of the people should
originate with the Commons, and not in the upper House.

During the year 1885 we sustained the loss of many of the earliest
friends of the movement; chief among these Professor Fawcett, who
from the commencement of its history had given it his firm and
unflinching support. His conviction that justice and freedom must
gain the upper hand often caused him to take a more sanguine view
of the prospect than the event has justified. He was the firm
friend of women in all their recent efforts, and helped them to
obtain employment in the civil service, to enter the medical
profession, to open the universities, and in many other ways. Next
to be mentioned is the death of Mrs. Stansfeld. She was the
daughter of Mr. William H. Ashurst, who was a staunch advocate of
freedom and may be remembered as the first English friend of
William L. Garrison. She had been a member of the suffrage
committee in London for more than sixteen years, and gave unfailing
sympathy to all the efforts made by her noble husband, James
Stansfeld, in behalf of the rights of humanity. This year has also
been saddened by the death of Mrs. Ronald Shearer, formerly Helena
Downing, an able and true-hearted woman, who had devoted her
strength and talents to the furtherance of our cause at a time when
its advocates were still the objects of ridicule and attack.

The electorate of three millions of men is now increased to five
millions, and by this extension of the suffrage the difficulty of
waging an up-hill fight in the interests of the still excluded
class has also been increased. The interests of the newly
represented classes will imperatively claim precedence in the new
parliament. Like the emancipated blacks who received the vote after
the American civil war, while the women who had supported the cause
of the Union by their enthusiasm and their sacrifices were passed
over, the miners and laborers of English counties have received the
franchise for which they have never asked, in preference to the
women who have worked, petitioned and organized themselves for
years to secure it. Women have now to appeal to this new electorate
to grant that justice which the old electorate has denied them;
they have to begin again the weary round of educating their new
masters by appeals and arguments; they will once more see their
interests "unavoidably" deferred to the interests of the
represented classes; they will once again be bidden to stand aside