man to vote.  And we know that many of the most intelligent and upright do not vote.  Such is the inexpressible nastiness of our elections, especially in the larger cities, that men of the cleanest morals think it right to keep away from them.  The foulest portions of the men go first, stay longest, and stand thickest at the places of voting.  How then will it be when the foulest portion of the women get packed into the same crowd, and drive modesty away by the foulness of their speech and presence?  When the aggregate filth of both sexes shall have met together at the polling stations, as it will be sure to do, we hardly think any chaste or modest home-loving woman will go near this stench unless compelled to do so.”

It is because this scheme lifts the gate to the increasing wave of corruption and pollution, that we are surprised that so-called statesmen give their countenance to it.  Give to woman the ballot, and this country is hopelessly given up to Romanism.  The priest loses the man, but he keeps the woman.  Give to the priests the control of the votes of the thousands of servants in the great cities, and there is an end to legislation in behalf of the Sabbath, the Bible, and the school system, temperance, or morality.

The right to vote implies the right to rule, to legislate, to go to Congress, and to take the Presidential chair.  On this point hear Miss Muloch.  “Who that ever listened for two hours to the verbose confused inanities of a ladies’ committee, would immediately go and give his vote for a Female House of Congress, or of Commons? or who, on the receipt of a lady’s letter of business,—­I speak of the average,—­would henceforth desire to have our courts of justice stocked with matronly lawyers, or thronged by

  “‘Sweet girl graduates, with their golden hair?’”

Well has Gail Hamilton said, “How will the possession of the ballot affect in any way the vexed question of work and wages?  One orator says, ’Shall Senators tell me in their places that I have no need of the ballot, when forty thousand women in the city of New York alone are earning their daily bread at starving prices with the needle?’ But what will the ballot do for those forty thousand women when they get it?  It will not give them husbands, nor make their thriftless husbands provident, nor their invalid husbands healthy.  They cannot vote themselves out of their dark, unwholesome sewing-rooms into counting-rooms and insurance offices, nor have they generally the qualifications which these places require. The ballot will not enable them to do anything for which their constitution or their education has not fitted them, and I do not know of any law now which prevents them from doing anything for which they are fitted, except the holding of government offices. ...  What can the ballot do towards equalizing wages, where work is already equalized without affecting wages, as is not unfrequently the case?  There are shops