Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/80

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��THE GOLDEN HOUR.

��Mr. Woolson has been engaged for many years in a general office business at Lisbon, as a notary public, convey- •ancer, pension and claim agent, etc., act- ing generally as a trial justice, when the services of such an officer are needed in town, and frequently as a referee under order of the Court. He was appointed an Assistant Assessor of Internal Reve- nue in 1862, and held the position for eight years. He also acted as a Deputy U. 8. Marshal in taking the census of 1870, his district comprising the towns of Lisbon, Littleton and Lyman.

In 1872, he engaged in mercantile bus- iness as a member of the firm of Wells & Woolson. general country traders,, now commanding an extensive patronage. They are also proprietors of two starch mills, and do a large business in the man- ufacture of that article during each sea- son.

In town and general public affairs Mr. Woolson has always taken a lively inter- est. He was for some time town clerk, and has been moderator of the annual town meetings in Lisbon for eleven years. A decided and active Republican, earnest in his support of his party and prompt in the use of all legitimate means to insure its success, he has not, how- ever, engaged in the unscrupulous and dishonest measures which frequently dis- grace the politics of these latter days. For several years past, the recognized

��leader of his party in his town, he has naturally come to be active in conven- tions and general party management. He has served for sometime as a member of the Republican State Committee, and was in the last campaign a member of the Executive Committee of that body, and Chairman of the Grafton County Committee. He was elected a member of the House in 1875, and re-elected last year and again this year. He served as Chairman of the Committee on Claims in 1875 and '76, and proved himself an effi- cient and industrious legislator. Several times called to the Chair, he developed a tact and readiness as a presiding officer seldom shown, even by members of long experience, to which fact, in the main, he owes his election to the Speakership at the opening of the present session, in which office he has given the highest sat- isfaction for efficiency, courtesy and im- partiality.

Mr. Woolson is a bachelor. In relig- ious sentiment he belongs to the liberal school. In social, as in public life and business circles, he commands the friend- ly regard of all with whom he comes in contact. In the prime of early manhood, with an active temperament, clear per- ceptions, a good practical judgment, laudable ambition, and enviable distinc- tion already attained, he may well look forward to an honorable and successful future.

��THE GOLDEN HOUB.

��Society, like every organization,passes through various phases of development. In the first, or savage period, it is wedded to physical force. The man is right who has the strongest arm. Brawn and mus- cle are the only ''weight of evidence," the only judge or jury. Horatius proves himself superior in physical strength to the Alban champions and is esteemed a hero forever after.

Thus it was in the beginning. The moral force had little or no recognition. Hence it came that woman in those ages was looked upon as an inferior or a

��slave. She was not created for the pur- pose of self-culture and self-development; she was made to serve man and to per- petuate the race ; for this and this only. Such is the verdict of the barbarian, — a verdict which every stride of the moral force leaves farther behind.

Those who fear that any innovation in woman's preseut position will destroy the peace of home, should have lived in those old days when there was the most perfect unity between the sexes. Then every man had this one theory of wom- an's sphere, and every woman accepted

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