quoted with judgment, was the following from Wm. W. Story: "In respect to the powers and rights of married women, the law is by no means abreast the spirit of the age. Here are seen the old fossil prints of feudalism. The law relating to woman tends to make every family a barony, a monarchy, or a despotism, of which the husband is the baron, king, or despot, and the wife the dependent, the serf, or slave. That this is not always the fact, is not due to the law, but to the enlarged humanity which spurns the narrow limits of its rules; for if the husband choose, he has his wife as firmly in his grasp and dominion, as the hawk has the dove upon whom he has pounced. This age is ahead of the law. Public opinion is a check to legal rules on this subject, but the rules are feudal and stern. It can not, however, be concealed that the position of woman is always the criterion of the freedom of a people or an age, and when man shall despise that right which is founded only on might, woman will be free to stand on an equal level with him—a friend and not a dependent."

Mrs. Gage also, and with like effect, cited from the same learned jurist, laws, which, had her lecture been a sermon, might have been prefixed as a text. Such opinions, although but seldom known to any but lawyers, and not appreciated by many of them, have frequently been printed in books, which, however, being professional, are perused by few persons only. Mrs. Gage[133] concluded her excellent discourse with Bryant's celebrated stanza, relative to truth and error.

Miss Anthony's situation had become embarrassing, if not critical. At a late hour of a summer night, she was to follow Mrs. Gage on the same subject, and before a fastidious audience, almost surfeited during three days with public addresses in several different conventions, and many of whom desired to contrast her expected effort with the splendid platform eloquence of Henry J. Raymond, Wm. H. Burleigh, and "their like," fearlessly advocating the redress of wrongs and the promotion of human rights. Miss Anthony, who had conciliated her audience by lady-like conduct and courtesy, in providing seats for the accommodation of those standing, commenced with an appropriate apology for unavoidable repetition, when it was her lot to follow Mrs. Gage. Sufficient here to say that she acquitted herself admirably. The simplicity and repose of her manner, the dignity of her deportment, the distinctiveness of her enunciation, her emphatic earnestness, the pathos of her appeals, and completeness of her arguments, convinced the understanding and persuaded all hearts.

The gossip of mustached dandies, and the half-suppressed giggle of bedizened beauty, soon settled down into respectful attention, if not appreciation. Indeed many of the most intelligent hearers before retiring, audibly confessed that they came to find fault, but had seen nothing to censure. So some who came to scoff remained to applaud. With such advocates there can be no retrogression of Woman's Rights. Equality is their motto, and onward their destiny. WM. HAY.

This Convention was so successful in point of numbers and receipts, and the sale of woman suffrage literature, that it was decided to repeat the experiment the next year; accordingly the following call was issued early in the season:

SARATOGA CONVENTION, 1855.

A Convention will be held at Saratoga Springs on the 15th and 16th of August next, to discuss woman's right to suffrage.

In the progress of human events, woman now demands the recognition of her civil existence, her legal rights, her social equality with man.

How her claims can be the most easily and speedily established on a firm, enduring basis, will be the subject of deliberation at the coming Convention.

The friends of the movement, and the public generally, are most respectfully invited to attend.

Many of the advocates of the cause are expected to be in attendance.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, LYDIA MOTT, ERNESTINE L. ROSE, ANTOINETTE L. BROWN, SAMUEL J. MAY, SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

This Convention also was held in St. Nicholas Hall, and a large audience greeted the speakers of the occasion as they appeared upon the platform.

A brief report of the secretaries in The Una of September, 1855, says: A large audience assembled on the morning of August 15th at St. Nicholas Hall. Susan B. Anthony called the meeting to order, and presented a list of officers[134] nominated at a preliminary gathering, which was accepted. Martha C. Wright, on taking the chair, made a brief statement of the object of the Convention, and invited all those who were opposed to our demands to come to the platform and state their objections.

During the absence of the Business Committee, Ernestine L. Rose briefly reviewed the rise and progress of the woman's rights movement. Antoinette Brown reported a series of resolutions, on which she commented at some length, when the Rev. Samuel J. May was introduced. Although he spoke to the entire edification of the platform, yet he was constantly interrupted by the audience. It was a novelty to hear women speak, and the audience having assembled for that purpose, preferred to listen to woman's pathetic statements of her wrongs, than to the most gifted orators that men could boast. It was not until after repeated requests for order from the president, and assurances from several of the ladies that they would not speak until Mr. May had finished his remarks, that quiet was restored.

It was at this Convention that Mary L. Booth[135] made her first appearance on our platform, as one of the secretaries. One feature of these meetings was the freedom and warm sympathy between the audience and the platform. At the close of almost every speech, some one on the floor asked questions, or stated some objections which were quickly answered and refuted by the speakers in the most pleasant conversational manner.

Mrs. Rose presented the wrongs of woman in her most happy manner, demanding the ballot as the underlying power to protect all other rights. Thomas Wentworth Higginson made an address especially adapted to the fashionable audience. Many of the thoughtless ones whom idle curiosity had led to the hall, must have felt like the woman of Samaria (John iv. 29) at the well, when she reported that she had seen a man who told her all the things that ever she had done, so nearly did Mr. Higginson picture to them their thoughts and feelings, the ennui of their daily lives. Lucy Stone, whom the papers now call Mrs. Blackwell, arriving in the midst of the convention, was greeted with long and repeated cheers, and spoke with her wonted simplicity and earnestness. The resolutions covering all the different phases of the movement were duly discussed through two entire days.

Antoinette Brown was called on as usual to meet the Bible argument. A clergyman accused her of misapplying texts. He said Genesis iv. 7 did not allude to Cain and Abel, and that the language in Genesis iii. 16, as applied to Eve, did not mean the same thing. Miss Brown maintained her position that the texts were the same in letter and spirit; and that authority to all men over all women could be no more logically inferred from the one, than authority to all elder brothers over the younger could be from the other; and that there was no divine authority granted in either case.

