movement was an insult to
women.

The one absorbing interest, then, was the Queen's Jubilee. Ladies formed
societies to collect funds to place at the disposal of the Queen. Every
little village was divided into districts, and different ladies took the
rounds, begging pennies at every door of servants and the laboring
masses, and pounds of the wealthy people. One of them paid us a visit.
She asked the maid who opened the door to see the rest of the servants,
and she begged a penny of each of them. She then asked to see the
mistress. My daughter descended; but, instead of a pound, she gave her a
lecture on the Queen's avarice. When the fund was started the people
supposed the Queen was to return it all to the people in liberal
endowments of charitable institutions, but her Majesty proposed to build
a monument to Prince Albert, although he already had one in London. "The
Queen," said my daughter, "should celebrate her Jubilee by giving good
gifts to her subjects, and not by filching from the poor their pennies.
To give half her worldly possessions to her impoverished people, to give
Home Rule to Ireland, or to make her public schools free, would be deeds
worthy her Jubilee; but to take another cent from those who are
hopelessly poor is a sin against suffering humanity." The young woman
realized the situation and said: "I shall go no farther. I wish I could
return every penny I have taken from the needy."

The most fitting monuments this nation can build are schoolhouses and
homes for those who do the work of the world. It is no answer to say
that they are accustomed to rags and hunger. In this world of plenty
every human being has a right to food, clothes, decent shelter, and the
rudiments of education. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"
when one-tenth of the human family, booted and spurred, ride the masses
to destruction. I detest the words "royalty" and "nobility," and all the
ideas and institutions based on their recognition. In April the great
meeting in Hyde Park occurred--a meeting of protest against the Irish
Coercion Bill. It was encouraging to see that there is a democratic as
well as an aristocratic England. The London journals gave very different
accounts of the meeting. The Tories said it was a mob of inconsequential
cranks. Reason teaches us, however, that you cannot get up a large,
enthusiastic meeting unless there is some question pending that touches
the heart of the people. Those who say that