Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/933

842 was appointed secretary. The Edinburgh committee elected Mrs. McLaren for their president. At a special general meeting, November 6, 1867, it was resolved that these three societies should form one national society, thus securing the advantages of coöperation while maintaining freedom of action. The same rule applied to societies in Birmingham, Bristol and other towns.

To return to the debate in the House of Commons on May 20, 1867. on clause 4 of the Representation of the People bill. Mr. Mill moved to leave out the word "man" and insert the word "person." His speech has been too long before the public to need quotation; it is a model of inductive reasoning and masterly eloquence. The debate which followed was very unequal in character, but the division was gratifying, for he received 73 votes (including pairs, 81); 194 voted against him. Mr. Mill wrote afterwards to a friend:

We are all delighted at the number of our minority, which is far greater than anybody expected the first time, and would have been greater still had not many members quitted the House, with or without pairing, in the expectation that the subject would not come on. But the greatest triumph of all was John Bright's vote.

At the election for Manchester, held near the end of 1867 (when Mr. Jacob Bright was elected), Lily Maxwell, whose name had been accidentally left on the parliamentary register, recorded her vote. No objection was taken to it by the returning officer, or by the agents of either candidate. The Times devoted a leading article to it. The circumstance was of no legal value, but it was useful to show that a woman could go through the process of recording a vote in a parliamentary election even before the Ballot act was passed. The idea gained ground that by the new Reform act the right to vote had been secured to women. The Reform act of 1867, sec. 3, declares that:

Every man shall in and after the year 1868 be entitled to be registered as a voter, and when registered, to vote for a member to serve in parliament.

In the substitution of the word "man" for that of "male person" in the Reform act of 1832, a great difference was already