e--(I want you to notice the low wage is the main consideration in
all this)--men get these women, that they say are so tender and
delicate, to undertake the almost intolerable toil of the rope-walk.
They get women to make bricks. Girls are driven--when they are not
driven to worse--they are driven to being lodging-house slaveys or
over-worked scullions. _That's_ all right! Women are graciously
permitted to sweat over other people's washing, when they should be
caring for their own babies. In Birmingham'--she raised the clear voice
and bent her flushed face over the crowd--'in Birmingham those same
"fragile flowers" make bicycles to keep alive! At Cradley Heath we make
chains. At the pit brows we sort coal. But a vote would soil our hands!
You may wear out women's lives in factories, you may sweat them in the
slums, you may drive them to the streets. You _do_. But a vote would
unsex them.'

Her full throat choked. She pressed her clenched fist against her chest
and seemed to admonish herself that emotion wasn't her line.

'If you are intelligent you know as well as I do that women are
exploited the length and the breadth of the land. And yet you come
talking about chivalry! Now, I'll just tell you men something for your
future guidance.' She leaned far out over the crowd and won a watchful
silence. '_That talk about chivalry makes women sick._' In the midst of
the roar, she cried, 'Yes, they mayn't always show it, for women have
had to learn to conceal their deepest feelings, but depend on it that's
how they feel.'

Then, apparently thinking she'd been serious enough, 'There might be
some sense in talking to us about chivalry if you paid our taxes for
us,' she said; while the people recovered their spirits in roaring with
delight at the coolness of that suggestion.

'If you forgave us our crimes because we are women! If you gave
annuities to the eighty-two women out of every hundred in this country
who are slaving to earn their bread--many of them having to provide for
their children; some of them having to feed sick husbands or old
parents. But chivalry doesn't carry you men as far as that! No! No
further than the door! You'll hold that open for a lady and then expect
her to grovel before such an exhibition of _chivalry_! We don't need it,
thank you! We can open doors for ourselves.'

She had quite recovered her self-possession, and it looked, as she faced
the wind and the raindrops, as if she were going to wind u