The nation is in a death-struggle. It must either become one vast slaveocracy of petty tyrants, or wholly the land of the free. The traitors boast that they have swept from the national firmament one-third of its stars, but they have only darkened them with clouds, which the sun of liberty will scatter, revealing behind them the eternal pillars of Justice, emblazoned with liberty, equality, fraternity.

Soldiers of this revolution, to your hands is committed the sacred duty of carrying out in these latter days the ideal of our fathers, which was to secure to ALL "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and to every State "a republican form of government." To break the power of this rebellion, calls for every available force. You know how extensively black men are now being armed. Some regiments are already in the field; twenty more are now under drill. Will you not, in this hour of national peril, gratefully welcome the aid which they so eagerly proffer, to overthrow that slave power which has so long ruled the North, and now, that you spurn its sway, is bent on crushing YOU? Will you not abjure that vulgar hate which has conspired with slavery against liberty in our land, and thus roll from the sepulcher, where they have buried it alive, the stone which has so long imprisoned their victim? The army of the North will thus become the angel of deliverance, rescuing the nation from the shifting sands of compromise, and refounding it upon the rock of justice.

Some of you have been mustered out of service; many more are soon to return to your homes. All hail to you! Honor and gratitude for what you have done and suffered! Enough if you have only been fighting for the Union as it was. But is it enough, if the work for which the war is now prosecuted is not accomplished? Your country needs your power of soldierly endurance and accomplishment, your hard-earned experience, your varied tact and trained skill, your practiced eye and hand—in a word, all that makes you veterans, ripe in discipline and educated power. Raw recruits can not fill your places. Brave men! your mission, though far advanced, is not accomplished. You will not, can not, abide at home, while your brethren in arms carry victory and liberty down to the Gulf.

With joy and admiration we greet you on your homeward way, while your loved ones await your coming with mingled delight and pride. When, after a brief sojourn, you go back again, convoyed by the grateful acclaim and God-speed of millions, to consummate at Freedom's call her holy work, the mightiest of all time, and now so near its end, with exultant shouts your brothers in the field will hail your coming to share with them the glory of the final victory. It will be the victory of free government, sacred rights, justice, liberty, and law, over the perfidies, perjuries, lying pretenses, and frantic revelries in innocent blood, of the foulest national crime that ever reeked to heaven—the overthrow of the most atrocious yet the meanest despotism that ever tortured the groaning earth.

In behalf of the Women's National Loyal League.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary. E. CADY STANTON, President.

Mrs. STANTON: I suppose it is known to all present that Angelina Grimke Weld is the representative from South Carolina. Contrast her eloquent pleadings for freedom, throughout the sittings of our Convention, with the voice of South Carolina, when, at the framing of the Constitution, slavery, with its cruel creeds and codes, was fastened on the Republic just struggling into life. Here, for the first time in our history, have the women of the nation assembled to discuss the political questions of the day, and to decide where and how to throw the weight of their influence. I am proud to feel that from this meeting goes forth a united demand for freedom to all, for a TRUE REPUBLIC, in which the rights of every citizen shall be recognized and protected.

THE PLATFORM OF THE LEAGUE.

Resolved, That our work as a National League is to educate the nation into the true idea of a Christian Republic.

This is the resolve finally adopted. Considerable preliminary debate, in which many ladies joined, took place on details of form and phraseology. The resolve as it stands was constructed by Mrs. Stanton, with the exception of the word "Christian."

There was an earnest discussion on the introduction of the word Christian; some argued that a true Republic, where every human being's rights were recognized, could but be Christian. A Mrs. McFarland seemed to settle the question, by stating a fact of history, that in olden times there were Pagan Republics.

Miss ANTHONY said: No matter if it were a mere tautology: it required repetition to make this nation, so steeped in crime against humanity, understand. She then spoke of the awful lie of this nation, in naming itself Civilized, Republican, Christian, while it had made barter of men and women, bought and sold children of the Good Father, and paid their price to send missionaries to the Fejee Islands and the remotest corners of the earth, while it stood bound to fine and imprison any man or woman who should teach any one of four millions of its own citizens at home to read the letters that spell the word God. It would take long years to educate this nation into the idea and practice of a true, Christian Republic. It was a momentous work the women of this National Loyal League had undertaken. And she hoped one and all would take in its full import, and dedicate themselves fully and earnestly to the work.

OFFICERS OF THE WOMEN'S LOYAL NATIONAL LEAGUE.—President, Mrs. E. Cady Stanton; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Col. A. B. Eaton, Mrs. Edward S. Bates, Mrs. Mary S. Hall; Secretary, Susan B. Anthony; Corresponding Secretary, S. E. Draper; Treasurer, Mrs. H. F. Conrad; Executive Committee, Miss Mattie Griffith, Miss R. K. Shepherd Mrs. B. Peters, Mrs. C. S. Lozier, M.D., Mrs. Mary A. Halsted, Mrs. Laura M. Ward, M.D., Mrs. Mary F. Gilbert.

PLAN OF WORK ADOPTED BY THE WOMEN'S LOYAL NATIONAL LEAGUE.—At a meeting of the Women's Loyal National League, held at their office, room 20, Cooper Institute, May 29, the following resolutions were adopted:

Resolved, That the following be the official title and the pledge of the League—the pledge to be signed by all applicants for membership: "Women's Loyal National League, organized in the city of New York, May 14, 1863."

We, the undersigned, women of the United States, agree to become members of the Women's Loyal National League, hereby pledging our most earnest influence in support of the Government in its prosecution of the war for freedom and for the restoration of the national unity.

Resolved, That for the present this League will concentrate all its efforts upon the single object of procuring to be signed by one million women and upward, and of preparing for presentation to Congress, within the first week of its next session, a petition in the following words, to wit:

"To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: The undersigned, women of the United States, above the age of eighteen years, earnestly pray that your honorable body will pass, at the earliest practicable day, an act emancipating all persons of African descent held to involuntary service or labor in the United States."

Resolved, That in furtherance of the above object the Executive Committee of this League be instructed to cause to be prepared and stereotyped a pamphlet, not exceeding four printed octavo pages, briefly and plainly setting forth the importance of such a movement at the present juncture—a copy of the said pamphlet to be placed in the hands of each person who may undertake to procure signatures to the above petition, and for such further distribution as may be ordered by the said Executive Committee.

Resolved, That to a committee of nine, to be hereafter appointed by the President and Secretary of this League, be intrusted the duty of procuring subscriptions to defray the expenses connected with the preparation, and signature, and presentation of the said petition.

JUNE 5.

Resolved, That all bills be submitted for approval to the Executive Committee, and if approved, shall be certified as such by the Chairman of that Committee.

Resolved, That for the amount of each bill so approved the Secretary shall draw on the Treasurer in favor of the person presenting such bill.

JUNE 12.

Resolved, That as nearly the same labor and expense are required to obtain signatures of women alone as of both men and women, the Secretary be requested to prepare and circulate petitions for men also.

JUNE 26.

Resolved, That the probable expense of preparing, circulating, and presenting our petitions, will amount to not less than one cent for each name; therefore,

Resolved, That we request those who circulate the petition, to solicit of each person signing a contribution of one cent, and forward the same with petition and signatures to our Secretary, Susan B. Anthony, Room No. 20, Cooper Institute, New York.

Resolved, That the Central League in New York will bestow their badge and membership, as a gift, upon each boy or girl, under eighteen, who shall collect and forward to them fifty or more names, and as many cents.

Resolved, also, That the Central League will bestow a handsomely bound copy of each of the celebrated and recently published works of Augustin Cochin on Slavery and Emancipation, on the person who shall collect and forward the largest number of signatures from any city of the Union having a population of twenty-five thousand; also, on the person who shall collect the largest number of names in any of the States, outside of said cities.

Resolved, That each lady to whom the pledge and petition blanks are inclosed be requested to bring them to the notice of the clergymen and teachers in her vicinity, with a request that they shall take some action in the matter.

Resolved, That such ladies are earnestly requested to organize Auxiliary Leagues in their towns and neighborhoods, for the purposes of correspondence with the Central League, and of collecting and forwarding with facility names and money for the furtherance of the grand object in view; also, for holding meetings to discuss and elucidate the necessity of our demand for an act of Universal Emancipation.

