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866 creatures, that full grown swallows and larks have no need of wings, and are always happiest when their pinions are broken.

The production of this pamphlet marked an era in women's suffrage literature. It was impossible after this to doubt that a large body of thinking women, not the queens of society, but the women who wrote, read, thought, or worked, were in favor of having full admission to political rights and responsibilities.

The chief work of the society had now crystallized into five or six great centres. Edinburgh, under the presidency of Mrs. McLaren, assisted by Miss Wigham and Miss Kirkland, treasurer and secretary, was the recognized centre of activity for Scotland. In Ireland there was a committee in Dublin, of which Mrs. Haslam is the most active member; and the North of Ireland Committee, led by Miss Isabella Tod. The three principal associations in England were those of London, including the east and north-east counties; Manchester, taking charge of the north of England and Wales, and Bristol looking after the West. The officers of the several committees of the three kingdoms form a National Central Committee which has its headquarters in London and superintends all of the work bearing specially upon the action of parliament.

Petitions were still sent in, but no longer in such enormous numbers. It had become evident that parliament cared little for along roll of names from the unrepresented classes; they were now chiefly collected as a means of discovering how public opinion stood in any particular district. For instance, in 1879, a petition was sent from 1,447 women householders of Leicester. The total number of women householders in this town was 2,610, of 'whom only 1,991 could be applied to, and there is no reason to suppose that public opinion was more advanced in Leicester than in the majority of large manufacturing towns.