ment,--Mrs. Louise Creighton and Mrs. Sidney Webb,--have
since gone over to the suffrage advocates. On the occasion of Mrs.
Fawcett's public debate with Mrs. Humphry Ward, the leader of the
antisuffragists (in February, 1909), it happened that 235 of those present
favored woman's suffrage and 74 were opposed.

The argument against the brute force statement was treated in three
excellent articles in _Votes for Women_ under the title "The Physical
Force Fallacy."[37] The most influential of the English women, together
with the women in the industries, the students of both sexes, the
workingwomen,--in short, the intellectual and professional women are in
favor of the suffragettes; and the woman's suffrage advocates have "the
spiritual certainty" that moves mountains. Let no one believe that the
appeals made on the streets, the parades of the women as sandwich-men, or
the noisy publicity of their tactics are gladly indulged in by the women.
These actions are entirely opposed to woman's nature. But the women have
recognized that these tactics are necessary and they act accordingly
because it is their duty. Such movements have always been successful.

Women do not possess the right to vote in parliamentary elections; but, if
taxpayers, they can vote in municipal affairs in the whole of Great
Britain and Ireland. The _married_ women of England and Wales have a
restricted right of suffrage, however: they are "persons" and therefore
voters in parochial elections, in the election of poor-law administrators,
and of urban and rural district councillors; but they are not regarded as
"persons" and are not voters in elections for the borough and county
councils. In one single case, in the County of London, by the law of 1900,
married women were given almost the same rights as those exercised by
married women in Scotland and Ireland.[38] The right of single or married
women to hold office (passive suffrage)[39] has prevailed in England and
Wales since 1869 in respect to the offices of guardians of the poor,
overseers, waywardens, churchwardens,--and since 1870 (Education Act) in
respect to school boards.[40] At the very first school elections women
were elected, which induced women to have themselves presented also as
candidates for the offices of poor-law administrators. In 1875 the first
unmarried woman was elected to that office, the first married woman in
1881. In the discharge of their duties in both classes of offices the
women h