A hearty co-operation from our women in all parts of the loyal States is most earnestly invited. We would urge upon them the formation of auxiliary Leagues, which shall receive from us blanks for petitions, and pledges, as well as any information or advice they may need. We ask them not only to form Leagues in their own towns and neighborhoods, but to send us up long lists of names as members of the Grand Central League.

We beg them also to solicit and send contributions, small and large, as they may be able, for the promotion of the object of the League, viz: to end this fearful war by the removal of its exciting cause—Slavery.

In making this call upon loyal women, we feel sure of meeting with a warm response from those whose hearts and energies have already so nobly sprung to meet their country's need in her hour of trial.

E. CADY STANTON, President of the League. SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary.

COMMENTS OF THE PRESS.

The New York Tribune thus speaks of this enterprise:

A VAST ENTERPRISE PROPOSED BY WOMEN.

The "Women's Loyal National League," recently organized in this city, at a meeting held by them yesterday at the Cooper Institute, adopted the following resolutions:

Resolved, That for the present this League will concentrate all its efforts upon the single object of procuring to be signed by one million women and upward, and of preparing for presentation to Congress within the first week of its next session, a petition in the following words, to wit:

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: The undersigned, women of the United States, above the age of eighteen years, earnestly pray that your honorable body will pass, at the earliest practicable day, an act emancipating all persons of African descent held to involuntary service or labor in the United States.

Resolved, That in furtherance of the above object the Executive Committee of this League be instructed to cause to be prepared and stereotyped a pamphlet, not exceeding four printed octavo pages, briefly and plainly setting forth the importance of such a movement at the present juncture—a copy of the said pamphlet to be placed in the hands of each person who may undertake to procure signatures to the above petition, and for such further distribution as may be ordered by the said Executive Committee.

The women of the League have shown practical wisdom in restricting their efforts to one object, the most important, perhaps, which any Society can aim at; and great courage in undertaking to do what, so far as we remember, has never been done in the world before, namely, to obtain ONE MILLION of names to a petition. If they succeed, the moral influence on Congress ought and can not fail to be great. The passage by the next Congress of an act of general emancipation would do more than any one thing for the suppression of the rebellion. As things now stand with slaves declared free in eight States of the Union, with two more States (Virginia and Louisiana) partly free and partly slave, and with the Border States still slave, we have a state of affairs resulting in interminable confusion, and which, in the very nature of things, can not continue to exist. Congress may find a way out of such confusion by an act of Compensated Emancipation, with the consent of these States and parts of States. God speed the circulation and signatures of the Women's Petition! The pledge of the League is commendably brief and to the point, reading as follows:

"We, the undersigned, women of the United States, agree to become members of the 'Women's Loyal National League,' hereby pledging our most earnest influence in support of the Government in its prosecution of the war for freedom and for the restoration of the national unity."

The office of the League is Room No. 20, Cooper Institute. Let all loyal women, friendly to Emancipation, join their ranks, and devote what spare time they may have to this noble work.

The New York Times published the following:

A MONSTER PETITION PROPOSED.

To the Editor of the New York Times:

Until the advent of the present struggle, the word loyalty was hardly known among us, and though we often spoke of the Union, we seldom used the term national unity. With new phases of society new terms come into vogue. We have now, springing up everywhere, Loyal National Leagues, and great good they are doing. They have, so far, been chiefly set on foot by men, but women are now bestirring themselves in the same direction. Quite recently, a Woman's Loyal National League has been organized in this city....

The prudence of the members of this League is to be commended, first, in selecting a single object on which to concentrate their exertions, and secondly, in selecting as that object the of procuring an act of Congress declaring general emancipation, than which nothing is more needed at the present time, not only as an endorsement of the President's Proclamation, but also as a remedy for the utter confusion produced by the present state of affairs, under which it would puzzle the shrewdest lawyer to determine who, among the fugitives that are daily flocking to us across the lines, is free, and who still a slave. As a permanent arrangement, no one believes that a few counties in one State, and a few parishes in another, can remain slave, while all around them emancipation has been accomplished; nor that slavery can endure, except for a brief season, along a narrow border-strip, bounded North and South by freedom.

Whether these ladies will succeed in the task of procuring one million of names to their petition, depends chiefly on their business talent in organizing the machinery of so great an undertaking. R.

The New York Evening Post says:

AN IMPORTANT UNDERTAKING.

It has sometimes been made a reproach to the women of the Northern States, that while their sisters of the South are the very life of the rebellion, exceeding the men in zeal and devotion and self-sacrifice, they, with a noble cause against a base one, show less zeal, less earnestness, do less to animate and inspire the combatants; in short, are less active in maintaining the Union than the ladies of the Slave States in working to destroy it.

If, however, the members of the "Women's Loyal National League," an association recently commenced in this city, succeed in what they have just undertaken, it will go far to show that there is neither lukewarmness nor lack of energy in the women of the North; and that, in practical industry exerted in aid of the war and the Government, they are not to be outmatched by the zeal of the fair mischief-makers who oppose both....

We learn that the League has already obtained several thousand names and addresses of persons and societies throughout the Northern and Border States who are favorable to emancipation, to whom they propose to address their circulars; and that they are organizing, after a business fashion, the machinery necessary to effect their object in the six months still intervening before the meeting of Congress. It is a great undertaking, this obtaining of one million signatures, such an undertaking as has seldom if ever been carried out before. If it succeeds it will obtain record in the history of the time as an enterprise most honorable to the sex which conceived and completed it.

The pledge of the League is well worded and judicious....

Such Leagues ought to be, and we trust will be, organized all over the country, in aid of the mammoth petition. Without having made any accurate calculation, we doubt whether less than four stout men could carry the roll comprising a million names into the House to which it is addressed.

The Philadelphia Press says:

SPIRIT OF NORTHERN WOMEN.

It is a great country, this of ours. Great events occur in it. Great things are to be found in it. Where shall we find another Niagara? Where a cave of dimensions equal to those of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky? Since California has been added we have her gigantic pines, towering above all other trees in the world. We can not make war, but we must carry it on upon a scale unknown since the days of Xerxes. Our women, too, it would seem, catch the spirit of the country. Until now they have chiefly been known, throughout the great national struggle, in the capacity of sisters of mercy, tenders in hospitals, collectors of comforts and of little luxuries for our sick and wounded. We find them laboring now in a new field. They, called the weaker sex, and properly so called, if thews and sinews constitute strength, have undertaken to do more than to care for the sick and wounded. They seek to aid in striking at the root of the evil whence has arisen the strife which causes the sickness of the hospital and the wounds of the battle-field. They have undertaken a task beyond that which the sturdy Chartists of England performed. The Chartist Petition, if we remember aright, had seven or eight hundred thousand names—the largest number ever obtained to a petition. But our Northern women have undertaken to procure one million of names to a Petition for Emancipation, and to complete their task in the next six months. The article from The Tribune, elsewhere, will be read with interest.

The National Anti-Slavery Standard comments:

THE WOMEN'S LOYAL LEAGUE—MAMMOTH PETITION TO CONGRESS.

The Women's Loyal National League, at a meeting held at their Room in the Cooper Institute on Friday, the 29th ult., changed the form of their pledge, so that it now reads as follows:

"We, the undersigned, women of the United States, agree to become members of the 'Women's Loyal National League,' hereby pledging our most earnest influence in support of the Government in its prosecution of the war for freedom and for the restoration of the national unity."

This, it strikes us, is a much happier wording than that of the former pledge....

The women of the League have embarked in an enterprise worthy of their energy and devotion, and we will not allow ourselves to doubt that they will meet with complete success. It will require some money and a great deal of hard work, but their courage and patience will be found adequate to the task. They will find a helper in every woman who loves justice and humanity, and realizes that there can be no permanent peace for the country until slavery is exterminated root and branch. The moral influence upon Congress and the nation of such a petition, signed by a MILLION of women, will be incalculable; while the agitation attending the effort will be of the greatest benefit.

Women willing to aid in circulating the petition should send their address at once to Susan B. Anthony, Secretary of the League, 20 Cooper Institute, New York.

