ct
has already been referred.

Mr. ELDRIDGE.--I ask that the petition be read.

The SPEAKER.--With the names?

Mr. ELDRIDGE.--Certainly.

The SPEAKER.--That would require unanimous consent.

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts.--I pray that may not be done,
because I promised the Committee on Appropriations not to take
much time. I ask that the petition simply be read.

The Clerk read as follows:

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

The undersigned, citizens of the United States, pray your
honorable bodies that in any proposed amendment to the
Constitution which may come before you in regard to suffrage
in the District of Columbia or any Territory, the right of
voting may be given to women on the same terms as to men.

The petition was then referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

IN THE HOUSE, JANUARY 29, 1872.--MR. PARKER, of Missouri,
introduced a bill (H. R. No. 1277) to allow women to vote and
hold office in the Territories of the United States; which was
read a first and second time, referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary, and ordered to be printed.

IN UNITED STATES SENATE ON JANUARY 29, 1872.--THE VICE-PRESIDENT
said:--The Chair has been requested to present the protest of
ladies of the county of Munroe, Indiana, signed by Mrs. Morton C.
Hunter, Mrs. A. Y. Moore, and several hundred other ladies,
remonstrating against an extension of the right of suffrage to
women, "because the Holy Scripture inculcates a different and for
us a higher sphere, apart from public life; because as women we
find a full measure of duties, cares, and responsibilities
devolving upon us, and we are therefore unwilling to bear other
and heavier burdens, and those unsuited to our physical
organization; because we hold that an extension of suffrage would
be adverse to the interests of the working women of the country,
with whom we heartily sympathize: because these changes must
introduce a fruitful element of discord in the existing marriage
relation, which would tend to the infinite detriment of children,
and increase the already alarming prevalence of divorce through
the land; because no general law affecting the condition of all
women shou