While in London Miss Anthony and I attended several enthusiastic reform meetings.  We heard Bradlaugh address his constituency on that memorable day at Trafalgar Square, at the opening of Parliament, when violence was anticipated and the Parliament Houses were surrounded by immense crowds, with the military and police in large numbers, to maintain order.  We heard Michael Davitt and Miss Helen Taylor at a great meeting in Exeter Hall; the former on home rule for Ireland, and the latter on the nationalization of land.  The facts and figures given in these two lectures, as to the abject poverty of the people and the cruel system by which every inch of land had been grabbed by their oppressors, were indeed appalling.  A few days before sailing we made our last visit to Ernestine L. Rose, and found our noble coadjutor, though in delicate health, pleasantly situated in the heart of London, as deeply interested as ever in the struggles of the hour.

A great discomfort, in all English homes, is the inadequate system of heating.  A moderate fire in the grate is the only mode of heating, and they seem quite oblivious to the danger of throwing a door open into a cold hall at one’s back, while the servants pass in and out with the various courses at dinner.  As we Americans were sorely tried, under such circumstances, it was decided, in the home of my son-in-law, Mr. Blatch, to have a hall-stove, which, after a prolonged search, was found in London and duly installed as a presiding deity to defy the dampness that pervades all those ivy-covered habitations, as well as the neuralgia that wrings their possessors.  What a blessing it proved, more than any one thing making the old English house seem like an American home!  The delightful summer heat we, in America, enjoy in the coldest seasons, is quite unknown to our Saxon cousins.  Although many came to see our stove in full working order, yet we could not persuade them to adopt the American system of heating the whole house at an even temperature.  They cling to the customs of their fathers with an obstinacy that is incomprehensible to us, who are always ready to try experiments.  Americans complain bitterly of the same freezing experiences in France and Germany, and, in turn, foreigners all criticise our overheated houses and places of amusement.

While attending a meeting in Birmingham I stayed with a relative of Joseph Sturge, whose home I had visited forty years before.  The meeting was called to discuss the degradation of women under the Contagious Diseases Act.  Led by Josephine Butler, the women of England were deeply stirred on the question of its repeal and have since secured it.  I heard Mrs. Butler speak in many of her society meetings as well as on other occasions.  Her style was not unlike that one hears in Methodist camp meetings from the best cultivated of that sect; her power lies in her deeply religious enthusiasm.  In London we met Emily Faithful, who had just returned from a lecturing tour in the United States, and were much amused with her experiences.  Having taken prolonged trips over the whole country, from Maine to Texas, for many successive years, Miss Anthony and I could easily add the superlative to all her narrations.