My father had never heard her say as much before. He was a great conservative; so he looked tremendously astonished, and replied, in his keen, sarcastic voice: "And pray, how will you arrange it so that women shall vote?" Mother's chair went to and fro a little faster for a minute, and then, looking not into his face, but into the flickering flames of the grate, she slowly answered: Well, I say to you, as the Apostle Paul said to his jailor: You have put us into prison, we being Romans, and you must come and take us out."" That was a seed-thought in a girl's brain and heart. Years passed on, in which nothing more was said upon this dangerous theme. My brother grew to manhood, and soon after he was twenty-one years old, he went with father to vote. - Standing by the window, a girl of sixteen years, a girl of simple, homely fancies, not at all strong-minded, and altogether ignorant of the world, I looked out as they drove away, my father and brother, and as I looked I felt a strange ache in my heart, and tears sprang to my eyes. Turning to my sister Mary, who stood beside me, I saw that the dear little innocent seemed wonderfully sober, too. I said, "Don't you wish that we could go with them when we are old enough? Don't we love our country just as well as they do?" and her little frightened voice piped out: "Yes, of course we ought. Don't I know that; but you mustn't tell a soul-not mother, even; we should be called strong-minded.” 66 In all the years since then, I have kept those things, and many others like them, and pondered them in my heart; but two years of struggle in this temperance reform have shown me, as they have ten thousand other women, so clearly and so impressively, my duty, that I have passed the Rubicon of Silence, and am ready for any battle that shall be involved in this honest declaration of the faith that is within me. Fight behind masked batteries a little longer," whisper good friends and true. So I have been fighting hitherto; but it is a style of warfare altogether foreign to my temperament and mode of life. Reared on the prairies, I seemed pre-determined to join the cavalry force in this great spiritual war, and I must tilt a free lance henceforth on the splendid battle-field of this reform; where the earth shall soon be shaken by the onset of contending hosts, where legions of valiant soldiers are deploying; where to the grand encounter marches to-day a great army, gentle of mein and mild of utterance, but with hearts for any fate; where there are trumpets and bugles calling strong souls onward to a victory which Heaven might envy, and "Where, behind the dim Unknown, I thought that women ought to have the ballot as I paid the hard-earned taxes upon my mother's cottage home-but I never said as much-somehow the motive did not command my heart. For my own sake, I had not courage, but I have for thy sake, dear native land, for thy necessity is as much greater than mine as thy transcendant hope is greater than the personal interest of thy humble child. For love of you, heart-broken wives, whose tremulous lips have blessed me; for love of you, sweet mothers, who in the cradle's shadow kneel this night, beside your infant sons, and you, sorrowful little children, who listen at this hour, with faces strangely old, for him whose footsteps frighten you; for love of you, have I thus spoken. Ah, it is women who have given the costliest hostages to fortune. Out into the battle of life they have sent their best beloved, with fearful odds against them, with snares that men have legalized and set for them on every hand. Beyond the arms that held them long, their boys have gone forever. Oh! by the danger they have dared; by the hours of patient watching over beds where helpless children lay; by the incense of ten thousand prayers wafted from their gentle lips to Heaven, I charge you give them power to protect, along life's treacherous highway, those whom they have so loved. Let it no longer be that they must sit back among the shadows, hopelessly mourning over their strong staff broken, and their beautiful rod; but when the sons they love shall go forth to life's battle, still let their mothers walk beside them, sweet and serious, and clad in the garments of power. A REPORT ON REFORM. BY ELLEN S. MITCHELL. The Committee on Reform beg leave to submit the following report : In behalf of the interests of this association the committee have distributed through the year as generally as possible, this circular: CIRCULAR. To secure the best practical results from reformatory measures, organized effort among women is most earnestly desired. Will you aid in the endeavor to secure this by sending back this circular with its questions answered; 1. Is there a Reform School for girls in your State? 2. In your community are there institutions established by women, and in their charge, for the protection and reclamation of the class generally called "Magdalens?" 3. Are there Prison Associations of women for the improvement of the condition of female prisoners while under sentence, and to take charge of them upon release, for the purpose of affording them opportunities to obtain an honest livelihood? 4. Are there Children's Aid Societies of women, intended to seek out the children of vicious parents, and secure for them the instruction and proper training necessary to make them good, honest and useful citizens? 5. Are there Homes for inebriate women? 