y of the manor and hold legal courts--where a woman by law
may be a church-warden and overseer of the poor,--I do not see,
where she has so much to do with the State and Church, on what
reasons, if you come to right, she has not a right to vote.

These words from Disraeli were the spark that fired the train. In
answer to a request from Miss Jessie Boucherett, Mrs. Bodichon and
Miss Bessie R. Parkes, Mr. Mill replied that if they could find a
hundred women who would sign a petition for the franchise, he would
present it to the House of Commons. A committee was immediately
formed in London, and the petition was circulated. In two or three
weeks it had received 1,499 signatures. Among these were many who
in after years took a prominent part, not only in suffrage, but in
other movements for the elevation of women. The petition was
presented by Mr. Mill in May, 1866, and was received with laughter.
He then gave notice of a motion to introduce into the Reform bill a
provision to the same effect. The committee[539] immediately began
to circulate petitions and pamphlets. Two of these were by Mrs.
Bodichon, "Reasons for, and Objections against the Enfranchisement
of Women," being the substance of a paper she had read at the
Social Science Congress, in October, 1866. We give the text of the
petition, as it differed somewhat from those circulated in after
years:

_To the Honorable, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled:_

The humble petition of the undersigned,--showeth, That your
petitioners fulfill the conditions of property or rental
prescribed by law as the qualification of the electoral
franchise, and exercise in their own names the rights pertaining
to such conditions; that the principles in which the government
of the United Kingdom is based, imply the representation of all
classes and interests in the State; that the reasons alleged for
withholding the franchise from certain classes of her majesty's
subjects do not apply to your petitioners. Your petitioners
therefore humbly pray your honorable House to grant to such
persons as fulfill all the conditions which entitle to a vote in
the election of members of parliament, excepting only that of
sex, the privilege of taking part in the choice of fit persons to
represent the people in your honorable House.

This form of petition w