re having a similar effect and
significance, are occurring with amazing rapidity, and the stated
results are already visible to even the blindest observation. In
accurate depiction of the new order of things conjecture fails, but
so much we know: the woman-superstition has already received its death
wound and must soon expire.

Everywhere, and in no reverential spirit, men are questioning the
dear old idolatry; not "sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer," but
dispassionately applying to its basic doctrine the methods of scientific
criticism. He who within even the last twenty years has not marked in
society, in letters, in art, in everything, a distinct change in man's
attitude toward women--a change which, were one a woman, one would not
wish to see--may reasonably conclude that much, otherwise observable, is
hidden by his nose. In the various movements--none of them consciously
iconoclastic--engaged in overthrowing this oddest of modern
superstitions there is something to deprecate, and even deplore, but
the superstition can be spared. It never had much in it that was either
creditable or profitable, and all through its rituals ran a note of
insincerity which was partly Nature's protest against the rites, but
partly, too, hypocrisy. There is no danger that good men will ever cease
to respect and love good women, and if bad men ever cease to adore
them for their sex when not beating them for their virtues the gain in
consistency will partly offset the loss in religious ecstasy.

Let the patriot abandon his fear, his betters their hope, that only
the low class woman will vote--the unlettered wench of the slums, the
raddled hag of the dives, the war-painted _protegee_ of the police. Into
the vortex of politics goes every floating thing that is free to move.
The summons to the polls will be imperative and incessant. Duty will
thunder it from every platform, conscience whisper it into every ear,
pride, interest, the lust of victory--all the motives that impel men to
partisan activity will act with equal power upon women as upon men; and
to all the other forces flowing irresistibly toward the polls will be
added the suasion of men themselves. The price of votes will not decline
because of the increased supply, although it will in most instances be
offered in currencies too subtle to be counted. As now, the honest and
respectable elector will habitually take bribes in the invisible coin
of the realm of Sentiment--a minta