tel on the unfortunate
gentlemen who were domiciled at the same house. Mr. Birney, with his
luggage, promptly withdrew after the first encounter, to some more
congenial haven of rest, while the Rev. Nathaniel Colver, from Boston,
who always fortified himself with six eggs well beaten in a large bowl
at breakfast, to the horror of his host and a circle of aesthetic
friends, stood his ground to the last--his physical proportions being
his shield and buckler, and his Bible (with Colver's commentaries) his
weapon of defence.[7]

The movement for woman's suffrage, both in England and America, may be
dated from this World's Anti-Slavery Convention.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The ladies of the Convention were fenced off behind a bar and
curtain, similar to those used in churches to screen the choir from
the public gaze.

[7] Some of the English clergy, dancing around with Bible in hand,
shaking it in the faces of the opposition, grew so vehement, that one
would really have thought that they held a commission from high heaven
as the possessors of all truth, and that all progress in human affairs
was to be squared by their interpretation of Scripture. At last George
Bradburn, exasperated with their narrowness and bigotry, sprang to the
floor, and stretching himself to his full height, said: "Prove to me,
gentlemen, that your Bible sanctions the slavery of woman--the
complete subjugation of one-half the race to the other--and I should
feel that the best work I could do for humanity would be to make a
grand bonfire of every Bible in the Universe."

CHAPTER IV.

NEW YORK.

The First Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, July 19-20,
1848--Property Rights of Women secured--Judge Fine, George
Geddes, and Mr. Hadley pushed the Bill through--Danger of
meddling with well-settled conditions of domestic happiness--Mrs.
Barbara Hertell's will--Richard Hunt's tea-table--The eventful
day--James Mott President--Declaration of sentiments--Convention
in Rochester--Clergy again in opposition with Bible arguments.

New York with its metropolis, fine harbors, great lakes and rivers;
its canals and railroads uniting the extremest limits, and controlling
the commerce of the world; with its wise statesmen and wily
politicians, long holding the same relation to the nation at large
that Paris is said to hold to France, has been proudly called by her
sons and daughters the Empire State.

But the most int