OFFICE OF THE WOMEN'S LOYAL NATIONAL LEAGUE, } Room No. 20, Cooper Institute, New York, January 25, 1864. }

The Women's Loyal National League, to the Women of the Republic:—We ask you to sign and circulate this petition for the entire abolition of slavery. We have now one hundred thousand signatures, but we want a million before Congress adjourns. Remember the President's Proclamation reaches only the slaves of rebels. The jails of loyal Kentucky are to-day "crammed" with Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama slaves, advertised to be sold for their jail fees "according to law," precisely as before the war! While slavery exists anywhere there can be freedom nowhere. There must be a law abolishing slavery. We have undertaken to canvass the nation for freedom. Women, you can not vote or fight for your country. Your only way to be a power in the Government is through the exercise of this, one, sacred, constitutional "right of petition"; and we ask you to use it now to the utmost. Go to the rich, the poor, the high, the low, the soldier, the civilian, the white, the black—gather up the names of all who hate slavery—all who love liberty, and would have it the law of the land—and lay them at the feet of Congress, your silent but potent vote for human freedom guarded by law.

You have shown true courage and self-sacrifice from the beginning of the war. You have been angels of mercy to our sick and dying soldiers in camp and hospital, and on the battle field. But let it not be said that the women of the republic, absorbed in ministering to the outward alone, saw not the philosophy of the revolution through which they passed; understood not the moral struggle that convulsed the nation—the irrepressible conflict between liberty and slavery. Remember the angels of mercy and justice are twin-sisters, and ever walk hand in hand. While you give yourselves so generously to the Sanitary and Freemen's Commissions forget not to hold up the eternal principles on which our republic rests. Slavery once abolished, our brothers, husbands, and sons will never again, for its sake, be called to die on the battle-field, starve in rebel prisons, or return to us crippled for life; but our country, free from the one blot that has always marred its fair escutcheon, will be an example to all the world that "righteousness exalteth a nation." The God of Justice is with us, and our word, our work—our prayer for freedom—will not, can not be in vain.

E. CADY STANTON, President. SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary W. L. N. League, Room 20, Cooper Institute, N. Y.

OFFICE OF THE WOMEN'S LOYAL NATIONAL LEAGUE, } Room No. 20, Cooper Institute, N. Y., April 7, 1864. }

Dear Friend:—With this you will receive a Form of a Petition to Congress, the object of which you can not mistake nor regard with indifference. To procure on it the largest possible number of adult names, at the earliest practicable moment, it is hoped you will regard as less a duty than a pleasure. Already we have sent one installment of our petition forward, signed by one hundred thousand persons; the presentation of which, by Senator Sumner, produced a marked effect on both Congress and the country. We hope to send a million before the adjournment of Congress, which we shall easily do and even more, if you and the twenty thousand others to whom we have sent petitions will promptly, generously co-operate with us. For nearly three years has the scourge of war desolated us; sweeping away at least three hundred thousand of the strength, bloom, and beauty of our nation. And the war-chariot still rolls onward, its iron wheels deep in human blood! The God, at whose justice Jefferson long ago trembled, has awaked to the woes of the bondmen.

"For the sighing of the oppressed, and for the crying of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord." The redemption of that pledge we now behold in this dread Apocalypse of war. Nor should we expect or hope the calamity will cease while the fearful cause of it remains. Slavery has long been our national sin. War is its natural and just retribution. But the war has made it the constitutional right of the Government, as it always has been the moral duty of the people, to abolish slavery. We are, therefore, without excuse, if the solemn duty be not now performed. With us, the people, is the power to achieve the work by our agents in Congress. On us, therefore, rests the momentous responsibility. Shall we not all join then in one loud, earnest, effectual prayer to Congress, which will swell on its ear like the voice of many waters, that this bloody, desolating war shall be arrested and ended, by the immediate and final removal, by Statute Law and amended Constitution, of that crime and curse which alone has brought it upon us? Now surely is our accepted time. On our own heads will be the blood of our thousands slain, if, with the power in our own hands, we do not end that system forever, which is so plainly autographed all over with the Divine displeasure. In the name of justice and of freedom then let us rise and decree the destruction of our destroyer. Let us with myriad voice compel Congress to

"Consign it to remorseless fire! Watch till the last faint spark expire; Then strew its ashes on the wind, Nor leave one atom wreck behind."

In behalf of the Women's League, SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary.

FORM OF PETITION.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:

The undersigned, citizens of ——, believing slavery the great cause of the present rebellion, and an institution fatal to the life of Republican Government, earnestly pray your Honorable Bodies to immediately abolish it throughout the United States; and to adopt measures for so amending the Constitution, as forever to prohibit its existence in any portion of our common country.

MEN. WOMEN.

Anniversary Meeting, May 14, 1864.—The adjourned meeting convened in the lecture-room of the Church of the Puritans, Saturday P.M., May 14th. The President in the chair.

The Secretary read the report of the Executive Committee, which was unanimously adopted. The resolutions were then read, and motion taken to act upon them separately. The 2d, 7th, and 8th elicited a long and earnest discussion, but were at last adopted, with but one or two dissenting votes.

The Committee then presented a list of women to serve as officers the coming year, who were unanimously elected.

Officers of the Women's National League:—President, Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Vice-Presidents, L. M. Brownson, Mary Bates, Mrs. Col. A. B. Eaton, S. A. Fayerweather; Corresponding Secretary, Charlotte B. Wilbour; Recording Secretaries, Susan B. Anthony, Elvira Lane; Treasurer, Mary F. Gilbert; Executive Committee, Mrs. L. M. Brownson, Mrs. H. M. Jacobs, Mary O. Gale, Mattie Griffith, Redelia Bates, Rebecca K. Shepherd, Frances V. Halleck, Mrs. C. S. Lozier, M.D.; Laura M. Ward, M.D.; Malvina A. Lane.

The Women's National League to its Members and Friends:—The folding, directing, and sending out 20,000 petitions, then the assorting, counting, and rolling up, each State by itself, 300,000 signatures, has been an herculean task, that only those who have witnessed it could fully appreciate. Remember that paper, printing, postage, office, and clerks, all require money. At the last meeting of the Executive Committee we resolved to ask each of our 5,000 members to send us the small sum of fifty cents to carry on the work.

Let the petitions be thoroughly circulated during the summer, throughout the country, that the people may speak in thunder-tones to our next Congress at its earliest sittings. Neither the Emancipation or Amendment bill has yet passed the House, and the recent vote on the Montana question shows the animus of the Administration. If the majority of our voters propose to re-elect such men to rule over us, those who believe in free institutions must begin the work of educating the nation into the idea that a stable government must be founded on justice—that freedom and equality are rights that belong to every citizen of a republic.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary, 20 Cooper Institute.

Amend the Constitution.—The Women's National League have just sent out, all through the States, fifteen thousand petitions, with an appeal to have them filled up and returned as speedily as possible. The bill to amend the Constitution so as to prohibit the holding of slaves in any part of the country has passed the Senate. Now comes the struggle in the House. If every one of the fifteen thousand persons—at least ten thousand of them ministers—will but gather up one hundred or more names, a million-voiced petition may yet pour into the Representatives' Hall; and such a voice from the people can not but make sure the vote, and leave the bill ready for the President's signature, and Congress disposed to recommend that a special session of each State Legislature be called immediately to act upon the question; and thus the hateful thing—Slavery—be buried out of sight before the opening of the Presidential campaign. Let the petitions be mailed to Washington, direct, to some member, or to Hon. Thomas D. Eliot, Chairman of Committee on Slavery and Freedmen. There is not a day to be lost. Let all work.—The National Anti-Slavery Standard, May 28, 1864.

The World.

NEW YORK CITY, July 25, 1864.

WOMEN'S LOYAL NATIONAL LEAGUE.

The Necessity for Funds—The Delinquency of the Friends of the Negro—Miss Anthony on the Constitution—Fighting, a Barbaric way of Settling Questions.—About fifteen ladies and half a dozen gentlemen were present at the meeting of the Woman's League, yesterday. Although more than one of the speakers bewailed the delinquency of the "friends of the negro" in failing to supply the League with the necessary funds, yet the piles of post-paid circulars on the tables, ready for the mail, were larger than ever. There was also a bundle of tracts on emancipation as the only means of peace.

The meeting being called to order, a committee reported a series of resolutions, the gist of which was that, whereas the League is continually receiving from its friends to whom it applies for pecuniary assistance communications stating that the day for petition and discussion is past, and that the bullet and bayonet are now working out the stern logic of events; nevertheless the League considers that such day is not past, and it urges the friends of the negro to come forward boldly and pour out of their abundance liberally for its aid.

