them the right to vote, but since Congress
had referred them to the State legislatures, they came now to ask
that the women of the District be allowed to vote. Mrs. Spencer
answered the argument so often made, that all of the bad women
would vote and the good ones would stay at home. She said in
reply to this oft-repeated objection, that she had found in
talking with that class they made the same objection to woman
suffrage that the fashionable women make, and were quite as
averse to its adoption. Again, she said statistics show the
lamentable fact that only one-fifth of this class live to be
eighteen years of age; their average length of life being only
five years, no real danger was to be apprehended from giving
woman the ballot. Mrs. Spencer spoke with feeling, and evidently
made a favorable impression upon the Committee. Mrs. Lockwood
made a few pertinent remarks. As this lady has lately been
admitted to the bar in this city, she can speak from experience
upon many points of law and fact. Miss Burr, of Hartford, asked
simply for full justice, eschewing law and legal lore upon the
subject, willing to be numbered with Plato and John Stuart Mill
on this question. Miss Couzins appealed to the heart; as so many
knock-down arguments had been hurled at their heads she preferred
to attack the heart. She said she felt great delicacy in
appearing before so much learning and wisdom, but the veteran
commander-in-chief of the forces, Miss Anthony, had ordered her
to the front, and when she told her she must spike a gun, like a
good soldier, although a raw recruit, she obeyed. Miss Anthony
introduced the speakers, and closed the meeting with a few
well-chosen words.

It was a picture worthy the brush of an old master. Eleven
lawyers seated around a table, with Benjamin F. Butler at the
head, listening to women pleading for the right of
self-government. Their faces, as they listened, every one of them
with respectful attention, was a study worthy the most thoughtful
student of human nature. Some of them listened, no doubt, for the
first time to an argument in favor of this innovation, but the
most unbelieving were evidently impressed with the earnestness
and strong feeling displayed in the advocacy of the cause. The
room was well filled with specta