6. How far have these organizations justified the theories of their founders by successful practical results? Information with regard to existing reforms intended to raise and advance the condition of women, will be most helpful, and is solicited. Circulars may be returned to the chairman of the committee. Communications may be addressed to any member of the committee. ELLEN MITCHELL, 922 Wabash Ave., Chicago, Ill. CLARA P. BOURLAND, Peoria, Ill. MARY J. SAFFORD BLAKE, M. D., 16 Boylston Place, Boston, Mass. Seven of these circulars only have been returned. Annual reports from eleven reformatory institutions have been forwarded to the committee. From these circulars and reports the committee obtained information concerning reformatory work for girls and women in San Francisco, Buffalo, St. Louis, New York and Nantucket, Mass.* The institutions named and described in the report are the Magdalen Asylum, San Francisco; the Ingleside Home (for Magdalens), Buffalo, N. Y.; the Women's Guardian Home (for erring, tempted and destitute girls and women,) St. Louis, Mo.; the Women's Prison Association, New York; the Boys' and Girls' Aid Society, San Obviously the officers of some of the largest and most successful reformatory institutions for girls and women in the United States did not receive the circular issued by the committee, as they are not named in the report. The earnest desire of these philanthropic women to extend to others the benefits of their experience in this field of labor would have led them to furnish early and full information. Francisco, Cal.; the Children's Aid Society, Nantucket, Mass., and the New York Infant Asylum. These institutions have been established through the efforts of charitable women, who have found upon examination that the various State Legislatures have generally provided for the reformation of boys only, and have furnished neither legislation nor appropriations for the care and reformation of vagrant and outcast girls. The hopeful nature of reformatory work for outcast girls is illustrated in the Magdalen Asylum of San Francisco, where among the six hundred persons received since its opening, only six per cent. have proved utterly worthless. The Woman's Guardian Home of St. Louis concludes its annual report for 1875 with these words: "As year by year we go on with this work we grow to feel that many reforms which we have recommended as efficacious, such as the better education of girls that they may be self-sustaining, the provision of better homes for working girls, etc., etc., are merely palliatives; they do not strike at the root of this great evil. We have come to see very clearly that men must come to the rescue; they must accept for themselves the same standard of virtue demanded of women; must realize that chastity is alike binding upon both sexes. In this new faith the mother must rear her son so that he will look upon every woman not his wife, as a sister to be helped, not hindered. When this good time shall have come, the report of such a home as this, with its unhappy women and fatherless babes, will seem like a hideous story of an impossible past age." The report quotes from laws enacted in New York in 1875, requiring children over three and under sixteen years of age to be removed from alms-houses and placed in charitable or reformatory institutions. In conclusion the report says: "In the opinion of the chairman of this committee, methods should be considered, in accordance with the enlightenment of the age in regard to women, for reaching the class of girls from twelve years old to eighteen-who consentingly and recklessly lead corrupt lives. These are to be found everywhere. Wild, lawless, wayward girls; girls who will submit to no restraint whatever; girls who, if put in private reformatory institutions, run away at once, carrying as many other girls with them, and as much property as they can lay their hands on, possibly; girls who are too old for children, and too young for women; who drink just enongh to keep themselves demoralized; who live in the lowest houses and city prisons by turns; who know nothing of the real issues of life, till it is too late; then become hard, desperate criminal women or wretched, diseased inmates of city and county hospitals. Would State Reform Schools benefit such ?" REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE. BY CHARLOTTE A. CLEVELAND. THE Committee reported that they had, so far as limited time permitted, collected information as to the amount of deposits by women in savings banks, and had begun correspondence with women engaged in different business enterprises, which they hoped would so enlarge as to bring those occupied with practical business affairs to a fuller acquaintance with each other, and contribute to a better understanding of the real strength and position of women in relation to the moneyed interests of the country. For it is not true that women are all so devoid of ownership of property, so dependent for the means of a living and necessarily so helpless as we are apt to think when we contemplate the mass of wretchedness which their generally enforced poverty causes. Some women are rich, and many have pecuniary means which, when men are organized in opposition or indifference to their business interests, if they could be enabled by organization among themselves to use for a mutual advantage, would in time better the condition of all. The last year's Committee was informed that many of the savings banks kept a system of statistical accounts by which the nativity, sex, age, and even minuter circumstances of the personal history of their depositors, as well as the amount of the several deposits, was carefully preserved for the better security of depositors and easier prevention of dishonesty and fraud, and that banks keeping such accounts would probably respond readily and courteously to a proper request for statistical