Nation, and there it will remain
forever. As Milton so grandly says in Paradise Lost:

What though the field be lost?
All is not lost: th' unconquerable will
And courage never to submit or yield!

FOOTNOTES:

[164] The elections in New Hampshire were held in the spring in former
years.

[165] An account of Mrs. Gardner's voting will be found in the
Michigan chapter.

[166] WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN THE COURTS.--SHAKESPEARE REVIVED.

In the case of Hamlet _vs._ Rex, Shakespeare's reports, occurs the
following:

SCENE--CHURCHYARD.--_Enter two clowns with spades._

_First Clown._ Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully
seeks her own salvation?

_Second Clown._ I tell thee, she is; therefore make her grave
straight. The crowner hath set on her and finds it Christian burial.

_First Clown._ How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own
defense?

_Second Clown._ Why,'tis found so.

_First Clown._ It must be so, _se offendendo_; it can not be else. For
here lies the point. If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act;
and an act has three branches--it is to act, to do, and to perform.
Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

_Second Clown._ Nay, but hear you good man, deliver.

_First Clown._ Give me leave. Here lies the water. Good. Here stands
the man. Good. If the man goes to this water and drowns himself, it is
nil he, will he, he goes. Mark you that. But if the water come to him
and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of
his own death shortens not his own life.

_Second Clown._ But is this law?

_First Clown._ Ay, marry is't, crowner quest law.

It hardly needed any better authority than the above to convince
simple-minded people of the truth of the observation made by
Blackstone that "law is the perfection of human reason." But if law is
great, those who expound it are greater.

The woman suffrage trial came on. The judges endeavored to follow the
arguments as far as possible, and to religiously earn their salaries
by the attention given, if no more. The arguments were finally
finished, and the women of the country waited expectantly to hear
their legal status defined.

It took just one week for the united judicial wisdom of this District
to consider this case in all its bearings, and then the decision came.
It was about as follows:

SCENE--DISTRICT COURT-ROOM.--_Enter Judges with law books._

_First Judge._ Women are