posed to know something, if they had only
kept still. (Laughter). If these papers, to which I have
referred, were all in the hands of women, and so destitute of
editorial pith and point as they now are, I should counsel
against any further efforts for the elevation of the sex,
believing the case to be hopeless. (Applause). If I mistake not,
women have a peculiar fitness for trade. Mrs. Dall says, in her
second lecture, that on the Island of Nantucket, women have
engaged in commerce very successfully. They did it in the war,
and afterward, when destitution drove the men to the whale
fisheries, and again when they went to California. They have had
much experience; and Eliza Barney tells of seventy women who
engaged in trade, and retired with a competence, and besides
brought up and educated large families of children. She says,
also, that failures were very uncommon when women managed the
business, and some of the largest and safest fortunes in Boston
were founded by women. Whenever, therefore, one shows any ability
for trade, that is her license for engaging in it--a license
granted under the higher law, and therefore valid. I went into a
bonnet store the other day, and saw a man-milliner holding up a
bonnet on his soft white hand to a lady customer, and expatiating
upon the beauties of the article with an earnestness, if not the
eloquence, of an orator. She tried it on, and he went into
ecstacies. (Laughter). It was so becoming! It was so charming! He
complimented her, and he complimented the bonnet, and had she not
been a strong-minded woman, I do not know how much of the
flattery she would have taken for truth. I thought that man was
out of his sphere: and not only that, but he had crowded some
woman out of her appropriate place, out of the realm of taste and
fashion. (Applause). When I passed out on the street, the harsh,
discordant tone of a fish-woman fell upon my ear. I saw that she
bore a heavy tub upon her head, evidently seeking by this branch
of merchandise to procure a living for herself and family. So few
were the avenues open to her, as she thought, and so much had men
monopolized the places she could fill, that she was compelled to
carry fish on her head, until she could raise money enough to
procure a better conveyance.

A