Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/103

Rh into competition with men in all professions, she will have ceased to be woman, though she will not have become man. The experiment, could it really be made on a small scale, would not be without its interest to the students of science, though, from the conditions of the problem, it could never be made to illustrate any theory of the origin of species. To the unwomanly woman it is a virtue to be childless.

A state with an hermaphroditic form of government, if even it could exist for a generation, is by Nature doomed to extinction; it may, however, be worth while to consider what kind of being a woman would become who should take an active part in the election of a representative. As an energetic member of his committee she would have to fight the battle, foot by foot, with his opponents of either sex; she could not always sit at home and restrict herself to the use of a voting paper, because she would then tacitly admit her unfitness for political life with all its hard work and its turmoil of speech making; she would be like a foreigner giving a vote from a distance, without a knowledge of the qualities requisite for success in Parliament. It would be necessary for her to be thoroughly prepared for the fray—breeched instead of petticoated, with a voice hoarse from shouting, with her hair cropped close to her head, with her deltoid muscles developed at the expense of her bust, prepared with syllogisms instead of smiles, and more ready to plant a blow than to shed a tear. She hurries from her husbandless, childless hearth to make a speech on the hustings; with hard biceps and harder elbows she forces her way through the election mob; her powerful intellect fully appreciates all the ribald jests and obscene gestures of the British "rough;" she knows the art of conciliating rude natures, and can exchange "chaff" with a foul mouthed costermonger; or, if necessary, she can defend herself, and blacken the eye of a drunken bargee. She has learned all the catechism of politics, and when she mounts the platform she can glibly recite her duty to the world according to the side she has chosen. Experience has taught her the value of invectives, and she denounces her opponents with a choice selection of the strongest epithets; at first she speaks loud in a tone of contentment and self satisfaction; she ends by losing her temper and bawling at the top of her voice. The crowd, never very indulgent, has no mind to respect a sex which makes no claim and has forfeited all right to forbearance. The hardened lines of her face are battered with apples, brick bats, and rotten eggs—the recognized weapons of political warfare. Perhaps the very place where she stands is the mark of a storming party; and, after enjoying the glory of an encounter with a prize fighter (it may be of her own sex), she is at last brought to the ground by superior skill and strength. Then probably she retires to her home; but I, for one, had rather not follow her thither, or into that House of Parliament of which she is destined one day to become an ornament.

Such a description, I am aware, could only be applied to an