One gentleman had the moral hardihood to assert that men had more endurance than women, whereupon a lady remarked that she would like to see the thirteen hundred young men in the University laced up in steel-ribbed corsets, with hoops, heavy skirts, trains, high heels, panniers, chignons, and dozens of hairpins sticking in their scalps, cooped up in the house year after year, with no exhilarating exercise, no hopes, aims, nor ambitions in life, and know if they could stand it as well as the girls.  “Nothing,” said she, “but the fact that women, like cats, have nine lives, enables them to survive the present regime to which custom dooms the sex.”

While in Ann Arbor I gave my lecture on “Our Girls” in the new Methodist church—­a large building, well lighted, and filled with a brilliant audience.  The students, in large numbers, were there, and strengthened the threads of my discourse with frequent and generous applause; especially when I urged on the Regents of the University the duty of opening its doors to the daughters of the State.  There were several splendid girls in Michigan, at that time, preparing themselves for admission to the law department.  As Judge Cooley, one of the professors, was a very liberal man, as well as a sound lawyer, and strongly in favor of opening the college to girls, I had no doubt the women of Michigan would soon distinguish themselves at the bar.  Some said the chief difficulty in the way of the girls of that day being admitted to the University was the want of room.  That could have been easily obviated by telling the young men from abroad to betake themselves to the colleges in their respective States, that Michigan might educate her daughters.  As the women owned a good share of the property of the State, and had been heavily taxed to build and endow that institution, it was but fair that they should share in its advantages.

The Michigan University, with its extensive grounds, commodious buildings, medical and law schools, professors’ residences, and the finest laboratory in the country, was an institution of which the State was justly proud, and, as the tuition was free, it was worth the trouble of a long, hard siege by the girls of Michigan to gain admittance there.  I advised them to organize their forces at once, get their minute guns, battering rams, monitors, projectiles, bombshells, cannon, torpedoes, and crackers ready, and keep up a brisk cannonading until the grave and reverend seigniors opened the door, and shouted, “Hold, enough!”

The ladies of Ann Arbor had a fine library of their own, where their clubs met once a week.  They had just formed a suffrage association.  My visit ended with a pleasant reception, at which I was introduced to the chaplain, several professors, and many ladies and gentlemen ready to accept the situation.  Judge Cooley gave me a glowing account of the laws of Michigan—­how easy it was for wives to get possession of all the property, and then sunder