ISCENCES.

EMILY COLLINS.

The first Suffrage Society--Methodist class-leader whips his
wife--Theology enchains the soul--The status of women and slaves
the same--The first medical college opened to women, Geneva, N.
Y.--Petitions to the Legislature laughed at, and laid on the
table--Dependence woman's best protection; her weakness her
sweetest charm--Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell's letter.

I was born and lived almost forty years in South Bristol, Ontario
County--one of the most secluded spots in Western New York; but from
the earliest dawn of reason I pined for that freedom of thought and
action that was then denied to all womankind. I revolted in spirit
against the customs of society and the laws of the State that crushed
my aspirations and debarred me from the pursuit of almost every object
worthy of an intelligent, rational mind. But not until that meeting at
Seneca Falls in 1848, of the pioneers in the cause, gave this feeling
of unrest form and voice, did I take action. Then I summoned a few
women in our neighborhood together and formed an Equal Suffrage
Society, and sent petitions to our Legislature; but our efforts were
little known beyond our circle, as we were in communication with no
person or newspaper. Yet there was enough of wrong in our narrow
horizon to rouse some thought in the minds of all.

In those early days a husband's supremacy was often enforced in the
rural districts by corporeal chastisement, and it was considered by
most people as quite right and proper--as much so as the correction of
refractory children in like manner. I remember in my own neighborhood
a man who was a Methodist class-leader and exhorter, and one who was
esteemed a worthy citizen, who, every few weeks, gave his wife a
beating with his horsewhip. He said it was necessary, in order to keep
her in subjection, and because she scolded so much. Now this wife,
surrounded by six or seven little children, whom she must wash, dress,
feed, and attend to day and night, was obliged to spin and weave cloth
for all the garments of the family. She had to milk the cows, make
butter and cheese, do all the cooking, washing, making, and mending
for the family, and, with the pains of maternity forced upon her every
eighteen months, was whipped by her pious husband, "because she
scolded." And pray, why should he not have chastised her? The laws
made it his privilege--and the Bible, as interpreted, made it his
duty.