information. Not being able to know what banks kept such accounts, your Committee sent circulars, one of which is submitted, to about one hundred and forty savings institutions. Seventeen banks replied, nine of them giving fully or in part the information asked for. From the banks which sent full information we gather that: Whole number of women depositors not specified as native or foreign born Total Total amount of deposits by women 1,070 657 1,440 3,167 $2,107,943 47 all belonging to women in eight savings institutions in the State of New York alone. From an imperfect examination of bank reports, and according to an opinion expressed by the secretary of the Citizens' Savings Bank of New York City, it is believed that one-fifth of the whole amount of deposits in savings banks belong to women. It is also supposed to be not far from true that one-fifth of the assessed property of the country belongs to women, or is held by them in common with minor children. It is earnestly recommended to women everywhere to give their attention to collecting accurate information upon this subject. It might result in important qualifications in our customary arraignment of the order of affairs. Mrs. M. Louise Thomas, a member of this Committee, writes what I am permitted to insert here. She says: "In point of fact, women stand precisely equal to men in their rights and responsibilities as stockholders, or depositors, the difference being that they do not realize it, and are therefore more backward in looking after their interests and performing such duties as attending business meetings and sharing in the election of officers. In the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, corner of Washington Square and Walnut street, one of the oldest of its kind, if not the very oldest in the country, the number of depositors for the year ending December 31, 1875, was 10,892, of whom 5,472 were males, and 5,420 were females, or 52 more males than females. The. separate amount deposited by each class we are unable to obtain. From the beginning of the present year (1876) up to the time of making the inquiry, there had been a majority of women depositors. One month the number of men and women were precisely the same. The treasurer, to whom we are indebted for the information given, expressed much interest in the subject, and said he had not noticed before that so large a proportion of their depositors were women. "The Farmers' National Bank of New Jersey (Mt. Holly), has a still larger number of women stockholders. One of the officers assured us that the proportion (of women) was so large that there is often a difficulty in obtaining a quorum of men at their business meetings. When asked if there was any reason why women should not vote women in to fill some of the offices, he replied, 'None whatever, except that they do not do it,-they do not seem to realize their duties as stockholders, but leave it all in the hands of the men.' "In some of the building associations of Philadelphia, a large majority of the members are women, though we have yet to learn of one in which any of the officers are women, though there is no reason why there should not be, if women choose to elect them, which they ought to do, and would do, if beside earning money and investing it, they understood the power and the danger of incompetent and unfaithful officers." But all women do not so conduct themselves in reference to their business interests, and perhaps it is not just to our American women, to assume that these bank stockholders, very likely rich women who inherit the accumulations of others, represent the business ability or intelligence of the majority of our sensible country Women. * * * It is most reasonable to expect that it will be the working women of the world, who will contribute most to elevate the condition of all women. In describing the business enterprises of women, the report gave honorable mention of Mrs. M. Louise Thomas, a member of the Committee, and a successful farmer at Tacony, Pa.; of Mrs. L. Harrison, of Peoria, Ill., who has an apiary which in four years has grown from two to forty colonies of bees, besides swarms which she has sold as she had opportunity; of Miss Kate Boyd, a painter and designer at Canastota, Madison County, N. Y.; of Dr. Hilton and four other lady physicians, Mary E. Foster, a lawyer, and Kate Rogers, a portrait painter, all at Ann Arbor, Mich.; of Louise Marie Reed, a scientist, and Miss Almerdinger, a botanist in the University at Ann Arbor; of Clara H. Boylston, a telegraphic operator, and Susan Speechly, a photographer, in the same enterprising town; of Dr. E. G. Cook, a homeopathic physician of twenty years experience in Chicago; of Emily Ruggles, for twenty-one years a successful merchant in Reading, Mass., now a real estate agent; of Zilpa Morse, colored, a confectioner of Providence, Mass. The invariable undertone of the letters from all of these women was just indignation that they were deprived of the right to self-government and self-protection through the ballot, while they were required to pay taxes out of their hardly-earned The women who wash and iron and go out to house-cleaning, often to support a drunken husband, need this protection even more than others. money. The State of Michigan has done well for women, nevertheless we have somewhat against her, in that she refuses to take the one more step in the direction of equal justice. The last business enterprise named in the report is quoted from the London Spectator. Mrs. S. F. Neill seems to have given great effort to the encouragement and preservation of silk culture in Australia. The mulberry tree was very early |