SPEECH BY MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

Miss Susan B. Anthony made a speech arguing that the decision of the anti-slavery question should not be left to the "stern logic of events" which is wrought by the bullet and the bayonet. More knowledge is needed. The eyes and the ears of the whole public are now open. It should be the earnest work of every lover of freedom to give those eyes the right thing to see and those ears the right thing to hear. It pains her to receive in answer to a call for assistance and funds, letters saying that the day for discussion and petition is past. It looks as if we had returned to the old condition of barbarism, where no way is known of settling questions except by fighting. Women, who are noted for having control of the moral department of society and for lifting the other half of the race into a higher moral condition, should not relapse into the idea that the status of any human being is to be settled merely by the sword. Miss Anthony then spoke of the constitutional right of Congress to pass an emancipation law. She read a letter from a lady who, on receiving documents from the League, first doubted the power of Congress to pass such a law; then she thought perhaps it had; then she compared the petition and the Constitution; then she thought it had no such power, and finally she concluded to circulate the petition anyhow. Miss Anthony proceeded at some length to expound the Constitution, showing that it does not say that slaves shall not be emancipated, and therefore concluding that they may. But if Congress can not emancipate slaves constitutionally, it should do so unconstitutionally. She does not believe in this red-tapism that can not find a law to suppress the wrong, but always finds one to oppress the innocent. If she was a mayor, or a governor, or a legislator, and there was no law to punish mobocrats, she thought she should go to work to make one pretty quick. She requested the opinion of some gentleman.

A gentleman present related a number of touching incidents about the recent mobbing of negroes in this city, most of which have already appeared in print in this and other papers. Miss Anthony held up two photographs to the view of the audience. One represented "Sojourner Truth," the heroine of one of Mrs. H. B. Stowe's tales, and the other the bare back of a Louisiana slave. Many of the audience were affected to tears. "Sojourner Truth" had lost three fingers of one hand, and the Louisiana slave's back bore scars of whipping. She asked every one to suppose that woman was her mother, and that man her father. In that case would they think the time past for discussion and petition? The resolutions were at once unanimously passed. The meeting adjourned.

MISS ANTHONY IN CHICAGO.

Miss Susan B. Anthony is now on her homeward way from Kansas, where she has been spending several of the past months, and where she has performed much excellent service in the cause of the freedmen of the country generally. She has recently visited Chicago and given a lecture, which is highly commended by the Tribune and Republican of that city, the latter giving an extended report of it in its columns, besides pronouncing upon it very flattering encomiums, concluding with these words: "The audience dwelt with thoughtful and marked interest upon her words, and when occasionally her remarks called forth an irrepressible burst of feeling, the applause was marked and emphatic, without descending to a noisy disturbance." Of the lecture in general, the Chicago Tribune thus speaks:

Last evening Miss Susan B. Anthony, of Rochester, N. Y., addressed an audience composed chiefly of colored people, in Quinn's Chapel. Her subject was "Universal Suffrage." Mrs. Jones, the President of the Ladies' Aid Society, in introducing her, said: "She was one of their old and firm friends; not one who had believed in sitting down to the communion first, and letting the negro come last. She was not one who needed to have her father or brothers starved in Southern prisons, to make her aware of the humanity of the black man."

Miss Anthony is a clear, logical speaker, earnest and truthful, and has long considered the questions of the day. Few men in this or any other city could more ably present the subject, or more closely chain the audience that listened to her noble utterances, and one could not but wish that she had spoken to thousands rather than hundreds. Miss A. is recently from Leavenworth, Kansas, where she has been spending some months past, aiding as she had opportunity, in the elevation of the freed people, and occasionally by lectures, contributing to form a true public sentiment in that new State. Consequently, she speaks from absolute knowledge of the present state of the freedmen. Her criticism of the theories of reconstruction was masterly, showing that the fundamental principles of this Government are set aside and really endanger all that we have seemed to gain by the war, and that nothing but the admission of the black man to the franchise can save the nation from future disgrace and ultimate ruin.—National Anti-Slavery Standard, August, 1865.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XVIII.

NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, 1866 AND 1867.

Report made to the Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention.

BY CAROLINE H. DALL.

For the last five years the women of the United States have held few public discussions. They have done wisely. Circumstances have proved their friend. Nothing ever had done, nothing ever will do again, so great a service to woman in so short a time, as this dreadful war out of which we are so slowly emerging. Respect for woman came only with the absolute need of her, and so many women of distinguished ability made themselves of service to the Government, that we had no single woman to honor as England had honored Florence Nightingale. With us her name was legion. But with the prospect of peace comes the old duty of agitation, and we find ourselves again summoned to a Convention, and again anxiously awaiting its results—anxiously, for a convention of women is an object which still attracts the gaze of the curious, and the smallest indiscretion on the part of a single speaker has a retrograde effect which few women seem able to measure.

Our reform is unlike all others, for it must begin in the family, at the very heart of society. If it be not kindly, temperately, and thoughtfully conducted, men everywhere will be able to justify their remonstrances. Let us rather justify ourselves. My last report to any Convention was made to those called in Boston in 1859 and 1860. Between that time and 1863 I printed five volumes, which are nothing but reports upon the various interests significant to our cause. During the last four years I have watched the development of American industry in its relation to women, and have, through the newspapers, aroused public feeling in their behalf. My labor is naturally classed under the three heads of Education, Labor, and Law. A proper education must prepare woman for labor, skilled or manual; and the experience of a laborer should introduce her to citizenship, for it provides her with rights to protect, privileges to secure, and property to be taxed. If she is a laborer, she must have an interest in the laws which control labor. In considering our position in these three respects, it is impossible to offer you a digest of all that has occurred during the last six years. What I have to say will refer chiefly to the events of the last two.

EDUCATION.

I wish it were in my power to furnish you with reports of the present condition of all the female colleges in the United States; but, while I receive from various foreign sources such reports, and am promptly informed of any educational movement in Europe, it never seems to occur to the government of such institutions in the United States that there is any necessary connection between them and the interests which this Convention represents. We are, consequently, dependent upon newspapers for our information.

The most important educational movement of the last year has been the formation of an American Social Science Association, with four departments, and two women on its Board of Directors. Subsequently, the Boston Social Science Association was organized, with seven departments, and seven women on its Board of Directors, one woman being assigned to each department, including that of law. Any woman in the United States can become a member of this Association. If the opportunities it offers are not seized, it will be the fault of women themselves.

During the past winter the Lowell Institute, in Boston, in connection with the government of the Massachusetts Technological Institute, took a step which deserves our public mention. They advertised classes for both sexes, under the most eligible professors, for instruction in French, mathematics, and natural science. As the training was to be thorough, the number of pupils was limited, and the women who applied would have filled the seats many times over. These classes have been wholly free, and have added to the obligation which the free Art School for women had already conferred.

Elmira College showed its enterprise last summer by a visit to Massachusetts, and Vassar College was organized and commenced its operations in September, with Miss Mitchell in the Chair of Mathematics, and Miss Avery in that of Physiology. I attempted to visit this institution last summer for the purpose of investigating the facilities its buildings and proposed courses might offer to foreign students. The reluctance of the Trustees to subject it to observation so early in its career interfered with my plan, but I have since received a letter from Miss Mitchell speaking of it in the most encouraging terms. "I have a class," she says, "of seventeen pupils, between the ages of 16 and 22. They come to me for fifty minutes every day. I allow them great freedom in questioning, and I am puzzled by them daily. They show more mathematical ability and more originality of thought than I had expected. I doubt whether young men would show as deep an interest. Are there seventeen students in Harvard College who take mathematical astronomy, do you think?" So Mr. Vassar's magnificent donation is drawing interest at last.

On the 25th of June, 1865, the Ripley College, at Poultney, Vermont, celebrated its commencement. Seventeen young ladies were graduated. Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the literary address, and two days were devoted to the examination of incoming pupils. Feeling very little satisfaction in the success of Colleges intended for the separate sexes, I take more pleasure in speaking of the Baker University in Kansas, which was chartered by the Legislature of that State in 1857 as a University for both sexes. It has now been in active operation for seven years. A little more than a year ago Miss Martha Baldwin, a graduate of the Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio, was appointed to the chair of Greek and Latin. She is but twenty-one years of age, but was elected by the government to make the address for the Faculty at the opening of the commencement exercises, and seems to have given entire satisfaction during her professors' year. In France, the Imperial Geographical Society, which is in a certain sense a college, has lately admitted to membership Madame Dora D'Istra as the successor to Madame Pfeiffer. Madame D'Istra had distinguished herself by researches in the Morea.

