Our system of conventions, of two or three days’ duration, with long speeches discussing pointed and radical resolutions, is quite unknown in England.  Their meetings consist of one session of a few hours, into which they crowd all the speakers they can summon.  They have a few tame, printed resolutions, on which there can be no possible difference of opinion, with the names of those who are to speak appended.  Each of these is read and a few short speeches are made, that may or may not have the slightest reference to the resolutions, which are then passed.  The last is usually one of thanks to some lord or member of the House of Commons, who may have condescended to preside at the meeting or do something for the measure in Parliament.  The Queen is referred to tenderly in most of the speeches, although she has never done anything to merit the approbation of the advocates of suffrage for women.

From Glasgow quite a large party of the Brights and McLarens went to Edinburgh, where the Hon. Duncan McLaren gave us a warm welcome to Newington House, under the very shadow of the Salisbury crags.  These and the Pentland Hills are remarkable features in the landscape as you approach this beautiful city with its mountains and castles.  We passed a few charming days driving about, visiting old friends, and discussing the status of woman on both sides of the Atlantic.  Here we met Elizabeth Pease Nichol and Jane and Eliza Wigham, whom I had not seen since we sat together in the World’s Anti-slavery Convention, in London, in 1840.  Yet I knew Mrs. Nichol at once; her strongly marked face was not readily forgotten.

I went with the family on Sunday to the Friends’ meeting, where a most unusual manifestation for that decorous sect occurred.  I had been told that, if I felt inclined, it would be considered quite proper for me to make some remarks, and just as I was revolving an opening sentence to a few thoughts I desired to present, a man arose in a remote part of the house and began, in a low voice, to give his testimony as to the truth that was in him.  All eyes were turned toward him, when suddenly a Friend leaned over the back of the seat, seized his coat tails and jerked him down in a most emphatic manner.  The poor man buried his face in his hands, and maintained a profound silence.  I learned afterward that he was a bore, and the Friend in the rear thought it wise to nip him in the bud.  This scene put to flight all intentions of speaking on my part lest I, too, might get outside the prescribed limits and be suppressed by force.  I dined, that day, with Mrs. Nichol, at Huntly Lodge, where she has entertained in turn many of our American reformers.  Her walls have echoed to the voices of Garrison, Rogers, Samuel J. May, Parker Pillsbury, Henry C. Wright, Douglass, Remond, and hosts of English philanthropists.  Though over eighty years of age, she was still awake to all questions of the hour, and generous in her hospitalities as of yore.