Miss Anthony announced that woman's rights tracts and papers were for sale at the door, and urged all who had become interested in the subject to procure them not only for their own benefit, but to circulate among their neighbors. If they would be intelligent as to the real claims of the movement, they must take The Una, a paper owned and edited by one of its leaders. No one would expect to get temperance truths from Bennett's Herald, nor anti-slavery facts from The New York Observer, or Christian Advocate; no more can we look to any of the popular newspapers, political or religious, for reliable information on the woman's rights movement.

She also presented the claims of The Woman's Advocate, a paper just started in Philadelphia by Anna E. McDowell, devoted chiefly to woman's right to work—equal pay for equal service (she was sorry that it did not see that the right of suffrage underlies the work problem); nevertheless the existence of a paper owned, edited, published, and printed all by women, was a living woman's rights fact, and she hoped every one would give it encouragement and support. She then gave a brief report of the work done in the State during the past year,[136] and closed by presenting the form of petition that had just been adopted.[137]

Mr. May moved the appointment of a committee of five[138] to engage lecturing agents and raise funds for their compensation. The president thanked the people for the respect and attention manifested during the several sessions, and adjourned the Convention.[139]

The Saratoga papers were specially complimentary in their notices of Ernestine L. Rose and Lucy Stone, pronouncing them logical and eloquent, and Miss Anthony was highly praised for her skill in getting contributions and distributing documents. She sold over twenty thousand pamphlets that year. As there were many Southern people always at Saratoga, this was considered a grand opportunity through tracts to sow the seeds of rebellion all through the Southern States. This Convention afforded a new theme for conversation at the hotels, and was discussed for many days after with levity or seriousness, to be laughed over and thought over by the women at their leisure.[140]

LETTERS TO THE CONVENTION.

BOSTON, June 23, 1855.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

DEAR MADAM:—Your note of the 20th has just come to hand. I am sorry to say that my engagements are such that it will not be possible for me to be present at the Woman's Rights Convention at Saratoga, which I should very much rejoice to attend.

Heartily and hastily yours, THEODORE PARKER.

SYRACUSE, June 13, 1855.

DEAR FRIEND:—I like your call to the Convention at Saratoga, and I shall endeavor to be there on my return from Massachusetts, where I deliver an oration on education on the 8th of August. By all means put Judge Hay's name on the Central Committee. Invite Theodore Parker without delay.

In great haste, but very truly yours, SAMUEL J. MAY

PHILADELPHIA, Sixth Mo., 11, 1855.

MY DEAR SUSAN B. ANTHONY:—Returning home, I hasten to answer thy letter forwarded to me a week ago by sister M. C. Wright. It is always with regret that I have to answer any letter of the kind in the negative. But the time fixed for the Saratoga Convention renders it impracticable for me to be present. My husband and I hope to attend the National Convention at Cincinnati in October. Thy active interest and exertions in this cause are greatly cheering. We are doing little hereaway. Pennsylvania is always slow in every reformatory movement. We have circulated many of the pamphlets.

Wishing you all success at the convention, and sure of thy "great recompense and reward,"

I am thine affectionately, LUCRETIA MOTT.

BOSTON, June 6, 1855.

DEAR FRIEND:—I have kept your letter by me, and omitted to reply, hoping, and indeed expecting, that though I give up all but two or three routine and neighboring engagements in the summer. I might plan so as to accept yours. But I find I can not come as you ask. My summer months must be devoted otherwise. I hope you will not nickname me No, for my so constantly using that monosyllable to you. Indeed, I will try to oblige you next winter.

With much regard, yours truly, WENDELL PHILLIPS.

HIGH ROCK, LYNN, MASS., August 4, 1855.

EARNEST FRIEND:—We have just received your hearty invitation to the Convention at Saratoga. Nothing would give us more pleasure than to be with you on that occasion. We are all interested in Woman's Rights, and in liberty for all humanity.

Long submission has smothered the hope and extinguished the desire in many for any change of condition. But the light of the nineteenth century should awake all to earnest battle for their God-given rights. We will consult together, and if we can make up a quartette we will try and be with you to sing once more our songs[141] of freedom for another struggling class. With much esteem

I remain yours truly, JOHN W. HUTCHINSON, (for the family).

Following the Convention the usual attacks were made by the press, accusing the members of "infidelity and free love," which Miss Brown refuted through The New York Tribune. In this way, with conventions being continually held at the fashionable watering places[142] in the summer, and at the center of legislative assemblies in the winter, New York was compelled to give some attention to the question. A Woman's Eights meeting and a hearing were of annual occurrence as regular as the convening of the Legislature.

ALBANY CONVENTION, 1855.

The second Convention at Albany was held in the Green Street Universalist Church, February 13 and 14, 1855. Martha C. Wright presided; the usual speakers[143] were present, and letters of sympathy were received from Wendell Phillips, T. W. Higginson, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, expressing regret at not being able to attend.

LETTER FROM HORACE GREELEY.

NEW YORK, February 8, 1855.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

DEAR FRIEND:—I can not be in Albany next week, because I some time since promised to speak on Wednesday in Maine, and must keep my engagement. Nor, indeed, can I deem it of any consequence that I should attend your Convention. You know, already, that I am thoroughly committed to the principle that woman shall decide for herself whether she shall have a voice and a vote in legislation, or shall continue to be represented and legislated for exclusively by man.

My own judgment is that woman's presence in the arena of politics would be useful and beneficent; but I do not assume to judge for her. She must consider, determine, and act for herself. Whenever she shall in earnest have resolved that her own welfare and that of the race will be promoted by her claiming a voice in the direction of civil government, as I think she ultimately will do, then the day of her emancipation will be near. That day I will hope yet to see. Yours, HORACE GREELEY.

Of the hearings before the Legislature which followed this Convention, we give the report from

The Albany Register, February 17, 1855.

JUST AND EQUAL RIGHTS—HEARING BEFORE THE ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE.