On the 26th of October, 1864, a a Workingwomen's College was opened in London, with an address from Miss F. R. Malleson. It is governed by a council of teachers. In addition to the ordinary branches, it offers instruction in Botany, Physiology, and Drawing. Its fee is four shillings a year, and the coffee and reading-room, about which its social life centres, is open every evening from 7 to 11. But by far the most interesting educational movement is Miss Nightingale's "Training-school for Nurses," which has been in operation for three years in Liverpool. It was founded after a correspondence with her, in strict conformity to her counsel. As a training-school it may be said to be self-supporting, but it is also a beneficent institution, and in that regard is sustained by donations. A most admirable system of district nursing is provided under its auspices for the whole city of Liverpool, all of whose suffering sick become, in this way, the recipients of intelligent care and of valuable instruction in cooking and all sanitary matters. It is too tempting an experiment to dwell upon, unless we could follow it into its details. Its Report occupies 101 pages.

As regards medical education, we know of two colleges, or rather of one college and one hospital, in Boston, where education is given. There is one in Springfield and one in Philadelphia. We should be glad to get more statistics of this kind, for Cleveland, where Dr. Zakrzewska took her degree, is no longer open to female students, and Geneva is contenting herself with the honor of having graduated Dr. Blackwell. There is a female Medical Society in London. This society wishes to open the way for thorough medical instruction, which will entitle its graduates to a degree from Apothecaries' Hall, and it offered lectures from competent persons in 1864, upon Obstetrics and General Medical Science. Madame Aillot's Hospital of the Maternity in Paris, still offers its great advantages to women, of which two of our countrywomen, Miss Helen Morton and Miss Lucy E. Sewall have taken creditable advantage. They are both of them Massachusetts girls. Miss Morton is retained in Paris, and Miss Sewall is the resident physician of the Hospital for Women and Children in Boston.

A very great interest has been felt in this country in the success of Miss Garrett in obtaining her degree from Apothecaries' Hall, after it had been refused to her by the medical colleges. We regret to say that this fact does not show any real advance in the public opinion of Great Britain, nor does it secure any permanent advantage for women. When the Apothecaries' Hall refused her, Miss Garrett looked up its charter. She found the old Latin word indicating to whom degrees were to be granted clearly indeterminate. Langues told her that the Hall must grant her a degree or surrender its charter. She was wealthy and in earnest. She pushed her advantage. The Apothecaries' Hall prescribed certain courses of instruction to be pursued and certified before the degree could be granted. These she attended in private, paying the most exorbitant fees to her teachers. In one instance, in which a man's fee would have been five guineas she paid fifty! I am credibly informed that the round cost of these preparatory steps must have been L2,000. All honor to Miss Garrett. Should her genius as a physician equal her energy and her wealth, she may yet gain something for the cause she has espoused. Apart from this, she may be said to have gained nothing. Bribery is not possible to ordinary mortals, and the conditions of the degree make it generally impracticable until the lecture-rooms are opened to students. At present, to obtain thorough instruction in any branch, women are obliged to pay exorbitant prices, and receive as the results of their training but half wages. In Boston Dr. Zakrzewska has again unsuccessfully asked permission to become a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Many physicians, however, extend the fellowship which the institution denies, and the Medical Journal expresses itself courteously on this point.

In 1863 there existed in St. Petersburg a stringent regulation which prohibited women from following the University courses. A Miss K., who had a decided taste for medicine without the means to pay for instruction, applied for such instruction to the authorities of Orenburg. Orenburg is partly in Europe and partly in Asia, and its territory includes the Cossack races of the Ural. These people have a superstitious prejudice against male physicians, and are chiefly attended in illness by sorceresses. Miss K. offered to put her medical knowledge at the service of the Cossacks, and received permission to attend the Academy of Medicine. The Cossacks promised her an annual stipend of 28 roubles, but when she passed the half-yearly examination as well as the male students, they sent her 300 roubles as a token of good will.

In France, a Mlle. Reugger, from Algeria, lately passed a brilliant examination, and received the degree of Bachelor of Letters. She appealed to the Dean of the Faculty at Montpellier for permission to follow the regular course, and was refused on account of her sex. She then turned to the Minister of Public Instruction, who granted it on condition that she should pledge herself to practice only in Algeria, where the Arabs, like the Cossacks, refuse the attendance of male physicians. Unlike our Russian friend, she refused to give the pledge. She threw herself upon her rights, and appealed in person to the Emperor. This was in December last, and I have not been able to find his decision. It was doubtless given in her behalf, for Louis Napoleon will always yield as a favor what he would stubbornly refuse as a right. The physicians of this country have been occupied this winter in discussing the discovery by one of their number of the active infectant in fever and ague. It has been found in the dust-like spores of a marsh plant—the Pamella. In Paris, at the same time, a woman of rank claims to have discovered the cause of cholera in a microscopic insect, developed in low and filthy localities. Her details were so minute, that the Academy of Science, which began by laughing at the introduction of the matter, has been compelled to listen, and the subject is now under investigation.

THE PULPIT.

In spite of the bitter words of warning which John Ruskin has thought it his duty to speak to such women as enter upon theological studies, a good many women in Great Britain and this country have engaged in what is properly the work of the Christian ministry. The only ordained minister whose work has come under our notice since the marriage of Antoinette Blackwell, is the Rev. Olympia Brown, settled over the Universalist Society at Weymouth Landing, Mass. Her ministry has been highly successful, and is to be mentioned here chiefly on account of a legal decision to which it has given rise. The church at Weymouth Landing made an appeal to the Legislature last winter as to the legality of marriages solemnized by her. The Legislature gave the same general construction to the masculine relatives in the enactment which the English law gave to the old Latin word in the Charter of Apothecaries' Hall, deciding that marriages so solemnized are legal, and no further legislation necessary.

LABOR.

The advance of women, as regards all sorts of labor, in the United States, has been such as might be expected by watchful eyes, and yet reports on the general question will not read very differently from those published ten years ago. In New York, women are still reported as making shirts at 75 cents a dozen, and overalls at 50 cents. These women have two protective unions of their own, not connected with the workingmen's union, and most of them have naturally enough sympathized with the eight-hour movement, not foreseeing, apparently, that the necessary first result of that movement would be a decrease of wages proportioned to the limitation of time. Ever since the beginning of the war, women have been employed in the public departments North and South. It has been a matter of necessity, rather than choice. The same causes combined to drive women into field labor and printing-offices. All through Minnesota and the surrounding regions, women voluntarily assumed the whole charge of the farms, in order to send their husbands to the field. A very interesting account has been recently published of a farm in Dongola, Ill., consisting of two thousand acres, managed by a highly educated woman, whose husband was a cavalry officer. It was a great pecuniary success. In New Hampshire, last summer, I was shown open-air graperies wholly managed by women, in several different localities, and was very happy to be told that my own influence had largely contributed to the experiment. In England field labor is now recommended to women by Lord Houghton, better known as Mr. Monckton Milnes, who considers it a healthful resource against the terrible abuses of factory life. At a meeting of the British Association last fall, he produced a well-written letter from a woman engaged in brick-making. This letter claimed that brick-making paid three times better than factory labor, and ten times better than domestic service. In addition to persons heretofore mentioned in this country as employing women in out-door work, I would name Mr. Knox, the great fruit-grower, who, on his place near Pittsburg, Pa., employs two or three hundred. I have seen it stated that, during the last four years, twenty thousand women have entered printing-offices. I do not know the basis of this calculation, but judging from my local statistics, I should think it must be nearly correct. To the Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature, on the eight-hour movement, the following towns report concerning the wages and labor of women:

Boston—Glass Co., wages from $4 to $8 a week. Domestics, from $1.50 to $3 per week; seamstresses, $1 a day; Makers of fancy goods, 40 to 50 cents a day. Brookline—Washerwomen, $1 a day. Charlestown and New Bedford are ashamed to name the wages, but humbly confess that they are very low. Chicopee—Pays women 90 per cent the wages of men. Concord—Pays from 8 to 10 cents an hour. Fairhaven—Gives to female photographers one-third the wages of men. Hadley—Pays three-fourths. To domestics, one-third; seamstresses, one-quarter to one-third. Holyoke—In its paper mills, offers one-third to one-half. Lancaster—Pays for pocket-book making from 50 to 75 cents a day. Lee—Pays in the paper mills one-half the wages of men. Lowell—The Manufacturing Co. averages 90 cents a day. The Baldwin Mills pay 60 to 75 cents a day. Newton—Pays its washerwomen 75 cents a day, or 10 cents an hour. North Becket—Pays to women one-third the wages of men. Northampton—Pays $5 a week. Salisbury—For sewing hats, $1 a day. South Reading—On rattan and shoe work, $5 to $10 a week. South Yarmouth—Half the wages of men, or less. Taunton—One-third to two-thirds the wages of men. Walpole—Pays two thirds the wages of men. Wareham—Pays to its domestics from 18 to 30 cents a day; to seamstresses, 50 cents to $1. Wilmington—Pays two-thirds the wages of men. Winchester—Pays dressmakers $1 a day; washerwomen, 12 cents an hour. Woburn—Keeps its women at work from 11 to 13 hours, and pays them two-thirds the wages of men.

