o vote for them, and the Chief Justice took pains to make it clear
that there was nothing in either duty repugnant to womanly habits.

The inhabitants of Ain (or Aisne) in France, lately chose nine women
into their municipal council. At Bergeres, they elected the whole
council, and the Mayor, not being prepared for such good fortune,
resigned his office. A very remarkable autograph note of the Queen of
England attracted my attention in 1865. It expressed to Lord John
Russell the Queen's dissatisfaction with Lord Palmerston. It was a
very distinct assertion of her regal prerogative, and as such Lord
Palmerston submitted to it.

Our cause has found able advocates in John Stuart Mill, _The New York
Evening Post_, and Theodore Tilton. If I were asked whether, in
connection with this gain, we have lost any ground, I should reply
that we have decidedly lost it in connection with the daily press. I
do not know any newspaper, if I except _The Boston Commonwealth_,
which will print a letter touching civil rights from any woman,
precisely as it is written. I think what we need most is to purchase
the right to a daily use of half a column of _The New York Tribune_.

RECORD AND OBITUARIES.

I have been accustomed to connect with reports of this kind, some
honorable mention of distinguished women recently dead. I can not do
this at any length after a pause of so many years, but a few names
must be mentioned, a few facts recorded. I had occasion, some years
ago, to commemorate the services of Maria Sybilla Merian, painter,
engraver, linguist, and traveler, who published, at Amsterdam, two
volumes of engravings of insects and sixty magnificent plates,
illustrating the metamorphoses of the insects of Surinam. I did not at
that time know that some of her statements had been held open to
suspicion. In the first place, she asserted that a certain fly, the
Fulgoria Lantanaria, emitted so much light that she could read her
books by its aid. Still further, that one of the large spiders called
Mygale, entered the nests of the humming-bird in Surinam, sucked its
eggs and snared the birds. To all the contention which arose over
these statements, Madame Merian could oppose only her word. Men who
knew that her statements in regard to Europe were indisputable,
decided that her word could not be taken in Asia. A very common folly;
but two hundred years have passed, 1866 arrives, and her justification
with it. An English traveler named Bates,