Year: 1871

! WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE AT MANITO-
voc.


At the last meeting of the Yes
perian Society, in PREDATORY re-
marks fitting her presidency on
that occasion, Miss Holmes, in al
luding to the education of woman,
said, "Give us the ballot and you
degrade us" Reason gives this
statement the high considerations
due anything that is supported by
certain indisputable facts. This
statement is supported by facts
that will remain in lasting force af-
ter fearful shriekers cease to be.
Republican government rests up
on the ballot. And the object of
every political government is to
curb violence, to sustain order.
and to secure the lives and rights Of
individuals. So it appears that
such government requires positive
physical power as preeminent ne
cessity, and hence is essentially mas
culine.


To impose upon woman the bold~
est of masculine duties, becomes
something near,if not quite equal, to
REDUCTIo AID ABSURDUM.


The sex seems to have a consti-
tutional disinclination to accept the
ballot, and those who are womanly
in an eminent degree, regard the
matter with a feeling akin to repug-
nance. However, if the ballot were
forced upon them, they might learn
to like the article, the same as their
gentle male acquaintances learn to
like cheap tobacco and bad rum.
Those of the ladies who favor this
suffrage idea, are mostly from the
class that have failed in their pecul-
lar sphere, and as a consequence
need something to feed their uneasi-
ness to which add from the other
sex certain transcendental revolu-
tionists who. shutting out the real
world from their minds, ride bare
back upon some ponied farce. Then
there is a percentage Of clever, and
comparatively thoughtless, men that
smile at the measure: so a few
thinkers whose surprising kind
heartedness runs away with their
conclusions, smile likewise. But
the more frenzied actors in this
pelitico-feminine drama flourish lin a
figurative sense) tickets of a yard
length covered with prospective
candidates. for blazing offices, the
same as matadores flourish red blank
cts before horned beasts to coax
them on for the amusement of an
imbrutcd populace.


Both the nature of woman and
that of political government con
spire in condemning this suffrage
idea. Why then urge a ''Reform
against Nature" even if it is ever so
funny and revolutionary? If one,
to quiet his spirit, must plot mis-
chief against his race, he had bet
ter cut his throat, for Christ would
forgive the suicide.


There is no way in which a hu-
man being can be SO useless as to do
that for which he is not made. But
these shriekers propose that the
Augean stable made in politics by
vulgar males, shall be cleaned out
by the spoons of domesticity. To
the phenomenon of political corrup-
ton it is proposed to tack natural
unftness. If one should by mis-
fortune lose leg, what profit
would it be to cut off the other to
gain perpendicular attitude for
his body? Such would be an anon
ally in surgery whose moral signif-
canoe it would be hard to define.


There is a class of politicians
that promise great things to the
world On condition that it will ig-
more the lessons of the past and
commence anew in kind of reck-
less empiricism of moral instincts.
The chances Of securing a millen-
ium in this way are as rare. as the
chances would be that a cross-eyed
man could repeat at midnight the
feat of that mythical character
William Tell. Instead of univers-
al happiness, there would be uni
versal hash of most unpalatable in
gradients. O.