On the better side of the question, Fall River testifies that women, in competition, earn nearly as much as men.

Lawrence—From the Pacific Mills, that the women are liberally paid. We should like to see the figures. The Washington Mills pays from $1 to $2 a day. Stoneham—Gives them $1.50 per week. Waltham—Reports the wages of the watch factory as very remunerative. In 1860 I reported this factory as paying from $2.50 to $4 a week. Here, also, we should prefer figures to a general statement. Boston—Has now many manufactories of paper collars. Each girl is expected to turn out 1,800 daily. The wages are $7 a week. In the paper-box factory, more than 200 girls are employed, but I can not ascertain their wages, and therefore suppose them to be low. I know individuals who earn here $6 a week, but that must be above the average.

The best looking body of factory operatives that I have ever seen are those employed in the silk and ribbon mills on Boston Neck, lately under the charge of Mr. J. H. Stephenson, and those at the Florence Silk Mills in Northampton, owned by Mr. S. L. Hill. The classes, libraries, and privileges appertaining to these mills, make them the best examples I know, and this is shown in the faces and bearing of the women. We are always referred to political economy, when we speak of the low wages of women, but a little investigation will show that other causes co-operate with those, which can be but gradually reached, to determine their rates.

1. The willfulness of women themselves, which when I see them in positions I have helped to open to them, fills me with shame and indignation.

2. The unfair competition proceeding from the voluntary labor, in mechanical ways, of women well to do.

For the first, we can not greatly blame the women whom employers chiefly choose for their good looks, for expecting to earn their wages through them, rather than by the proper discharge of their duties. Their conduct is not the less shameful on that account, but I seem to see that only time and death and ruin will educate them.

For the second, we must strive to develop a public sentiment which, while it continues to hold labor honorable, will stamp with ignominy any women who, in comfortable country homes, compete with the workwomen of great cities. There are thousands of wealthy farmers' wives to-day, who just as much drive other women to sin and death, as if they led them with their own hands to the houses in which they are ultimately compelled to take refuge. Still further it has come to be known to me that in Boston, and I am told in New York also, wealthy women who do not even do their own sewing, have the control of the finer kinds of fancy-work, dealing with the stores which sell such work under various disguises. I can not prove these words, but they will strike conviction to the hearts of the women themselves, and I wish them to have some significance for men, for if these women had the pocket-money which their taste and position require, they would never dream of such competition. One thing these men should know, that such women are generally known to their employers, and their domestic relations are judged accordingly.

The recent investigations into factory labor in England concern rather the condition than the wages of women. At flower-making, 11,000 girls are employed from fourteen to eighteen hours daily. In hardware shops and factories, they work, from six years of age, fourteen hours daily. In glass factories, 5,000 women are employed from nine years of age and upwards, eighteen hours daily. In tobacco factories, 7,000 women are employed under conditions of great physical suffering. As knitters, from six years old, they work fourteen hours daily for 1s. 3d. a week! This terrible state of things is partly owing to competition with the labor of French machinery. A great deal of ignorant prejudice against machines is one of its results. In Sheffield files are still made by hand, while here in America we make watches by machinery. The disposition of the whole community, both here and in Great Britain, towards this labor question is kindly. It has become a momentous social problem. During the fifteen years that my attention has been riveted to this subject, I have seen a great change in public feeling.

I have received the Sixth Annual Report of the Society for the Employment of Women, of which the Earl of Shaftesbury is President, and Mr. Gladstone a Vice-President. This Society has trained some hair-dressers, clerks, glass engravers, book-keepers, and telegraph operators, but its greatest service consists in the constant issue of tracts, to bias developing public opinion. Such an association should be started in New York. I should have been glad to inaugurate in Boston, during the last six years, several important industrial movements. The war checked the enthusiasm I had succeeded in rousing, and I have not been able to pause in my special work of collecting and observing facts, to stimulate it afresh or to solicit personally the necessary means. How easy it would be for a few wealthy women to test these experiments. I would first establish a Mending-School, and having taught women how to darn and patch in a proper manner, I would scatter them through the country to open shops of their own. As it is, I do not know a city in which a place exists to which a housekeeper could send a week's wash, sure that it would be returned with every button-hole, button, hem, gusset and stay in proper condition. These mending-shops should take on apprentices, who should be sent to the house to do every sort of repairing with a needle. I would open another school to train women to every kind of trivial service, now clumsily or inadequately performed by men. If, for instance, you now send to an upholsterer to have an old window-blind or blind fixture repaired, his apprentice will replace the entire thing, at a proportionate cost, leaving the old screw-holes to gape at the gazer. I would train women to wash, repair, and replace in part, and to carry in their pockets little vials of white or red lead to fill the gaping holes. Full employment could be found for such apprentices.

LAW.

The number of laws passed the last six years affecting the condition of women has been very small. The New York Assembly in February, 1865, passed a law putting the legal evidence of a married woman on the same basis as if she were a "femme sole." The Massachusetts Legislature have legalized marriage ceremonies performed by an ordained woman, and in January, 1866, Mr. Peckham, of Worcester, moved for a joint Special Committee "to consider in what way a more just and equal compensation shall be awarded to female labor." On the 4th of April just passed Samuel E. Sewall and others petitioned for leave to appoint women on School Committees. It is difficult to conceive on what ground such petitioners had leave to withdraw. These things are only valuable as indicating that public attention is still alive. Some remarkable illustrations of the absurdity of old laws might be recorded. One of these is to be found in the family history of Mad. de Bedout, recently dead at Paris.

A very important convention came together at Leipsic, in September, 1865. One hundred and fifty women assembled, pledged to assert the right to labor, and to bridge the gulf between the compensations of the two sexes. Madame Louise Otto Peters opened the conference in an able speech. She stated that there were five millions of women in Germany who could each earn, if allowed, three thalers a week. A thousand women might find employment as chemists, on salaries of one hundred and fifty thalers a year, exclusive of board and lodging. Another thousand might be employed as boot-closers. The foundation of industrial and commercial schools was urged. The weak point of the speech as reported, appeared to be, that it took no cognizance of the fact that an influx of five millions of laborers must necessarily lower the current rate of wages she proposed. I mention this convention in a legal connection, believing that it was intended to remove some local legal barriers.

SUFFRAGE.

Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Sarah E. Wall, and a few other women, have continued their annual protests without intermission. In somewhat the same way have petitions recently been sent to Congress in behalf of Universal Suffrage. We had no expectation that any favorable reception would await such petitions, but it was a duty to put them on record. What fate they met in Congress, you have so recently heard that I have no occasion to record it. Minnesota, New York, and other States, have petitioned their Legislatures to the same effect.

PROGRESS.

The real gain of a reform, starting from the heart of the family, must necessarily be very slow. I remember that some years ago, when I printed my book on labor, one of my kindest critics congratulated the public that of my nine lectures, I had published only these. He thought it was useless to contend for more book-learning for women, and the subject of Civil Rights still disgusted his sensitive ear. The common sense of the book on labor ought to have shown him how I should treat the subject of education. He could not understand how the woman who gets an education which does not make her a "bread-winner," is essentially defrauded, nor how a woman well paid for her labor is essentially wronged, when she is denied the privilege of protecting it by her vote. There is, however, a surely growing sense of this shown in the substantial advance of her civil rights.

