mily gift of eloquence
and charmed her audience by her witty, forcible and telling
speeches. So numerous and so well attended have been these meetings
during these and subsequent years, that it is impossible to
exonerate men and women from the charge of willful blindness if
they still misconstrue the plain facts of the question.

[546] First in the list came six ladies, members of school-boards:
Mrs. Buckton of Leeds, Miss Helena Richardson of Bristol, Mrs.
Surr, Mrs. Westlake, Mrs. Fenwick Miller and Miss Helen Taylor,
London; then followed the opinions of ladies who were guardians of
the poor. Forty ladies known as authoresses or painters came next
on the list; among these were Mrs. Allingham, Mrs. Cowden Clarke,
Mrs. Eiloart, Mary Howitt, Emily Pfeiffer, Augusta Webster. Women
doctors came next: Dr. Garrett Anderson, Dr. Annie Barker, Dr.
Elizabeth Blackwell, Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake, Dr. Eliza Dunbar, Dr.
Frances Hoggan, Dr. Edith Pechey; and next to the doctors came Miss
Eliza Orme, the only woman who was successfully practicing law. The
section of education included the names of Mrs. Wm. Gray, and her
sister. Miss Shirreff, Mrs. Nichol (Edinburgh), Miss Emily Davies,
founder of Girton College, Miss Byers, founder of the Ladies'
Collegiate School, Belfast, Mrs. Crawshay and Miss Mary Gurney.
Nineteen ladies, the heads of women's colleges and high-schools,
next gave their reasons why they desired the suffrage. After these
came ladies engaged in philanthropic work, which included the
sisters Rosamund and Florence Davenport Hill, Florence Nightingale,
Miss Ellice Hopkins, eminent for rescue work; Miss Irby, well-known
for her efforts among the starving Bosnian fugitives; Miss Manning,
secretary of the National Indian Association; Mrs. Southey,
secretary of the Women's Peace Association; Mrs. Lucas, and Mrs.
Edward Parker, president and secretary of the British Women's
Temperance Society. The opinions were various, both in kind and in
length, some being only a confession of faith in a couple of lines,
others a page of able reasoning.

[547] Miss Tod gives the spirit to each movement in Ulster, which
is the intellectual headquarters of Ireland. She is the pioneer in
all matters of reform; she is asked to speak in churches; she
instigated the efforts which led to girls participating in the
benefits of the Irish Intermediate Education act, which was being
restricted to boys; she has organized and has won friends and votes