The select Committee of the Assembly, to which was referred the petition for Woman's Rights, granted a bearing to the petitioners in the Assembly Chamber on Saturday evening, Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette Brown, and Susan B. Anthony represented the petitioners. The arguments were able, and well received. Members of the 'Committee and others sent up a number of questions which the ladies promptly answered, with a due sprinkling of wit, logic, and sarcasm, greatly to the entertainment of the audience, which did not disperse until after eleven o'clock.

Mr. Rickerson, from the Select Committee, to whom was referred "The Petition for the Right of Suffrage," stated that "after mature consideration the Committee unanimously report adversely to the prayer of the petitioners." Mr. Rickerson, from the same Committee to whom was referred—the petition for the just and equal civil rights of woman, said: "The Committee have given the petition that examination which time and circumstances would allow, and report favorably thereon, as embraced in the bill," which they introduced.[144]

The petitions of 1856 were referred to the Judiciary Committee, Samuel A. Foote, Chairman. Mr. Foote was at one time a member of the bar of New York, associating with some of the first families in the State—a son, a husband, a father—and yet in his maturer years he had so little respect for himself, his mother, wife, and daughters as to present in a dignified legislative assembly the following report on a grave question of human rights—a piece of buffoonery worthy only a mountebank in a circus:

LEGISLATIVE REPORT ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS.

The Register, ALBANY, March, 1856.

Mr. Foote, from the Judiciary Committee, made a report on Women's Rights that set the whole House in roars of laughter:

"The Committee is composed of married and single gentlemen. The bachelors on the Committee, with becoming diffidence, have left the subject pretty much to the married gentlemen. They have considered it with the aid of the light they have before them and the experience married life has given them. Thus aided, they are enabled to state that the ladies always have the best place and choicest titbit at the table. They have the best seat in the cars, carriages, and sleighs; the warmest place in the winter, and the coolest place in the summer. They have their choice on which side of the bed they will lie, front or back. A lady's dress costs three times as much as that of a gentleman; and, at the present time, with the prevailing fashion, one lady occupies three times as much space in the world as a gentleman.

"It has thus appeared to the married gentlemen of your Committee, being a majority (the bachelors being silent for the reason mentioned, and also probably for the further reason that they are still suitors for the favors of the gentler sex), that, if there is any inequality or oppression in the case, the gentlemen are the sufferers. They, however, have presented no petitions for redress; having, doubtless, made up their minds to yield to an inevitable destiny.

"On the whole, the Committee have concluded to recommend no measure, except that as they have observed several instances in which husband and wife have both signed the same petition. In such case, they would recommend the parties to apply for a law authorizing them to change dresses, so that the husband may wear petticoats, and the wife the breeches, and thus indicate to their neighbors and the public the true relation in which they stand to each other."

ASSEMBLY—WOMEN'S RIGHTS.

Mr. PRENDERGAST presented several petitions asking for an extension of Women's Rights. Mr. P. stated that undoubtedly the Judiciary was the proper Committee to receive these petitions; but the petitioners had signified to him that, from a recent manifestation on the part of the Chairman of that Committee (Judge Foote), they would prefer that the petition should be referred to some other Committee. He therefore moved their reference to the Committee on Claims.

Mr. NORTHUP seconded the motion.

Mr. FOOTE remarked, that if there was any other Committee of this House that would or could unsex the female sex, he had no objection to the reference moved.

The motion prevailed.

Lydia Mott, in a letter to Susan B. Anthony, under date of Albany, March 15, 1856, says:

I mail a paper to you, containing the Hon. Samuel A. Foote's report on our petitions. I hardly expected any report this winter. I am glad he made one; am only sorry it was verbal. There ought to have been a large number printed for circulation. I hope you won't get discouraged; remember the good work goes bravely on, the Honorable Legislature to the contrary notwithstanding. We shall get all we demand one of these days. Our reform is so comprehensive, we must not expect a sudden change in public opinion. Only see how long we have been laboring to convert people to the one self-evident truth that a man has a right to himself; and where are we now after a quarter of a century? No; we must not be disheartened. Our labor has not been in vain. I see its good effects every day, and they will continue to multiply.

Only think, here in our midst we have a constant testimony borne to good audiences every Sunday. I don't know whether I wrote you what a true man we have in the Unitarian Church, and what a treat his sermons are to me. You remember A. D. Mayo, who has written letters to our Conventions; he doesn't come as an Unitarian, but as an Independent. It can not be otherwise than that he will do a world of good. He gave to day one of the boldest as well as finest sermons I have ever heard—full of noble thoughts. He always recognizes woman in every department. It amuses me to see the effect on Rome of the women as he portrays woman side by side with man, always making her his equal in every position. Mr. Mayo is the first minister who has filled the church, and the only one that has not seemed afraid of his own shadow. Mr. Garrison heard him when here; said he could not wish to change one word or to add one to his sermon. That from Garrison is saying a great deal.

The Hon. Wm. Hay, who always aided us and watched the Legislature very closely in its action upon our question, in a letter to Miss Anthony, dated March 20, 1856, said:

I write this in the Assembly Chamber which has so recently been disgraced by an old fogy—Sam. A. Foote. He can not, however, prevent the agitation as to Woman's Rights. That of Suffrage has been discussed several times this week, incidentally, in both Houses, and will be up here again to-morrow directly....

March 21st, he says: The petition from Milton, Ulster County, was presented yesterday, and referred to the Committee on Claims, instead of the Judiciary or a Select Committee. It is thus manifest that the cause is not to be put down or even passed by with contemptuous silence, vulgar abuse, or conservative scorn. Foote squealed out his angry opposition, in the old stupid slang (of Shakespeare perverted from "Macbeth"), about unsexing woman with the right of suffrage, and endeavored to contrast it with property-claims; as if the revolutionary maxim concerning taxation and representation going together is not a property rule. I suspect, too, that personal rights, secured by the right preservative of all rights, are more important than mere property rights. But they need not be distinguished in that respect. The proceeding is (even if without any present beneficial result) a triumph; because it proves to Judge Foote and others that the Woman's Rights petitions (or rather demands) must receive suitable consideration and, at least, a respectful report.