In the early part of 1865, the people of Victoria, in Australia, assembled to elect a member of Parliament, were surprised to find the whole female population voting. Some quick-sighted woman had discovered that the letter of the new law permitted it, and their votes were accepted and wisely given. The London Times, in the month of May, says that, in a country like Australia, it can easily believe that such an extension of the franchise will be a marked improvement, and thinks that the precedent will stand! The Government of Moravia has also, within the past year, granted the municipal franchise to widows who pay taxes. In January, 1864, the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin, Ireland, restored to woman the old right of voting for Town Commissioners. The Justice (Fitzgerald) desired to state that ladies were entitled to sit as Town Commissioners as well as to vote for them, and the Chief Justice took pains to make it clear that there was nothing in either duty repugnant to womanly habits.

The inhabitants of Ain (or Aisne) in France, lately chose nine women into their municipal council. At Bergeres, they elected the whole council, and the Mayor, not being prepared for such good fortune, resigned his office. A very remarkable autograph note of the Queen of England attracted my attention in 1865. It expressed to Lord John Russell the Queen's dissatisfaction with Lord Palmerston. It was a very distinct assertion of her regal prerogative, and as such Lord Palmerston submitted to it.

Our cause has found able advocates in John Stuart Mill, The New York Evening Post, and Theodore Tilton. If I were asked whether, in connection with this gain, we have lost any ground, I should reply that we have decidedly lost it in connection with the daily press. I do not know any newspaper, if I except The Boston Commonwealth, which will print a letter touching civil rights from any woman, precisely as it is written. I think what we need most is to purchase the right to a daily use of half a column of The New York Tribune.

RECORD AND OBITUARIES.

I have been accustomed to connect with reports of this kind, some honorable mention of distinguished women recently dead. I can not do this at any length after a pause of so many years, but a few names must be mentioned, a few facts recorded. I had occasion, some years ago, to commemorate the services of Maria Sybilla Merian, painter, engraver, linguist, and traveler, who published, at Amsterdam, two volumes of engravings of insects and sixty magnificent plates, illustrating the metamorphoses of the insects of Surinam. I did not at that time know that some of her statements had been held open to suspicion. In the first place, she asserted that a certain fly, the Fulgoria Lantanaria, emitted so much light that she could read her books by its aid. Still further, that one of the large spiders called Mygale, entered the nests of the humming-bird in Surinam, sucked its eggs and snared the birds. To all the contention which arose over these statements, Madame Merian could oppose only her word. Men who knew that her statements in regard to Europe were indisputable, decided that her word could not be taken in Asia. A very common folly; but two hundred years have passed, 1866 arrives, and her justification with it. An English traveler named Bates, has recently rescued quite large finches from the Mygale, and poisoned himself with its saliva in preparing them for his cabinet.

I do not know how many years Madame Baring, the mother of the great banker, has been dead. It is only recently that I have ascertained that to her prudence, activity, and business habits, the family attribute the sure foundation of their habits. Matthew Baring came to Larkbeare, near Exeter, from Bremen. His wife superintended in his day, the long rows of "burlers," or women who picked over the woolen cloth he made. Her sons, John and Francis, sought a wider field for the fortune their father left, but did not forget to erect a monument to their mother's industry.

When I first investigated the labor of woman, I was told that the great manufacturing interest, represented by the button factories at Easthampton, Mass., had its origin in the persevering industry of a woman. Last summer I went personally to see the factories and their proprietor, and it was a pleasant surprise to find the woman of whom I had heard still living. Samuel Williston told me that he did not usually gratify the curiosity of his visitors, but added that if I thought it would be any stimulus to the industry of other women, he should be glad to tell me the story. About forty years ago he had been an unsuccessful speculator in Merino sheep, and his wife strained every nerve to help her family. On going one day to the country store for a supply of knitting, she expressed so much disappointment on being told that there was none for her, that a tailor in the establishment asked her if she would cover some buttons for him. She soon found that certain kinds of buttons were in steady demand. They were then made wholly by hand. She provided herself with materials, took the farmers' daughters for apprentices, and her husband went to Boston, Hartford, and New York to solicit orders. From this small beginning arose one of the most lucrative industries of Massachusetts.

About a year since Eliza W. Farnham laid down her weary head. I did not know her, nor did I sympathize in her theories. They were sustained by her imagination rather than her reason; by her impulses rather than any practical judgment. No moral superiority can justly be conferred on either sex of a being possessed of intellect and conscience. God has conferred no such superiority; yet I gladly name Mrs. Farnham here as a woman whose life—a bitter disappointment to herself—was useful to all women, and whose books, published since her death, show a marvelous mental range. I name her with sympathy and admiration. During the last year Madam Charles Lemonnier has died in Paris. She devoted her life to the professional education of women. For six years she found it so difficult to raise the necessary funds, that she had to content herself with sending her pupils to institutions in Germany. In 1862 the Society for the Professional Instruction of Women was at last constituted, and opened a school in the Rue de Perle. Two other schools have since been opened; one in the Rue de Val Sainte Catherine, the other in the Rue Roche. The morning is occupied in these schools with general studies, the afternoon with industrial drawing, wood engraving, the making up of garments, linen, etc. She died after initiating a thoroughly successful work.

In July, 1865, there died at Corfu a Dr. Barry, attached to the Medical Staff of the British Army. He was remarkable for skill, firmness, decision, and great rapidity in difficult operations. He had entered the army in 1813, and had served in all quarters of the globe with such distinction, as to insure promotion without interest. He was clever and agreeable, but excessively plain, weak in stature, and with a squeaking voice which provoked ridicule. He had an irritable temper, and answered some jesting on this topic by calling out the offender and shooting him through the lungs. In 1840 he was made Medical Inspector, and transferred from the Cape to Malta. He went from Malta to Corfu, and when the English Government ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece, resigned his position in the army and remained at Corfu. There he died last summer, forbidding, with his latest breath, any interference with his remains. The women who attended him regarded this request with the shameless indifference now so common, and unable to believe that an officer who had been forty-five years in the British service, had received a diploma, fought a duel, and been celebrated as a brilliant operator, was not only a woman, but at some period in her life a mother; they called in a medical commission to establish these facts. A sad, sad picture which those of us, who inquire into the fortunes of women, can readily understand.

Last November deprived us of Lady Theresa Lewes and Mrs. Gaskell. Mrs. Gaskell has perhaps done more than any woman of this century, not confessedly devoted to our cause, to elevate the condition of her sex, and disseminate liberal ideas as to their needs and culture. The first part of her career was one of those brilliant successes which startle us into surprise and admiration. It was checked midway by the publication of her life of Charlotte Bronte, the best and noblest of her works. Checked, because condemned, in that instance, without a hearing. She could never afterward feel the elastic pleasure, which was natural to her, in composing and printing, and for three long years afterward never touched her pen. I would not allude to this subject if every notice of her since her death had not done so, repeating the old censure, as a matter of course. Here in America we may exculpate her. The public was wrong in the first place, inasmuch as it has come to demand biography before biography is possible. The publisher was wrong in the second, for he ought to have known, and could easily have ascertained, how plain a statement the English law would permit. The public was still further wrong when it attributed misapprehension and carelessness to a woman whom it very well knew to be incapable of either. I, for one, shall never forgive nor forget the officious censure of the Westminster Review—censure given by one who must have known that the legal apology tendered in Mrs. Gaskell's absence to protect her pecuniary interests, had the unfortunate effect to put her in a position where explanation and self-defence were alike impossible. Mrs. Gaskell had deserved the steady confidence of the public.

In Paris, recently, died Mrs. Severn Newton. She was the daughter of the artist Severn, the friend of Keats, and now British Consul at Rome. About five years since she married Charles Newton, Superintendent of Greek Antiquities at the British Museum. She was a person in whom power and delicacy were singularly blended. Ary Schaeffer was accustomed to hold up her work as a model for his pupils. Her renderings of classic sculpture were so true that they were termed translations, and she had recently devoted herself to oil painting with great success. She died of brain fever at the early age of thirty-three, the most honored of female English artists.

