The Arizona champion., 1890-11-29
WOMEN REFORMERS.
A Successful Woman'S Rights
 Movement in Africa.
GIRLS SOLD AT EARLY kGE AS SLAVES.
Women Who Declare That They can
 Provide for Themselves.

Mir. Pauli, who lived for some time in the Cameroon region, West Africa, tells of a highly successful woman's rights movement while ago in the AkOna tribe Illustrating the fact that when women unanimously assert them in savage lands. as well as elsewhere, they are a great power in the community. In that be- nighted region women are not supposed to have any rights. When girl is 13 or 14 years old she is sold to anybody who has property enough to pay the price her father asks for her, and thereafter she works like a slave for her board and lodging and is subject to all the caprices of her lord and master. Even the bonds men in the community have more priv ileges than the free women, and some of them in time are able to support rather extensive harems of their own.
 It happened that there were some strong minded women among the Akona people, and they lifted up their voices in public places in favor of some radical social re- forms that would make the lot of woman kind rather more endurable. They were ieered at, as women reformers have been in some other lands, and were advised by the superior sex to keep on digging in the fields and pounding manioc root and thank fortune that their lot was not less tolerable Reform was evidently not to be secured by any amount of feminine protest, and so these strong minded women put their long heads together and decided upon radical and far reaching measures.
 The tribe is a small one. Nearly all the adult females in it enlisted under the ban ner of women's rights. One day there was an enormous commotiOn in that little community It was almost wholly con fined to the male population, the fact being that there was hardly woman there to share the excitement. The mothers and wives, in a most unexpected and heartless manner, had suddenly dropped their implements of drudgery, and with their children in arms and marriageable daughters had hied them through the forests to the territory of another tribe, where. at distance of eight or ten miles from their own garden patches, they were prepared to open negotiations with the lordly chapel they had left behind them.
 They knew beforehand that they would meet with hospitable reception in the tribe with which they took refuge. It happened that this tribe was larger than the Akona, and did not like them very well, and it ticllled them half to death to see the pickle in which the AkOna men suddenly found themselves. The women set themselves to work earning their daily bread, and waited without bit of impatience for an embassy from home. It was not long before the embassy put in all appearance.
 The Akona tribe was of the opinion that they could not continue in business without the female members thereof, and they wanted the women to come home The particularly strong minded spokes- man of the refugees said she was glad to learn at last that the women of their tribe were regarded as a desirable ele ment of the Akona people. As the women had taken care of all the men, it was evi- dent they were able to take care of them selves, and they hadn't the slightest in tention of going home except on certain important conditions, which she specified. Then the embassy went home to consult the chief men, who, as their harems were the largest, were the greatest sufferers by the flight of the fair sex.
 The women stipulated that they would come back if a considerable part of the agricultural duties of the community were in future turned over to the slaves, if the mothers were permitted to have something to say about the disposal of their daughters, and if several other con ditions were complied with It did not take longsfor the gentlemen of Akona to decide what to do. A day or two later the women went back in high feather, having achieved complete victory, and they have been treated very well ever since.-New York Sun.