Woman’s rights!  Why, the very first right we expect is to be treated better than anybody else!  Better than men treat each other as a body, and better by the individual man than he treats all other women.  I abominate the idea of equality, and to be mentally slapped on the shoulder and told I am “a good fellow.”  I shrink from the idea of independence and cold, proud isolation with my emancipated sister-women, who struggle into their own coats unassisted and get red in the face putting on their own skates, and hang on to a strap in the street-car, in the proud consciousness that they are independent and the equal of men.  I never worry myself when a man is on his knees in front of me, tying the ribbons of my slipper, as to whether he considers me his equal politically or not.  It is sufficient satisfaction for me to see him there.  If he hadn’t wanted to save me the trouble, I suppose he wouldn’t have offered.  He may even think I am not strong enough for such an arduous duty. That would not hurt my feelings either.  I have an idea that he likes it better to think that I cannot do anything troublesome for myself than to believe that I could get along perfectly without him.  In fact—­here’s heresy for you, O ye emancipated!—­I do not in the least mind being dependent on men—­provided the men are nice enough.  Let them give us all the so-called rights they want to.  I shall never get over wanting to get behind some man if I see a cow.  Let them give us a vote, if they will.  I shall want at least three men to go with me to the polls—­one to hold my purse, one to hold my gloves, and the third to show me how to cast my vote.

If women are serious in wanting to vote in politics, why do they not apply to the body politic the same methods they use with the one man which an all-wise Destiny has committed to their keeping?

If all the women in the world should make up their minds that they wanted to vote worse than anything else on earth—­worse even than they want their husbands to go to church with them—­and each woman would put on her prettiest clothes, and cuddle up to her own particular man in her softest and most womanish way, when she was begging him to get suffrage for her—­why, you all know they would do it.  Men would get it for us exactly as they would buy us a pair of horses.

Have you men ever thought about practising for suffrage in politics by giving women suffrage in love?  Surely you do not doubt that, should you do this, it would not occur to us to stuff the ballot-boxes, or to put up a ticket with any but honorable candidates for our hands.  We do not ask nor wish to indicate who shall run for office.  Let the men announce themselves candidates.  We would not take the initiative there if it were offered to us for a thousand years.  All we ask is to be given plenty of time to canvass the honor of the candidates, thoroughly to understand and investigate the platform (with an eye to how near he will come to sticking to his promises after election), and to be allowed to cast a free and untrammelled vote.