I have kept till the last the name of Fredrika Bremer, whose good fortune it was to secure lasting benefits to her sex. God sent to her early years dark trials and privations. Her father's tyrannical hand crushed all power and loveliness out of her life. At first she rebelled against her sufferings, but when he died in her girlhood she was able to see that they lent strength to her efforts for her sex. It was the rumor of what we were doing in this country for women that first drew her hither. It is not the fashion for Miss Bremer's friends fully to recognize her position in this respect. I owe my own convictions on the subject of suffrage to the reflections she awakened. When I told her that my mind was undecided on this point, she showed her disappointment so plainly, that I was forced to reconsider the whole subject. Miss Bremer did not hurry her work. She had a serene confidence that she should be permitted to finish what she had begun. She secured popularity by her cheerful humor, her genuine feeling, her true appreciation of men, and her insight into the conditions of family happiness, before she made any direct appeal against existing laws. Those who will read her novels thoughtfully, however, will see that she was from the first intent upon making such an effort possible. From the beginning she pleaded for the social independence of wives; asked for them a separate purse; showed that woman could not even give her love freely, until she was independent of him to whom she owed it. To a just state of society, to noble family relations, entire freedom is essential.

Under her influence females had been admitted to the Musical Academy. The Directors of the Industrial School at Stockholm had attempted to form a class, and Professor Quarnstromm had opened his classes at the Academy of Fine Arts to women. Cheered by her sympathy, a female surgeon had sustained herself in Stockholm, and Bishop Argardh indorsed the darkest picture she had ever drawn, when he pleaded with the state to establish a girls' school. It was at this juncture that Miss Bremer published Hertha. This book was a direct blow aimed at the laws of Sweden concerning women. By this time she had herself become in Sweden what we might fitly call a "crowned head." She was everywhere treated with distinction, and her sudden appearance in any place was greeted with the enthusiasm usually shown by such nations only to their princes. She said of her new book: "I have poured into it more of my heart and life than into anything which I have ever written," and, verily, she had her reward. She was at Rome, two years after, in 1858, when the glad news reached her that King Oscar, at the opening of the Diet, had proposed a bill entitling women to hold independent property at the age of twenty-five. All Sweden had read the book which moved the heart of the King, and the assembled representatives rent the air with their acclamations.

In the following spring the old University town of Upsala, where her friend Bergfalk occupies a chair, granted the right of suffrage to fifty women owning real estate, and to thirty-one doing business on their own account. The representative their votes went to elect was to sit in the House of Burgesses. Miss Bremer was not ashamed to shed happy tears when this news reached her. If she had ever reproached Providence with the bitter sorrow of her early years, she was penitent and grateful now. Then was fulfilled the prophecy which she had uttered, as she left our shores: "The nation which was first among Scandinavians to liberate its slaves shall also be the first to emancipate its women!"

BOSTON, April 26, 1866. CAROLINE H. DALL.

P. S.—To add one word to this deeply interesting and able report may seem presumptuous, but it is fitting that something be said of those women in our own country in whom we feel a proper pride. In literature, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lydia Maria Child are unsurpassed by any writers of our day. The former is remarkable for her descriptive powers, intuition of character, and rare common sense; the latter for patient research, sound reason, and high moral tone. No country has produced a woman of such oratorical powers as our peerless Anna Dickinson. Young, beautiful, and always on the right side of every question, her influence on the politics of this country for the last four years has been as powerful as beneficent. She has more invitations to speak before the first-class lyceums of the country, at two hundred dollars an evening, than she can accept, and draws crowded houses wherever she goes.

PHYSICAL CULTURE.

A friend who had visited Vassar College, after mentioning the fact of its two women professors—Miss Mitchell and Miss Avery—informed us that Elizabeth M. Powell is teacher of gymnastics there, and wonders whether success may not win for Miss Powell a place in the Faculty. There are literary societies in which the girls write and read essays, and give recitations, and have discussions, and President Raymond drills them in elocution or public entertainments. And yet, our friend says, "I dare say that it would be pronounced a very improper thing for women to speak in public, if the Faculty were to vote on the question." The influences of Vassar are altogether conservative.

Miss Mitchell is a woman of great force of character, the very soul of integrity, and entirely independent in her religious views. She thinks the theory of Woman's Rights all right, but her tastes are all against it. She dreads to be in the least conspicuous.

Miss Avery is a woman of great dignity and strength, and her presence and lectures can not fail to stimulate the girls to a noble womanhood. She tells them work is the necessity of the soul.

Miss Powell, a remarkably earnest young woman of rare moral and intellectual worth, has a grand field, and opens her work with good promise. Her first aim is to do away with tight-dressing. She believes that when women have deeper breathing they will have higher aspirations. That when women will apply conscience to their dress, they will be prepared for more important truths.

In the great attention given to gymnasiums everywhere, we see the dawn of a new day of physical and mental power in woman. Mrs. Plumb's institution in this city, where hundreds of girls are trained every year, is a complete success.

EQUAL EDUCATION.

ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY, CANTON, N. Y., May 4, 1866.

MISS ANTHONY:—Your letter came into my hands after some delay. I hasten to reply to your inquiries. Our college is young yet. The first class of two graduated last year. Two young ladies are to graduate at the close of this term.

We receive ladies and gentlemen on the same terms and conditions; take them together into the recitation-room, where they recite side by side; require them to pursue the same course of study; and, when satisfactorily completed, give them degrees of the same rank and honor—Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts to gentlemen, Laureate of Science and Laureate of Arts to ladies. Both sexes are required to pursue the same course of study, with the exception of civil engineering and political economy, which are merely optional studies with the ladies.

We have two departments—Academical and Collegiate. The sexes are about equal in number in each department. We have only about twenty in the Collegiate Department. Half of these are ladies, among whom are some of our best in Mathematics, Languages, and Natural Sciences.

We have also a Theological Department, to which ladies have access. We have received applications from only two yet. One, Miss Olympia Brown, is pastor of a Society in Weymouth, Mass., and is succeeding very well. She is a graduate of Antioch College as well of our Theological department. The other is now here.

Lombard University, Galesburgh, Ill., receives ladies, and takes them through the same course as gentlemen, and gives them equal degrees. I deeply sympathize with you in your efforts to raise the character and improve the condition of woman, though, perhaps, I should not be quite so radical as some in your Convention. Your cause is a good one, and I pray Heaven that it do good.

J. S. LEE, Principal of the Collegiate Department St. Lawrence University.

Genesee College at Lima, New York—a Methodist institution—opens its doors equally to women, and has graduated several young ladies. Then we must never forget to mention and bless Oberlin for its pioneer work in the equal education of women. It was Oberlin that gave us Lucy Stone, Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Sallie Holley, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, to speak early and brave words for woman and the slave. And Antioch College that graduated the Rev. Olympia Brown. Mention too should be made of Rev. Lydia A. Jenkins, who has been a successful preacher among the Universalists for the last eight or ten years, and is now settled at Binghamton, New York.

Of the MEDICAL PROFESSION it should be stated for the encouragement of the young, that there are over three hundred graduates from the several medical colleges for women, and that there is scarcely a village throughout the country but has its woman physician of greater or less skill. In New York city there are many successful physicians besides the Drs. Blackwell. Dr. Clemence S. Lozier has a practice of $15,000 a year, and owns two fine houses, all the proceeds of her own perseverance. In Orange, New Jersey, Dr. Almira L. Fowler is very popular, with a paying practice of $5,000 per year, besides a large gratuitous service. In Philadelphia are Dr. Hannah E. Longshore, with a $10,000 per annum practice, then there are Drs. Ann Preston, R. Tressel, H. J. Sartain, E. Cleveland, J. Myres, and others, with practices ranging from $5,000 to $2,000. In Utica, New York, Dr. Pamelia Bronson is a successful physician. In Albion, is Dr. Vail. In Weedsport, Dr. Harriet E. Seeley. In Rochester, Dr. Sarah R. A. Dolley numbers among her patrons many persons of wealth and fashion, who but a few years ago ridiculed the idea of a "lady doctor." Mrs. Dolley's practice brings her fully $3,000 a year. In a letter to one of our Committee Mrs. Dolley says, "May your labors be prospered, that the women of our country may have a sphere rather than a hemisphere! Dr. R. B. Glasson, of Elmira, Dr. S. Ivison, of Ithaca, New York, and Dr. Green, late of Clifton Springs, who has opened a water-cure somewhere in Western New York, all do a large amount of practice, and with the greatest acceptance to those who favor Hydropathic treatment. Dr. Ross, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has a large practice, and commands the respect of the profession. And, as Mrs. Dall says of the many noble women who served efficiently in our armies during the war without even sounding the name of the wonderful Clara Barton, so we have to say of our woman physicians, "their name is legion."