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214 their own labours, they had completely eliminated the pleasures of existence.

"Fellow-countrywomen," exclaimed one of this shrieking sisterhood, "do not allow yourselves to be trampled on. Resist this insidious proposal of tyrant man. Be not cajoled by this sophistical talk about equal rights and equal duties for both sexes. Women, coerce your husbands in parliament, in the government, at the elections; give them no peace until they quash altogether this brutal attempt to induce you to perform what is clearly their own work. Once allow yourselves to be cajoled or forced into doing any useful work, and your despotic master, man, will soon make you do all the work; you will be reduced to the melancholy condition of Red Indian squaws, who are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water for their male oppressors, who pass their time in indolence or fighting. In place of being, as you are now, the ornaments of humanity, the glorious realisation of the perfection of human loveliness, the gems and rare flowers of creation, you will resemble the beasts and the birds, in whom the males usurp all the beauty of form, colour and voice, while the females are mere dowdy, voiceless drudges. Let us never allow ourselves to be degraded to a level with the lower animals. Wherein does the human race differ from the lower orders of beings but in the exaltation of its females above the drudgery of daily life to the æsthetical position of things of beauty, which are joys for ever? Wherein does the civilized human being differ from the outer barbarian but in the exemption of his womankind from all occupations, save those that tend to the beautifying, the adornment and the amenities of life? Resist with all your energy this vile attempt to