Next winter we may hope to be more successful—if not then, success is merely postponed. It has become a question of time only, and perhaps of place—probably Nebraska!

THE SEVENTH NATIONAL WOMAN'S EIGHTS CONTENTION.

Pursuant to a call issued by the Central Committee, the Seventh National Woman's Rights Convention was held in New York, at the Broadway Tabernacle, November 25 and 26, 1856.

The Convention was called to order by Martha C. Wright, President of the last Convention.

The officers were duly appointed.[145]

LUCY STONE, on taking the chair, said: I am sure that all present will agree with me that this is a day of congratulation. It is our Seventh Annual National Woman's Rights Convention. Our first effort was made in a small room in Boston, where a few women were gathered, who had learned woman's rights by woman's wrongs. There had been only one meeting in Ohio, and two in New York. The laws were yet against us, custom was against us, prejudice was against us, and more than all, women were against us. We were strong only "in the might of our right"—and, now, when this seventh year has brought us together again, we can say as did a laborer in the Republican party, though all is not gained, "we are without a wound in our faith, without a wound in our hope, and stronger than when we began." Never before has any reformatory movement gained so much in so short a time. When we began, the statute books were covered with laws against women, which an eminent jurist (Judge Walker) said would be a disgrace to the statute books of any heathen nation.

Now almost every Northern State has more or less modified its laws. The Legislature of Maine, after having granted nearly all other property rights to wives, found a bill before it asking that a wife should be entitled to what she earns, but a certain member grew fearful that wives would bring in bills for their daily service, and, by an eloquent appeal to pockets, the measure was lost for the time, but that which has secured other rights will secure this. In Massachusetts, by the old laws, a wife owned nothing but the fee simple in her real estate. And even for that, she could not make a will without the written endorsement of her husband, permitting her to do so. Two years ago the law was so changed that she now holds the absolute right to her entire property, earnings included. Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island have also very much amended their statutes. New York, the proud Empire State, has, by the direct effort of this movement, secured to wives every property right except earnings. During two years a bill has been before the Legislature, which provides that if a husband be a drunkard, a profligate, or has abandoned his wife, she may have a right to her own earnings. It has not passed. Two hundred years hence that bill will be quoted as a proof of the barbarism of the times; now it is a proof of progress.

Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana have also very materially modified their laws. And Wisconsin—God bless these young States—has granted almost all that has been asked except the right of suffrage. And even this, Senator Sholes,[146] in an able minority report on the subject, said, "is only a question of time, and as sure to triumph as God is just." It proposed that the Convention which meets in two years to amend the Constitution of the State should consider the subject. In Michigan, too, it has been moved that women should have a right to their own babies, which none of you, ladies, have here in New York. The motion caused much discussion in the Legislature, and it would probably have been carried had not a disciple of Brigham Young's, a Mormon member, defeated the bill. In Nebraska everything is bright for our cause. Mrs. Bloomer is there, and she has circulated petitions, claiming for women the right to vote. A bill to that effect passed the House of Representatives, and was lost in the Senate, only because of the too early closing of the session. That act of justice to woman would be gained in Nebraska first, and scores of women would go there that they might be made citizens, and be no longer subjects.

In addition to these great legal changes, achieved so directly by this reform, we find also that women have entered upon many new and more remunerative industrial pursuits; thus being enabled to save themselves from the bitterness of dependent positions, or from lives of infamy. Our demand that Harvard and Yale Colleges should admit women, though not yielded, only waits for a little more time. And while they wait, numerous petty "female colleges" have sprung into being, indicative of the justice of our claim that a college education should be granted to women. Not one of these female colleges (which are all second or third rate, and their whole course of study only about equal to what completes the sophomore year in our best colleges) meets the demand of the age, and so will eventually perish. Oberlin and Antioch Colleges in Ohio, and Lima College in New York, admit women on terms nearly equal with men.

In England, too, the claims of women are making progress. The most influential papers in London have urged the propriety of women physicians. Also a petition was sent to Parliament last year, signed by the Brownings, the Howitts, Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Gaskell, and Mrs. Jameson, asking for just such rights as we claim here. It was presented by Lord Brougham, and was respectfully received by Parliament. The ballot has not yet been yielded; but it can not be far off when, as in the last Presidential contest,[147] women were urged to attend political meetings, and a woman's name was made one of the rallying cries of the party of progress. The enthusiasm which everywhere greeted the name of Jessie[148] was so far a recognition of woman's right to participate in politics. Encouraged by the success of these seven years of effort, let us continue with unfailing fidelity to labor for the practical recognition of the great truth, that all human rights inhere in each human being. We welcome to this platform man and women irrespective of creed, country, or color; those who dissent from us as freely as those who agree with us.

ERNESTINE L. ROSE, from the Business Committee, reported a series of resolutions.[149]

The President stated that several letters had been received, one from Francis Jackson, of Boston, one of the noblest of the noble men of the age, inclosing $50, which, he says, he gives "to help this righteous cause along." Also a letter from the Rev. Samuel Johnson, of Salem, Massachusetts, which would be read by Mr. Higginson.

Rev. T. W. HIGGINSON said he was much more willing to be called upon to read the words of others at this time, than to utter poor words of his own. There were many who came into a Woman's Rights Convention and started to find men on the platform. He could only say, that in these times, and with the present light, there was no place where a man could redeem his manhood better than on the Woman's Rights Platform. Gentlemen in distant seats were perhaps trembling to think that they had actually got that far into this dangerous place. They might think themselves well off—no, badly off—if the maelstrom did not draw them nearer and nearer and nearer in, as it did him. He began, like them, hesitating and smiling on the back seats; they saw what he had got to now, and he hoped they, too, might get into such noble company before long. He was prouder to train in this band than to be at the head of the play-soldiers who were marching through the streets to-day, and immortalizing themselves by not failing, so utterly as some of their companions, to hit some easy target. Those were play-soldiers; these were soldiers in earnest.

