t at the last three elections were by women. Only twelve women
in the town failed to vote in 1884. This increase is general all
over the State; and, although we have only once tried in Lincoln
Centre to elect a woman, and then failed, yet very many of the
country districts have one, some two women on the school-board,
and at one time all three members in one district were women.
That they are honest, capable and efficient is the verdict in
every case.

In the spring of 1881, Mrs. Emily J. Biggs organized the Stanton
Suffrage Society, eight miles from Lincoln Centre, with a
membership of over twenty, more than half of whom were gentlemen.
Mesdames Mary Baldwin, N. Good, T. Faulkner, M. Biggs, Mrs. Swank
and others were the leading spirits. All their meetings are
public, and are held in the school-house. Through this society
that portion of the county has become well leavened with suffrage
sentiment. Failing health alone has prevented Mrs. Biggs from
carrying this school district organization to all parts of the
county and beyond its limits, as she has been urgently invited to
do. "Instant in season and out of season" with a word for the
cause, she has, individually, reached more people with the
subject than any other half-dozen women in the society. Her pen,
too, has done good service. Over the _nom de plume_ of "Nancy,"
in the _Beacon_, she has dealt telling blows to our ancient
adversary, the _Register_. In October, 1882, the writer went by
invitation to Ellsworth and organized a society[476] auxiliary to
the National, composed of excellent material, but too timid to do
more than hold its own until the summer of 1884, when Mrs.
Gougar, and later, Mrs. Colby, lectured there, soon after which
Mrs. Ellsworth canvassed the town with literature and a petition
for municipal suffrage, which was signed by eighty of the
eighty-five women to whom it was presented, showing that there
was either a great deal of original suffrage sentiment there, or
that the society had exerted a large amount of "silent
influence." In October, 1883, Mrs. Helen M. Gougar came to fill
some lecture engagements in the southeastern part of the State.
During this visit she organized several clubs.[477]

In June, 1884, Mrs. Gougar again visited Kansas, lecturing for a
mon