Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/413

372 Our second annual meeting was a grand success, if we count by money and numbers. The intense cold on Wednesday and Thursday made our audiences thinner than heretofore, but they were large in spite of the elements. Mrs. Churchill and Mrs. Emma Coe Still, who had never presented the subject here before, were well received. Rev. Dr. Savage of Franklin made an excellent address, and encouraged us by timely suggestions. Stephen S. Foster aroused us, as he always does, with his bold declarations. The resolutions adopted look toward future work, and embody the principles which move us to act.

Lucy Stone, in the Woman's Journal of June 14, 1871, says:

The Select Committee, Harry Bingham, chairman, to whom was referred a bill for the further protection of the rights of married men, reported the bill in a new draft as follows:

Marriages shall not hereafter render the husband liable for the debts contracted by his wife prior to their marriage: Second section No marriage shall hereafter discharge the wife from liability to pay the debts contracted by her before such marriage, but she, and all property which she may hold in her own right, shall be held liable for the payment of all debts, whether contracted before or after marriage; in the same manner as if she continued sole and unmarried.

This report was signed by eight of the ten members of the committee. The minority, through Mr. Sprague of Swanzey, made a report recommending that the whole subject be postponed to the time when women in New Hampshire have the right to vote. Mr. Sprague moved that the minority report be substituted for the majority, but the motion was lost by an almost unanimous vote. The majority report was sustained in remarks by Messrs. Wadleigh of Milford and Cogswell of Oilman. The latter, hard pushed by an interrogatory concerning his social status, admitted that he was not married, but intended to be soon. The bill reported by the majority was then ordered to a second reading.

If this action should be sustained by the legislature, we can imagine some future suitor for a lady's hand telling her that he shall expect her duly to keep his house and his wardrobe in order, to prepare his meals, to entertain his visitors, to bear his children, and that she will be required by law to pay her own bills; that for this inestimable privilege she shall be called Mrs. John Snooks, and may, perhaps, have the honor of being written in the newspapers, and on her tombstone, as the relic of Mr. John Snooks. Could any woman withstand that?

The following statistics have been used by speakers in the opposition, to show that women are too ignorant to vote r

A decided sensation has been produced throughout the country by the publication in the third number of the "Transactions of the American Social Science Association "of statistics concerning the illiteracy of women in the United States. The subject has received very general discussion, and these are the conclusions reached:

I. That there is a large excess of female illiteracy. 2. That from 1850 to 1860 there was an increase of illiterate women to the extent of 53 per cent, in New Hampshire, 27 in Vermont, 24 in Massachusetts, 33 in Rhode Island, 16 in Connecticut, 37