sketch by Mrs. Gaskill, one
of the characters says, "I know these men--my father was a man."
(Laughter). I think every woman can say the same. She meets men
now; she could meet nothing but men at the ballot-box, or, if she
meets brutes, they ought not to be there. (Applause). Indelicate
for her to go to the ballot-box!--but you may walk up and down
Broadway any time from nine o'clock in the morning until nine at
night, and you will find about equal numbers of men and women
crowding that thoroughfare, which is never still. You may get
into an omnibus--women are there, crowding us out, sometimes.
(Laughter). You can not go into a theater without being crowded
to death by two women to one man. If you go to the lyceum, woman
is there. I have stood on this very platform, and seen as many
women as men before me, and one time, at least, when they could
not have met any worse men at the ballot-box than they met in
this hall. (Laughter and applause). You may go to church, and you
will find her facing men of all classes--ignorant and wise,
saints and sinners. I do not know anywhere that woman is not. It
is too late now to say that she can not go to the ballot-box. Go
back to Turkey, and shut her up in a harem; go back to Greece,
and shut her up in the private apartments of women; go back to
the old Oriental phases of civilization, that never allowed
woman's eyes to light a man's pathway, unless he owned her, and
you are consistent; but you see, we have broken down the bulwark,
centuries ago. You know they used to let a man be hung in public,
and said that it was for the sake of the example. They got
ashamed of it, and banished the gallows to the jail-yard, and
allowed only twelve men to witness an execution. It is too late
to say that you hang men for the example, because the example you
are ashamed to have public can not be a wholesome example. So it
is with this question of woman. You have granted so much, that
you have left yourselves no ground to stand on. My dear, delicate
friend, you are out of your sphere; you ought to be in Turkey. My
dear, religiously, scrupulously fashionable, exquisitely anxious
hearer, fearful lest your wife, or daughter, or sister shall be
sullied by looking into your neighbors' faces at the ballot-box,
you do not belong to