if a great number of people determine to drink liquor; secondly, because among women voters we should find in our cities thousands of foreign birth who habitually drink beer and spirits daily without intoxication, and who regard license or prohibitory laws as an infringement of their liberty.  It has been said that municipal suffrage for women in England has proved a political success.  Even if this is true, it offers no parallel to the condition of things in our own cities.  First, because there is in England a property qualification required to vote, which excludes the more ignorant and irresponsible classes, and makes women voters few and generally intelligent; secondly, because England is an old, conservative country, with much emigration and but little immigration.

Here is a constant influx of foreigners:  illiterate, without love of our country or interest in, or knowledge of, the history of our liberties, to whom, after a short residence, we give a full share in our government.  The result begins to be alarming—­enormous taxation, purchasable votes, demagogism,—­all these alarm the more thoughtful, and we are not yet sure of the end.  It is a wise thought that the possible bayonet or ruder weapon in the hands of our new citizens would be even worse than the ballot, and our safer course is to give the immigrants a stake and interest in the government.  But when we learn that on an average one thousand immigrants per week landed at the port of Boston in the past calendar year, is it not well to consider carefully how we double, and more than double, the popular vote, with all its dangers and its ingredients of ignorance and irresponsibility.  Last of all, it must be considered that the lives of men and women are essentially different.

One sex lives in public, in constant conflict with the world; the other sex must live chiefly in private and domestic life, or the race will be without homes and gradually die out.  If nearly one-half of the male voters of our State forego their duty or privilege, as is the fact, what proportion of women would exercise the suffrage?  Probably a very small one.  The heaviest vote would be in the cities, as now, and the ignorant and unfit women would be the ready prey of the unscrupulous demagogue.  Women do not hold a position inferior to men.  In this land they have the softer side of life—­the best of everything.  There are, of course, exceptions—­individuals—­whose struggle in life is hard, whose husbands and fathers are tyrants instead of protectors; so there are bad wives, and men ruined and disheartened by selfish, idle women.

The best work that a woman can do for the purifying of politics is by her influence over men, by the wise training of her children, by her intelligent, unselfish counsel to husband, brother, or friend, by a thorough knowledge and discussion of the needs of her community.  Many laws on the statute-books of our own and other States