The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-09-08
Women In English Politics.

omen In Enyusn fOuUlcSs
The part the women play in an English
election is one of the things which no
American can accept as an improvement
over our own methods. It may either
amuse him or shock him, but he would
not care to see it adopted at home. The
canvassing in the country from cottage
to cottage he can understand; thatseems
possible enough 1t takes the form Of a
polite visit to the tenants, and the real
object is cloaked with vague inquiries
about the health of the children or the
condition of the crops, and the tract-like
distribution of campaign documents.
But in town it is different The in
vasion of bachelor apartments by young
Primrose Danes is EN- barrassing and I'M
nice, and is the sort of thing we would
not allow our sisters to do; and the
house-to house canvass in the alleys of
Whitechapel or among the savages OF
Lambeth, which results in insult and
personal abuse, is, to our way OF think
ing, a simple impossibility. The Eng
lish, as a rule, think we allow our
women to do pretty much as they please,
and it is true that they do in many
things enjoy more freedom than their
British cousins, but the men in our
country are not SO anxious to get into
Office, greedy as they are after it, as to
allow their wives in order to attain
that end, to be even subject to annoy
ance, certainly not to be stoned and
hustled off their feet or splattered with
the mud of the Mile-End Road. Any
one in England who followed the election
last year knows to the wife of which
distinguished candidate and to the
daughters of which cabinet minister
I refer.
have seen women of the best class
struck by stones and eggs and dead fish,
and the game did not seem to be worth
the candle. I confess that at the time
was so intent in admiring their pluck
that it appeared to me as rather fine
| than otherwise, but from this calm dis
lance I can see nothing in the active work
of the English woman in politics which
| iustifies the risks she voluntarily runs OF
Insult and indignity and bodily injury.
A seat in the House would hardly repay
candidate for the loss OF one OF his
wife's eyes, or of all of his sisters front
teeth, and, though that is putting it
brutally, it is putting it fairly. !.
1t would not be fair, however, ii l left
the idea in the readers mind that the
women go into this work unwillingly
on the contrary, they delight in 1T, and
some of them are as clever at it as the
men, and go to sas great lengths, from
Mrs Langtry, who plastered her house
from pavement to roof with red and
white posters for the Conservative can
didate, to thesDuchesses who sat at the
side of the member for Westminster and
regretted that it threatened to be an or
derby meeting 1t is also only fair to add
that many of the most prominent Eng
lishmen in politics are as much opposed
to what they call the interference OF
x.ro,,,a,, ,, m o ttorc no1itica1 az thew are
to bribery land corruption, and regard
both elements of an electoral campaign
with a profound disfavor. The reply
which the present President of the
United States made to those enthusiastic
and no doubt well-meaning women who
wished to form leagues and name them
after his wife, illustrates the spirit with
which the interference of women in poll
tics is regarded in this country. But then
it is new thing to us, and it is only
right to remember that from the days
of the Duchess of Devonshire's senti-
mental canvass to the present. English
women have taken part i'll general cleo
tions; that there is precedent for 1t;
| and when you have said that of a thing
| English, you have justified it for all time
to come. The young American girl who
would not think it proper to address men
| from a platform and give them chance
| to throw things at her, must remember
| that the English girl would not give the
| man she knew a cup of tea in the AFTER
noon unless her mother were in the room
| to take care Of her. And am sure the
women inMy Candidates campaign almost
persuaded me that they, as the political
agent declared, did more than himself
to win the election. From "a General
| ing Davis, in Harper's Magazine for Sep
| tenn her