the woman's hour has struck. Her cause is
now going through the same ordeal suffered by the classes
referred to. Her triumph is as sure as theirs. The social and
industrial changes of constitutional government in all countries
have revolutionized her condition. Fifty years ago the avenues of
employment open to women were few and restricted. To-day, in
every branch of manufacture and trade, and in the professions
formerly monopolized by men, they are actively and successfully
engaged. Every law put upon the statute books affects their
interests directly and indirectly--undreamed of in a social order
where household drudgery and motherhood limited a woman's
horizon.

It is inevitable, therefore, that, feeling the pressure of
legislation under which they suffer, a new intelligence should
stir the minds of women such as stirred the once disfranchised
classes of men in Great Britain. It leads to an examination of
the principles of self-government and to their application on
lines of equality and not of sex. In them is found no
justification for the present enforced political disability.
Therefore all legislative bodies vested with the power to change
the laws are petitioned to consider the justice and expediency of
allowing women to register their opinions, on the same terms with
men, at the ballot-box.

The principles at stake are rarely alluded to by the opponents of
woman suffrage. The battle rages chiefly upon the ground of
expediency. Every argument formerly used by the English Tories is
to-day heard in the mouths of men who profess a belief in a
democratic form of government....

In the discussion of the rights of labor, the inadequacy of
wages, the abuses of the factory system, the management of
schools, of reformatory and penal institutions, the sanitary
arrangements of a city, the betterment of public highways, the
encroachment of privileged corporations, the supervision of the
poor, the improvement of hospitals, and the many branches of
collective housekeeping included in a municipality--women are by
nature and education adapted to participate. In many States,
certainly in Massachusetts, it is a common practice to appoint
women to responsible positions demanding large organizing and
directing power. If thus fitted to rule,