that the strictest laws can not be enforced if a great
number of people determine to drink liquor; secondly, because
among women voters we should find in our cities thousands of
foreign birth who habitually drink beer and spirits daily without
intoxication, and who regard license or prohibitory laws as an
infringement of their liberty. It has been said that municipal
suffrage for women in England has proved a political success. Even
if this is true, it offers no parallel to the condition of things
in our own cities. First, because there is in England a property
qualification required to vote, which excludes the more ignorant
and irresponsible classes, and makes women voters few and
generally intelligent; secondly, because England is an old,
conservative country, with much emigration and but little
immigration.

Here is a constant influx of foreigners: illiterate, without love
of our country or interest in, or knowledge of, the history of our
liberties, to whom, after a short residence, we give a full share
in our government. The result begins to be alarming--enormous
taxation, purchasable votes, demagogism,--all these alarm the
more thoughtful, and we are not yet sure of the end. It is a wise
thought that the possible bayonet or ruder weapon in the hands
of our new citizens would be even worse than the ballot, and our
safer course is to give the immigrants a stake and interest in
the government. But when we learn that on an average one thousand
immigrants per week landed at the port of Boston in the past
calendar year, is it not well to consider carefully how we double,
and more than double, the popular vote, with all its dangers and
its ingredients of ignorance and irresponsibility. Last of all, it
must be considered that the lives of men and women are essentially
different.

One sex lives in public, in constant conflict with the world; the
other sex must live chiefly in private and domestic life, or
the race will be without homes and gradually die out. If nearly
one-half of the male voters of our State forego their duty or
privilege, as is the fact, what proportion of women would exercise
the suffrage? Probably a very small one. The heaviest vote would
be in the cities, as now, and the ignorant and unfit women would
be the ready prey of the unscrupulous demagogue. Women