The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-24 00:00:00

FEMALE SUFFRAGE.

A public meeting, at which there was a numerous
attendance of ladies, was held in the Corporation Gal-
leries, Glasgow, on Wednesday, when Miss Tay-
lour, of Belmont, Stranraer, delivered a lecture
advocating the extension of the political fran-
chise to women. The Rev. W. Smith occu-
pied the chair, and in opening the proceedings he said the
political ideas of our ladies just now were not particularly
clear. He was afraid too many of them would simply
vote for the best looking or best speaking man that,
came forward, or for la variety of other reasons
altogether apart from any of the great questions of the
day. But he freely confessed that in regard to
the whole question of woman's suffrage, he was in what
some of his friends would call a most unsatisfactory state.
He was, however, open to conviction—that was the least
he -could say—and he was not so bad as the opinionative
man who said he was open to conviction, but added he
would like to see the man who would convince him. In
the present case it was not a man but a woman who was
going to try it.
Miss Taylour, ;who was received with applause, then
proceeded with her lecture. She maintained that elec-
toral rights should be given to women—first, because,
living as they did under a Government, the fundemental
laws of which professed to provide for the due represen-
tation of all classes and of property, it was anomalous and
unjust that so many of those subjects and the property
they held should go unrepresented on account of sex being
made the sole ground of disqualification ; second, because,
as it was another fundamental principle of the Constitu-
tion that taxation could only be levied by a Parliament
elected by the ratepayers, it was as unconstitutional as
it was unjust to impose the burden on women while
withholding from them the privileges belonging thereto ;
and third, as vast numbers of women in the present
day were forced to be self-supporting, it was not only
unjust, but cruel, to lay upon them an unneces-
sary disqualification, which often formed a serious
obstacle to them in their hard struggles for bread.
It had been objected that women did not generally desire
the franchise, and that only a very small number of them
would exercise the power if they had it. She thought
that the rapid progress of the present movement was a
distinct denial of this assertion, and last year, at the mu-
nicipal elections in England, a rough estimate shelved
that while about one out of every three men had regis-
tered his tote, one out of every five women had availed
herself of her newly-acquired privilege. Another
objection was, that as politics were quite beyond a
woman's province, and unsuited to her, she should be
excluded from them. Those who offered this objection
seemed to attach some abstruse meaning to the word
" politics." However, it meant neither more nor
less than the regulation of relations between human
beings ; and were not women human beings as well as
men ? and if so, did not politics equally concern them ?
It had been further urged that women should leave poli-
tical affairs to men, as it was unfeminine of them to come
out of private life. Now, if it was not 'unfeminine and
indecorous for a woman to dance at a public assembly or
stand behind a stall in a fancy bazaar, it surely could not
be unfeminine and indecorous for her to perform the
short, simple act of recording her vote at the
polling booth, or even, if she pleas€ d, to attend an
occasional political meeting, where the publicity was
no greater than when she went to a concert
or any place of amusement. Miss Taylour afterwards
referred to the objection that if women gained the fran-
chise they should next demand seats in Parliament; which,
she said, was confounding private right with public office.
The dislike entertained by the male sex for females
meddling with politics, and the roughness of electioneer-
ing work, so unsuited for the female constitution, were
afterwards noticed, and Miss Taylour concluded by dis-
cussing the question as to whether the political equality
of women was contrary to Scripture. No doubt, she
said, St. Paul wrote many things which might be con-
strued into a wish that woman should not be the equal
of man, but then it must be remembered that he wrote
in times when women presided as priestesses over religious
rites. Besides, the truth of particular passages could only
be ascertained by comparing them with others, and the
law of love and equality was most emphatically set forth
in the Bible. Miss Taylour resumed her seat amidst
much applause.
The Rev. Dr. Pulsford then proposed a motion award-
ing a vote of thanks to Miss Taylour, and resolving that
Mr. Stuart Mill should be requested to deliver a public
lecture on the subject of "Woman Suffrage" in this
city ; and this having been seconded by Professor Young,
wax agreed to.
A vote of thanks was afterwards given to the chairman,
and the proceedings terminated.