Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/433

392 the custody of their own children, whose husbands are notoriously drunken and licentious. They are pure, good women, who, rather than part with their children, live on with men whose very breath is pollution. I know others who would like to vote themselves into the privilege of retaining their own hard earnings instead of having them sacrificed by a drunken husband. Widows have been literally turned out of doors after their husbands' death, and the property they had helped to accumulate divided among those who never earned it. Do you think such women would not change the laws of inheritance if they had the power?

"Husband and wife are one, hence one vote is sufficient," says Mr. H. Follow out the reasoning, if you please. "Both one," hence one dinner is sufficient, "both one," hence if a man is a member of a church his wife is also. In plain English, "the husband and wife are both one," and the husband is that one. Now in case that one should die, is it fair, or just, or fitting, that the widow—"the relict"—or, in the words of Mr. H., "the feminine spirit that has supplemented this masculine nature," whose hands have been tied all these years, should be called upon to pay taxes upon the share of property the law allows her? Taxation without representation was the immediate cause of the famous tea-party in Boston harbor, and, in fact, of a good many other unpleasant things that followed.

"Woman has just the sphere she wants," says Mr. H., closing the discussion. No, sir, she has not. Had those young ladies in Philadelphia who were studying medicine, and were insulted day after day by the male medical students, the sphere they wanted? Our American girls have been to Europe for the sake of pursuing their studies in medicine, and have met with kindness and courtesy, while in this land, where they are called "queens," they received only hisses. Last winter Governor Claflin of Massachusetts—one of those "irreligious and immoral" advocates of woman suffrage—reminded the gentlemen of that State who claim to be woman's representatives in the legislature, "that a wife in that State is deprived of the free control of property that was her own before marriage, and is denied an equal right in the property accumulated during the marriage partnership; that a married mother has no legal right to her child; and that a widow has not equal rights with a widower." When woman has the sphere she wants, these things will be changed.

As a majority of the men in this community are opposed to woman suffrage, I will relate one circumstance that will do to "point a moral or adorn a tale." Of course, the voters in this or any other place always elect their best men to hold office, and the board of selectmen would naturally be the very wisest and best, the "crème de la crème." Now it so happens that one selectman being away from home, there was not enough arithmetic left with the other two to make out the tax-bills for the town, and they hired a woman, the mother of two children, to do it for them. It certainly took more of her time than it would for her to have walked across the street and voted for men who could make out their own tax-bills. Then arithmetic is not a womanly accomplishment, like tatting, crocheting, etc. These things sink into our hearts, and will bear fruit in due season. 2em