a woman is
doing the work of a good man's home, she is doing her part, and
she will not desire to go out from it for any ordinary cause. But
if she can make two dollars to his one, allowing him to carry out
his part of the appointments of life, why should not she do it?
When we can be allowed to do the thousand things that womanly
hands can do as well as those of men, we shall make our lives
useful. But take my word for it, as an old mother, with her
grandchildren gathered about her, you will not find woman
deserting the highest instincts of her nature, or leaving the
home of her husband and children.

Why do you scold us, poor weak women, for being fashionable and
dressy, when snares are set at every corner to tempt us? What
would become of your dry-goods merchants and your commerce if we
did not wear handsome dresses--if the women of this country were
to become thus sensible to-day? Your great stores on Broadway
would be closed, and your stalwart six-feet men would have to
find something else to do besides measuring tapes and ribbons.
The whole country would undergo a transformation. But it would be
better for the country. It would not take five years to pay the
national debt, interest and all, if you will apply the money
spent by men for tobacco and whisky--if men will learn to be
decent. I think it is a great deal better to wear a pretty flower
or ribbon than to smoke cigars. It is a great deal better, and
less damaging to the conscience, to wear a handsome silk dress,
than for a man to put "an enemy into his mouth to steal away his
brains."

I honestly and conscientiously believe that we ought to make the
rights of humanity equal for all classes of the community of
adult years and of sound mind. I do not ask that the girl should
vote at eighteen, but at twenty-one--the same age with the boy;
and having raised both boys and girls, I think I have a right to
say that. Give us freedom from these miserable prejudices, these
restrictions and tyrannies of society, and let us judge for
ourselves. If it is true, as science asserts, that girls inherit
more of the character of their father, while the boys follow in a
more direct line their mother, then how is it possible that women
should not have the same aspirations as men? I was born a