ot power it would make them
dissolute and reckless and grasping, and the nobles were always
afraid of the burgher class, that if they should get political
honor, it would only puff them up and make them unmanageable, and
the burgher class, when they have obtained their political
privileges, were afraid to extend a share in these privileges to
the yeomanry, the peasantry. You never saw one upper class who
held a prerogative that could ever be made to see any reason why
the inferior class should have a share of it. It is the universal
law of the superior class to keep the privileges to themselves,
and the privileges have usually had to be wrested from them.

In the first place, what has been the effect upon woman of
enlarging the sphere of her influence? There can be no question
that from generation to generation since the introduction of
Christianity the sphere of woman has been enlarging. She has been
growing up in the scale of power; has she been going down in the
scale of moral character? You know as well as I do that they are
better, and that, instead of deteriorating their character, it
has improved them and augmented the volume of their being, and
they are women still.

But it is said that "in politics it is different." In what way is
it different? Do you hesitate to say, "Jane, on your way to
school please take these letters and drop them into the
letter-box at the corner," and your daughter does it. There is
much more trouble in doing that than to drop a ballot in the
ballot-box. Nobody thinks anything of it, although there are men
there, too. Is a woman demeaned by dropping her ballot into the
box? Does the act injure her? "Oh, no; it is not the act--it is
the scenes that she would have to meet. Go to the polls, and see
what voting means." Yes; go and see what bachelor voting means.
It is exactly the thing that we want to improve. Did you ever see
a crowd of men, the rudest in the world, who, when a lady walked
among them, did not open spontaneously and let her pass through
as if she was an angel? It is asked sometimes, "Would you like to
have your wife or daughter go to the polls and vote?" Yes--on my
arm; yes. I venture to say that there is not a precinct in the
city where well-bred ladies will not only be allowed to vote
them