Men talk a great deal of nonsense about the woman's rights movement. He never knew a husband who was demolished in an argument by his wife, or a young gentleman who found his resources of reason entirely used up by a young lady, who did not fall back at last when there was no retreat, and say: "It's no use; you can't reason with a woman." Well, so it would seem in their case. Others shelter themselves behind the general statement, that they don't wish to marry a woman's rights woman. I have no doubt the woman's rights women reciprocate the wish. These appear to have some anxiety about dinner—that seems to be the trouble. Jean Paul, the German, wanted to have a wife who could cook him something good; and Mrs. Frederica Bremer, the novelist, remarked, that a wife can always conciliate her husband by having something to stop his mouth. In a conversation in Philadelphia the other day, a young lawyer, when told that Mrs. Emma R. Coe was studying law with the intention of practicing, remarked, that he should never see her in Court, but she would remind him of mince pies; to which the gentleman he was in conversation with, observed that he had better not get her as his antagonist in trying a suit, or she would remind him of minced meat. Having given two or three examples of the nonsense of men upon this subject, he would now read them some sense. The letter was from one of the most eloquent and learned of the younger clergy of New England; a man possessed of powers of genius and practical wisdom which would yet make him heard in a larger sphere than that which he now occupied. It was not the old English Sam. Johnson who said that "there never was a lawsuit or a quarrel where a woman was not at the bottom of it." This was Sam. Johnson Americanized, and of course he was a woman's rights man.

LETTER FROM REV. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

SALEM, October 4, 1856.

DEAR FRIEND:—In complying with your desire that I should send a few words to the Woman's Rights Convention, I am quite aware that in this matter infinitely more depends upon what women do than upon what men say; nevertheless, if my confession of faith will be of the least service, it shall not be wanting.

I regard this movement as no less than the sum and crown of all our moral enterprises; as a proclamation of entire social freedom, never practicable until now. I welcome it, not merely because it aims at delivering half the human race from constraints that degrade and demoralize the whole, but also because it is opening a new spiritual hemisphere, destined to put a new heart into our semi-barbarian theology, politics, manners, literature, and law. And especially do I rejoice, that having defrauded the feminine element of its due share in practical affairs for so many ages, and found ourselves, as a natural consequence, drifting toward barbarism with all our wealth and wisdom, we are compelled at last to learn that justice to woman is simply mercy to ourselves.

Doubtless the main obstacles to this work come from her own sex. Strange if it were not so; if the meagre hope doled out to women hitherto should have unfitted them to believe that such a function awaits them. Strange if they did not fear a thousand perils in the untried way of freedom. But the unwise distrust will have to be abandoned; and so will the conventional flippancy and contempt. I think the grand duty of every honorable man toward this effort at emancipation is simply not to stand in its way. For how much is really covered by that duty? It means that he must wash his hands of every law or prejudice that dooms woman to an inferior position, and makes her the victim of miserable wages and fatal competitions with herself. It means that he must clear himself of this senseless twaddle about "woman's sphere," a matter surely no more for his legislation, than his "sphere" is for hers; and one upon which, at this stage of their experience, it is unbecoming in either to dogmatize; and it means that as a simple act of justice, he must resign to her the control of her own earnings, secure her fair and full culture, and welcome her to the pulpit, the bar, the medical profession, and to whatever other posts of public usefulness she may prepare herself to fill. As long as he fails of doing this, he is unjustly interfering with her sacred rights; and after he has done this, he may safely leave the rest to her.

It is humiliating indeed that numbers of well-disposed persons should not recognize so plain a duty. I have no patience to argue it. The moral logic of this movement is as patent as the simplest rule in arithmetic. Every argument brought against it resolves itself into a sneer at woman's capacity, or an anxiety lest the distinction God has established between the sexes will not bear testing; or, what is more common still, though covered up in a thousand ways, the brutish assertion that "might makes right." There is but one answer to these impertinences, and that is the success of individual women in the work they set about. The current ridicule at "doing justice to women" will pass for the sheer vulgarity it is, when so many women shall do justice to themselves, that they can not be taken as exceptions to prove the rule. And this success depends on their own wills. The noble use of God's gifts shall make its mark in this world. As sure as God lives, it shall compel a becoming respect. For more and more of these lessons in true honor do we pray; for the very name of manhood must make us blush, so long as it is identified with these airs of patronage and control, these insulting obeisances, these flatterers of what is childish in women, these sarcasms upon what is noblest; worse than all, this willingness to derive gain from the degradation and suffering of the sex it professes to adore. And words are poor to express the gratitude that shall be forever due to those women whose moral energy shall rebuke this littleness, and stir true manliness in man.

With sincere respect, I am truly your friend, SAMUEL JOHNSON.

ERNESTINE L. ROSE remarked, that in the letter read by Mr. Higginson there was one sentence that struck her with great force, viz: that it is of far greater importance what woman does than what man thinks; and, she would add, what woman thinks. The influence of what she had done was felt not only in this country, but throughout the entire continent of Europe.

The author of that letter had expressed another sentiment to which she wished briefly to advert. He said that where ten men could be convinced of the truth of Woman's Rights, hardly one woman could be gained. At first sight it might so appear. But it should be borne in mind, that men were more accustomed to think and reflect and argue upon everything connected with the legal and political rights of men, at least, and, therefore, they were more easily convinced. Nevertheless, the subject, whenever presented to the mind of woman in its proper light, would not fail to find an echo in her heart. Whenever the subject was broached to a woman hitherto unacquainted with it, it first caused a smile, and, perchance, a sneer; but, put to her a few common-sense questions, and the smile disappeared, and her countenance assumed a serious expression. Ask her if she is not entitled to self-government, to the full development of her mental powers, to the free choice of her industrial avocations, to proper remuneration for her labor, to equal control of her offspring with that of her husband, to the possession and control of her own property, and to a voice in making the laws that impose taxes upon property that she may hold—ask her a few simple, straight-forward questions like these, and see if an immediate, hearty, and warm assent is not elicited.

