Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/1032

Rh Quaker statesman was heard by the admiring thousands who could crowd into Victoria Hall, while thousands, equally desirous to hear, failed to get tickets of admission. It was a magnificent sight, and altogether a most impressive gathering of the people. Miss Anthony with her friends sat in the gallery opposite the great platform, where they had a fine view of the whole audience. When John Bright, escorted by Sir Wilfred Lawson, took his seat, the immense audience rose, waving hats and handkerchiefs and with the wildest enthusiasm giving cheer after cheer in honor of the great leader. Sir Wilfred Lawson in his introductory remarks facetiously alluded to the resolution adopted by the conference as somewhat in advance of the ideas of the speaker of the evening. The house broke into roars of laughter, while the father of Liberalism, perfectly convulsed, joined in the general merriment.

But when at length his time to speak had come, and Mr. Bright went over the many steps of progress that had been taken by the Liberal party, he cunningly dodged all in the direction of the emancipation of the women of England. He skipped round the agitation in 1867 and John Stuart Mill's amendment presented at that time in the House of Commons; the extension of the municipal suffrage in 1869; the participation of women in the establishment of national schools under the law of 1870, both as voters and members of school-boards; the Married Woman's Property bill of 1882; the large and increasing vote for the extension of parliamentary suffrage in the House of Commons, and the adoption of the resolution by that great conference the day before. All these successive steps towards woman's emancipation he carefully remembered to forget.

During Miss Anthony's stay in Leeds she and her cousin, Dr. Fannie Dickinson, were guests of Mrs. Hannah Ford at Adel Grange, an old and lovely suburban home, where she met many interesting women, members of the school-board, poor-law guardians and others. The three daughters of Mrs. Ford, though possessed of ample incomes, have each a purpose in life; one had gathered hundreds of factory girls into evening schools, where she taught them to cut and make their garments, as well as to read and write; one was an artist and the third a musician, having studied in London and Florence. It was during this ever-to-be-remembered week that Miss Anthony, escorted by Mrs. Ford, visited Haworth, the bleak and lonely home of the Brontés. It was a