their
rights. To-night while we are here, there are gathered in
Plymouth Church, women who are laying plans to take part in the
celebration of the Centennial, in 1876. At this point in the
speaker's remarks, some confusion arose from the entry into the
hall of about 200 young women.

Mr. DENNIS GRIFFIN rose and said these women were not the Cooper
Institute class; they were parasol-makers who had been forced out
of employment by their employers, and they had come, not as women
suffragists but as women suffering, to ask of the audience their
sympathetic support, and if when the lady had finished her speech
the audience would permit the President of this Association of
working women to speak from the platform, she would explain their
grievances.

Mrs. STONE then proceeded, saying that if one thing was surer
than another, it was that woman suffrage would help every
suffering sewing woman. It had been said that the ballot was
worth fifty cents a day to a man; and, if so, it was worth just
as much to a woman. All over the Union, as this night in Plymouth
Church, women were preparing to take part in the coming
Centennial to celebrate the Fourth of July, 1876. When she heard
this she asked herself what part women had in such a celebration?
Just as men were oppressed previous to 1776, so were women
oppressed to-day. I say that women should resolve to take no part
in it. Let them shut their doors and darken their windows on that
day, and let a few of the most matronly women dress themselves in
black and stand at the corners of the streets where the largest
procession is to pass, bearing banners inscribed, "We are
governed without our consent; we are taxed without
representation." The Declaration of Independence belonged to
men. Let them have their masculine celebration and masculine
glory all to themselves, and let the women, wherever they can get
a church, go there and hold solemn service and toll the bell. "It
will give us a chance for moral protest," she continued, "such as
we shall never have again, for before another hundred years it
must surely be that the growth of public sentiment will sweep
away all distinctions based solely on sex."

At the close of Mrs. Stone's remarks, the Chairman invited the
representative of the parasol-mak