In spite of a violent storm a large number assembled in the evening. The speakers announced were Mrs. Elizabeth Jones and Wendell Phillips. Mrs. Jones' address was a clear and logical statement of the whole claim of woman. By her own request, it was not published.

WENDELL PHILLIPS:—Ladies and gentlemen. I am told that the Times of to-day warns the women of this Convention that if they proceed in their crusade they will forfeit the protection of the men. Perhaps, before it is offered, the question had better be asked whether it is needed. I do not think that I should run the risk of much difference of opinion if I claimed, that nine men out of ten would not be able to defend their right to vote as logically as the lady who has just addressed us has defended her right to vote. I question whether one-quarter of what we call the men educated by the colleges, and in active life—the better education of the two—would be able, arrogating to themselves as they do a far greater political and civil capacity, to state the grounds of civil rights and responsibilities, to mark out the limits, to vindicate the advantages, and to analyze the bases on which these rest, as we have just had it done. If participation in civil rights is based on mind—as in this country we claim it to be—then certainly to-night we have no right to deny that the cause is gained, for the friend who has preceded me has left very little for any one to say; she has covered the whole ground.

In fact this question is a question of civilization, nothing less. The position of woman anywhere is the test of civilization. You need not ask for the statistics of education, of national wealth, or of crime; tell me the position of woman, and you answer the question of the nation's progress. Utah is barbarism; we need no evidence; we read it in the single custom that lowers the female sex. Wherever you go in history this is true. Step by step as woman ascends, civilization ripens. I warn the anxious and terrified that their first efforts should be to conquer their fears, for the triumph of this crusade is written as certain on the next leaf that turns in the great history of the race, as that the twentieth century will open.

The time was when a Greek dared not let his wife go out of doors, and in the old comic play of Athens, one of the characters says, "Where is your wife?" "She has gone out." "Death and furies! what does she do out?" Doubtless, if any "fanatic" had claimed the right of woman to walk out of doors, he would have been deemed crazy in Athens; had he claimed the right of a modest married woman to be seen out of doors it would have been considered fanaticism, and I do not know but that the Herald of that day would have branded him as an infidel. But spite of the anchored conservatism of others, women got out of doors and the country grew, and the world turned round, and so modern Europe has progressed. Now the pendulum swung one way, and now another, but woman has gained right after right until with us, to the astonishment of the Greek, could he see it—of the Turk, when he hears it—she stands almost side by side with man in her civil rights. The Saxon race has led the van. I trample underfoot contemptuously the Jewish—yes, the Jewish—ridicule which laughs at such a Convention as this; for we are the Saxon blood, and the first line of record that is left to the Saxon race is that line of Tacitus, "On all grave questions they consult their women." When the cycle of Saxondom is complete, when the Saxon element culminates in modern civilization, another Tacitus will record in the valley of the Mississippi, as he did in the valley of the Rhine, "On all grave questions they consult their women." The fact is, there is no use of blinking the issue. It is Paul against the Saxon blood; it is a religious prejudice against the blood of the race. The blood of the race accords to woman equality; it is a religious superstition which stands in the way and balks the effort.

Europe has known three phases. The first was the dominion of force; the second the dominion of money; the third is beginning—the dominion of brains. When it comes, woman will step out on the platform side by side with her brother. The old Hindoo dreamed that he saw the human race led out to its varied fortune, and first he saw a man bitted and curbed, and the reins went back to an iron hand. Then he saw a man led on and on, under various changes, until, at last, he saw the man led by threads that came from the brain and went back to an invisible hand. The first was the type of despotism—the reign of force, the upper classes keeping down the under. The last is ours—the dominion of brains. We live in a government where The New York Herald and New York Tribune, thank God, are more really the government than Franklin Pierce and Caleb Cushing. Ideas reign. I know some men do not appreciate this fact; they are overawed by the iron arm, by the marble capitol, by the walls of granite—palpable power, felt, seen. I have seen the palace of the Caesars, built of masses that seemed as if giants alone could have laid them together, to last for eternity, as if nothing that did not part the solid globe could move them. But the tiny roots of the weeds of Italian summers had inserted themselves between them, and the palace of the Caesars lies a shapeless ruin. So it is with your government. It may be iron, it may be marble, but the pulses of right and wrong push it aside; only give them time. I hail the government of ideas.

There is another thing I claim. You laugh at Woman's Rights Conventions; you ridicule socialism (I do not accept that); you dislike the anti-slavery movement. The only discussion of the grave social questions of the age, the questions of right and wrong that lie at the basis of society—the only voices that have stirred them and kept those questions alive have been those of these three reforms. Smothered with gold—smothered with material prosperity, the vast masses of our countrymen were living the lives of mere getters of money; but the ideas of this half of the nineteenth century have been bruited by despised reformers, kept alive by three radical movements, and whoever in the next generation shall seek for the sources of mental and intellectual change will find it here; and in a progressive people like ours that claim is a most vital and significant one....

I contend that woman, broadly considered, makes half the money that is made. Go the world over, take either Europe or America, the first source of money is intelligence and thrift; it is not speculation.... Out of the twenty millions of American people that make money, woman does more than half of the work that insures the reward. I claim for that half of the race whose qualities garner up wealth, the right to dispose of it, and to control it by law.

Again, take thought. I know our sister has modestly told us how utterly they are deprived of what are called the institutions of education; but we know very well that book learning is a miserably poor thing, and that the best education in the world is what we clutch in the streets; and of that education, by hook or by crook, woman has so far gained enough, that, Europe and America through, where is the man presumptuous enough to doubt that the hand of woman is not felt as much on the helm of public opinion as that of man? To be sure, she does not have an outside ambitious distinction; but at home, in the molding hours, in youth, in the soft moments when the very balance-wheel of character is touched, we all know that woman, though she may not consciously enunciate ideas, does as much to form public opinion as man. The time has been—and every man who has ever analyzed history knows it—when in France, the mother to Europe of all social ideas; France that has lifted up Germany from mysticism, and told England what she means and what she wants: France that has construed England to herself, and interpreted to her what she was blindly reaching out for; when in that very France, at the fountain-head of that eighteenth century of civil progress, it was in the saloons of woman that man did his thinking, and it was under the brilliant inspiration of her society that that mighty revolution in the knowledge and science of civil affairs was wrought. In this country, too, at this hour, woman does as much to give the impulse to public opinion as man does.

