The late Lord Coleridge was once speaking in the House of Commons in support of Women’s Rights.  One of his main arguments as that there was no essential difference between the masculine and the feminine intellect.  For example, he said, some of the most valuable qualities of what is called the judicial genius—­sensibility, quickness, delicacy—­are peculiarly feminine.  In reply, Serjeant Dowse said:  “The argument of the hon. and learned Member, compendiously stated, amounts to this—­because some judges are old women, therefore all old women are fit to be judges.”

To my friend Mr. Julian Sturgis, himself one of the happiest of phrase-makers, I am indebted for the following gems from America.

Mr. Evarts, formerly Secretary of State, showed an English friend the place where Washington was said to have thrown a dollar across the Potomac.  The English friend expressed surprise; “but,” said Mr. Evarts, “you must remember that a dollar went further in those days.”  A Senator met Mr. Evarts next day, and said that he had been amused by his jest.  “But,” said Mr. Evarts, “I met a mere journalist just afterwards who said, ’Oh, Mr. Evarts, you should have said that it was a small matter to throw a dollar across the Potomac for a man who had chucked a sovereign across the Atlantic.’” Mr. Evarts, weary of making many jokes, would invent a journalist or other man and tell a story as his.  It was he who, on a kindly busybody expressing surprise at his daring to drink so many different wines at dinner, said that it was only the indifferent wines of which he was afraid.

It was Mr. Motley who said in Boston—­“Give me the luxuries of life, and I care not who has the necessaries.”

Mr. Tom Appleton, famous for many witty sayings (among them the well-known “Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris"), heard some grave city fathers debating what could be done to mitigate the cruel east wind at an exposed corner of a certain street in Boston.  He suggested that they should tether a shorn lamb there.

A witty Bostonian going to dine with a lady was met by her with a face of apology.  “I could not get another man,” she said; “and we are four women, and you will have to take us all in to dinner.”  “Fore-warned is four-armed,” said he with a bow.

This gentleman was in a hotel in Boston when the law forbidding the sale of liquor was in force.  “What would you say,” said an angry Bostonian, “if a man from St. Louis, where they have freedom, were to come in and ask you where he could get a drink?” Now it was known that spirits could be clandestinely bought in a room under the roof, and the wit pointing upwards replied, “I should say, ‘Fils de St. Louis, montez au ciel.’”

Madame Apponyi was in London during the debates on the Reform Bill of 1867, and, like all foreigners and not a few Englishmen, was much perplexed by the “Compound Householder,” who figured so largely in the discussion.  Hayward explained that he was the Masculine of the Femme Incomprise.