Page:The case for women's suffrage.djvu/31

 Meanwhile Mrs. John Stuart Mill, Mrs. H. D. Pochin, and others kept the question alive in pamphlets and articles, and groups of women, including among them Miss Emily Davies, Miss Beale, Miss Buss, and Miss Garrett (now Dr. Garrett Anderson) were founded.

Thus officered, the scratch army grew, and its general, John Stuart Mill, boldly throwing down the gauntlet in favour of Women's Suffrage in 1865, entered Parliament. Then began the guerilla [sic] warfare which has lasted until now, reinforced year by year with ever larger battalions.

On the one side are the hosts of the mighty entrenched behind the ancient fortifications of sex domination, prejudice, and self-satisfaction; on the other is the gradually growing force of sex equality, democracy, justice, and common-sense. At its best in those early days it was but a timorous little band. Humility and subjection to man had for centuries been inculcated to such a degree upon women that the sex appeared to have lost the power of initiative. It took a second man to rouse them to sufficient energy to collect the hundred signatures which Mr. Mill said would be necessary if he were to present the first petition to the House of Commons. This man was none other than Mr. Disraeli, who on April 28, 1866, had made a powerful statement in favour of women's right to vote. The petition exceeded all expectation, 1,499 signatures were collected in a fortnight, including the names of Frances Power Cobbe, Harriet Martineau, Mary Somerville, Anna Swanwick, Josephine Butler, Priscilla Bright