Wherever I find silent power I want recognition of the responsibility. I am not in favor of a power behind the throne. I do not want half the race concealed behind the curtain and controlling without being responsible. Drag them to the light, hold them up as you do men to the utmost study of public questions, and to a personal responsibility for their public settlement. Corruption—it often takes the very form of the passions of woman. In Paris, to-day, we are told, when the government approaches a man, the way is, not to give him wealth for his own enjoyment, but to dower his daughter. It is the pride of woman through which they reach him. Drag that woman forward on the platform of public life; give to her manifest ability a fair field, let her win wealth by her own exertions, not by the surrender of principle in the person of her husband; and although my friend doubts it, I believe, when you put the two sexes harmoniously in civil life, you will secure a higher state of civilization—not because woman is better, not because she is more merciful, or more just, or more pure than man, as man naturally, but because God meant that a perfect human being should be made up of man and woman allied, and it is only when the two march side by side on the pathway of civilization that the harmonious development of the race begins.

Then, again, you can not educate woman, in the sense that we use education. She has no motive. As my friend said, when she marries, education ceases. At that age the education of man commences: he has wealth, ambition, social position, as his stimulus: he knows that by keeping his mind on the alert he earns them all. You furnish a woman with books—you give her no motive to open them. You open to her the door of science: why should she enter? She can gain nothing except in individual and exceptional cases; public opinion drives her back, places a stigma upon her of blue-stocking, and the consequence is, the very motive for education is taken away. Now, I believe, a privileged class, an aristocracy, a set of slaveholders, does just as much harm to itself as it does to the victimized class. When man undertakes to place woman behind him, to assume the reins of government and to govern for her, he is an aristocrat; and all aristocracies are not only unjust, but they are harmful to the progress of society.

I welcome this movement, because it shows that we have got a great amount of civilization. Every other movement to redress a wrong in the past generations of the world has been yielded to only from fear. Bentham says truly, the governing race never yielded a right unless they were bullied out of it. That is true historically; but we have come to a time—and this movement shows it—when civilization has rendered man capable of yielding to something different from fear. This movement has only been eight years on foot, and during that time, we who have watched the statute-book are aware to admiration of the rapid changes that have taken place in public opinion, and in legislation, all over the States. Within the last four years, in different localities, woman has been allowed the right to protect her earnings, and to make a will—two of the great points of property. Aye, and one little star of light begins to twinkle in the darkness of the political atmosphere: Kentucky allows her to vote. Yes, from the land where on one question they are so obstinate, the white race have remembered justice to their white co-equals. In her nobly-planned school system, Kentucky divides her State into districts; the trustees are annually chosen for the State funds; and it is expressly provided, that besides the usual voters in the election of trustees for the school fund, which is coveted by millions, there shall be allowed to vote, every widow who has a child betwixt six and eighteen years old, and she shall go to the ballot-box in person or by proxy. Kentucky repudiates the doctrine that to go to the ballot-box forfeits the delicacy of the sex; for she provides, in express terms, that she shall go to the ballot-box in person, or by proxy, as she pleases. It is the first drop of the coming storm—it is the first ray of light in the rising sun.

Civilization can not defend itself, on American principles, against this claim. My friend of Brooklyn claims the right to make political speeches, as well as sermons, because he is a citizen. Well, woman is a citizen too: and if a minister can preach politics because he is a citizen, woman can meddle in politics and vote, because she is a citizen too. When Mr. Beecher based his right, not on the intellect which flashes from Maine to Georgia, not on the strength of that nervous right arm, but solely on his citizenship, he dragged to the platform twelve millions of American women to stand at his side. But the difficulty is, no man can defend his own right to vote, without granting it to woman. The only reason why the demand sounds strange, is because man never analyzed his own right. The moment he begins to analyze it, he can not defend it without admitting her. Our fathers proclaimed, sixty years ago, that government was co-equal with the right to take money and to punish for crime. Now, all that I wish to say to the American people on this question is, let woman go free from the penal statute—let her property be exempt from taxation, until you admit her to the ballot-box—or seal up the history of the Revolution, make Bancroft and Hildreth prohibited books, banish the argument of '76, and let Mr. Simms have his own way with the history of all the States, as well as South Carolina. Yes, the fact is, women make opinion for us; and the only thing we shut them out from is the ballot-box.

I would have it constantly kept before the public, that we do not seek to prop up woman; we only ask for her space to let her grow. Governments are not made; they grow. They are not buildings like this, with dome and pillars; they are oaks, with roots and branches, and they grow, by God's blessing, in the soil He gives to them. Now man has been allowed to grow, and when Pharaoh tied him down with bars of iron, when Europe tied him down with privilege and superstition, he burst the bonds and grew strong. We ask the same for woman. Goeethe said that if you plant an oak in a flower-pot, one of two things was sure to happen: either the oak will be dwarfed, or the flower-pot will break. So we have planted woman in a flower-pot, hemmed her in by restrictions, and when we move to enlarge her sphere, society cries out, "Oh! you'll break the flower-pot!" Well, I say, let it break. Man made it, and the sooner it goes to pieces the better. Let us see how broadly the branches will throw themselves, and how beautiful will be the shape, and how glorious against the moonlit sky, or glowing sunset, the foliage shall appear.



I say the very first claim, the middle and last claim of all our Conventions should be the ballot. Everywhere, in each State, we should claim it; not for any intrinsic value in the ballot, but because it throws upon woman herself the responsibility of her position. Man never grew to his stature until he was provoked to it by the pressure and weight of responsibility; and I take it woman will grow up the same way.

