ts men from
valuing properly the work they do.

Women themselves must change these facts.

[Mrs. Dall here read some letters to show that wages were at a
starving-point in the cities of America as well as in Europe].

I am tired of the folly of the political economist, constantly
crying that wages can never rise till the laborers are fewer. You
have heard of the old law in hydraulics, that water will always
rise to the level of its source; but, if by a forcing-pump, you
raise it a thousand feet above, or by some huge syphon drop it a
thousand feet below, does that law hold? Very well, the
artificial restrictions of society are such a forcing-pump--are
such a syphon. Make woman equal before the law with man, and
wages will adjust themselves.

But what is the present remedy? A very easy one--for employers to
adopt the cash system, and be content with rational profits. In
my correspondence during the past year, master-tailors tell me
that they pay from eight cents to fifty cents a day for the
making of pantaloons, including the heaviest doeskins. Do you
suppose they would dare to tell me how they charge that work on
their slowly-paying customer's bills? Not they. The eight cents
swells to thirty, the fifty to a dollar or a dollar twenty-five.
Put an end to this, and master-tailors would no longer vault
into Beacon Street over prostrate women's souls; but neither
would women be driven to the streets for bread.

If I had time, I would show you, women, how much depends upon
yourselves. As it is, we may say with the heroine of "Adam Bede,"
which you have doubtless all been reading:

"I'm not for denying that the women are foolish. God Almighty
made 'em to match the men!" [Laughter].

Do you laugh? It is but a step from the ridiculous to the
sublime; and Goethe, who knew women well, was of the same mind
when he wrote:

"Wilt thou dare to blame the woman for her seeming sudden
changes--
Swaying east and swaying westward, as the breezes shake the
tree?
Fool! thy selfish thought misguides thee. Find the man that
never ranges.
Woman wavers but to seek him. Is not, then, the fault in thee?"

Mrs. Dall was followed by the Rev. JOHN T. SARGENT, who said:

MADAM PRESIDENT AND FRIEN