The first three resolutions on the Presidential election were brought up for discussion and adopted. Those persons in the audience who desired to speak were urged to do so.

Mrs. ROSE said: In reference to this last election, though it was not my good fortune to be here during the time of that great excitement, being then on the continent of Europe; yet, even at that great distance, the fire of freedom that was kindled here spread itself across the Atlantic. The liberal, intelligent, and reformatory portion of the people of Europe, as well as in England, have most warmly, most heartily sympathized with us in the last struggle of freedom against slavery. It is a most glorious epoch. I will not enter into a political or anti-slavery lecture, but simply state this fact—the time has come when the political parties are entirely annihilated. They have ceased to exist. There is no longer Whig and no longer Democrat—there is Freedom or Slavery. We have here an equally great purpose to achieve. This, too, is not woman's rights or man's rights, but it is human rights. It is based on precisely the same fundamental truths with the other question. In the last election the general feeling prevailed that woman ought to take more interest in political affairs, and with the noble work she did during the campaign, it seems to me most extraordinary that the men who have worked thus nobly for the freedom of one class, should yet refuse freedom to the other class.

PHILLIP D. MOORE rose in the body of the building and said: During this last Presidential canvass I heard more than once the oldest member of Congress declare that Freedom was based upon the law of God, which was declared in our Bill of Rights—our Declaration of Independence—that it was the inalienable right of all mankind to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness. He placed this last Presidential struggle upon that right higher than all human law; and upon that it seems this contest in behalf of human rights is based. I think that we should adopt these resolutions, and also appeal to the legislative bodies, where, I believe, there are men who will hear and heed the voice of justice.

Rev. T. W. HIGGINSON took the floor, and expressed his hope that they would have more speaking from the floor and less from the platform. As a Republican voter, he would take his stand in support of these resolutions; and he would declare that it was true that the close of the Presidential election was the time for a woman's Convention to be held. It was true that the Republican party was pledged, if it had any manliness in it, to support the cause of women, to whom it had applied to support its cause every day; and it was positively true that, if there were such a thing in the land as a Democratic party, that party was the party of the women also. As a further illustration of the idea expressed by the gentleman who had preceded him, he would state the fact that, when he was invited to Vermont to address the Legislature in favor of the appropriation of $20,000 for Kansas,[150] the meeting was postponed, on the ground that the shortness of the notice would not allow time for procuring the attendance of the women of the village to fill the galleries, and by their sympathy to influence the determination of the members of the Legislature who might be present. Accordingly they waited a little longer, gave sufficient notice, got the gallery full of ladies, and ultimately got the $20,000 appropriation, too. But always when the women had given their sympathy and began to demand some in return, it was found out that they were very "dependent" creatures, and that, if they persisted in it, they would forfeit the "protection" of the men; and this in the face of the fact, that when politicians wanted votes and clergymen wanted money, their invariable practice was to appeal to the women!

The last time he had considered woman's rights he was in a place where man's rights needed to be defended—it was in Kansas. No man could go to Kansas and see what woman had done there, and come back and see the little men who squeak and shout on platforms in behalf of Kansas, and then turn to deride and despise women, without a feeling of disgust. He would like to place some of these parlor orators and dainty platform speakers where the women of Kansas had stood, and suffered, and acted. He saw, while in Kansas, a New York woman[151]—whose story they might remember in the newspapers—how she hospitably prepared, in one day, three dinners for the marauders who were hovering around her house, and in their starvation became respectful at last, and asked her for the hospitality they did not then quite dare to enforce; and how they ate her dinner and abused her husband, until the good woman could stand it no longer, and at last opened her lips and gave them a piece of her mind. He saw that woman. She had lived for weeks together in the second story of a log hut, with the windows of the lower story boarded up, so that the inmates had to climb in by a ladder. She was surrounded by pro-slavery camps; and while her husband was in the army, she was left alone. The house had been visited again and again, and plundered. The wretches would come at night, discharge their rifles, and howl like demons. Her little girl, a nervous child, had sickened and died from sheer fright. But still, after the death of that child, the mother lived on, and still gave hospitality to free-soil men, and still defended the property of her husband by her presence. At last the marauders burned her house over her head, and she retreated for a time. The speaker saw her when she was on her way back to that homestead, to rebuild the house which she had seen once reduced to ashes by the enemy; and she said that if her husband was killed there in Kansas, she should preempt that claim, and defend the property for her children.

He saw another woman, a girl of twenty. He visited a mill which had been burnt by Missourians, where piles of sawdust were still in flames before his eyes, and there he met her; and when he asked to whom that house belonged, she said to her father. And when he inquired about her adventures in connection with that burning house, this was the story. Twenty-eight hundred Missourians were encamped around that house the morning after they had burned it. The girl had fled with her mother a mile off, but had come back to see if she could save any of the property. She walked into the midst of the crowd, and found a man she had previously known seated upon her favorite horse. Said she, "That is my horse; get off." He laughed at her. She repeated her demand. He loaded her with curses and insults. She turned to the bystanders—the herd of ruffians who had burned her father's house—and said: "This is my horse; make that man get off." Those fellows obeyed her; they shrank before that heroic girl, and made their companion dismount. She mounted the horse and rode off. When she had gone about half a mile, she heard a trampling of horses' hoofs behind her. The thief, mounted on a fleeter horse, was riding after her. He overtook her, and reining his horse in front of her, he seized hers by the bridle, and commanded her to let go. She held on. Said he, "Let go, or it will be the worse for you." She still held on. He took out his bowie-knife, and drew it across her hand, so that she could feel the sharpness of the edge. Said he, "If you don't let go, I will cut your hand off." Said she, "Cut if you dare." He cut the rope close to her hand, and took the bridle from her. It was useless to resist any longer, so she slipped off and walked away. But it was not ten minutes before she again heard trampling behind, and as she looked around, she saw two companions of this miscreant—two men less utterly villainous than he—bringing back her horse. Moved by her heroism, they had compelled him again to give up the horse, had brought it back to her, and she owns it now.