On the other hand, it seems altogether probable that the very worst women, so far from being ostentatious in their wickedness upon election day, will, on the contrary, so disguise and conceal themselves as to deceive the very elect, and, if it were possible, the very policemen.  For whatever party they may vote, they will contribute to make the voting-places as orderly as railway stations.  These covert ways are the very habit of their lives, at least by daylight; and the women who have of late done the most conspicuous and open mischief in our community have done it, not in their true character as evil, but, on the contrary, under a mask of elevated purpose.

That women, when they vote, will commit their full share of errors I have always maintained.  But that they will collectively misuse their power seems to me out of the question; and that the good women are going to stay at home, and let bad women do the voting, appears quite as incredible.  In fact, if they do thus, it is a fair question whether the epithets “good” and “bad” ought not, politically speaking, to change places.  For it naturally occurs to every one, on election day, that the man who votes, even if he votes wrong, is really a better man, so far as political duties go, than the very loftiest saint who stays at home and prays that other people may vote right And it is hard to see why it should be otherwise with women.

HOW WOMEN WILL LEGISLATE

It is often said that when women vote their votes will make no difference in the count, became they will merely duplicate the votes of their husbands and brothers.  Then these same objectors go on and predict all sorts of evil things for which women will vote quite apart from their husbands and brothers.  Moreover, the evils thus predicted are apt to be diametrically opposite.  Thus Goldwin Smith predicts that women will be governed by priests, and then goes on to predict that women will vote to abolish marriage; not seeing that these two predictions destroy each other.

On the other hand, I think that the advocates of woman suffrage often err by claiming too much,—­as that all women will vote for peace, for total abstinence, against slavery, and the rest.  It seems better to rest the argument on general principles, and not to seek to prophesy too closely.  The only thing which I feel safe in predicting is that woman suffrage will be used, as it should be, for the protection of woman.  Self-respect and self-protection,—­these are, as has been already said, the two great things for which woman needs the ballot.

It is not in the nature of things, I take it, that a class politically subject can obtain justice from the governing class.  Not the least of the benefits gained by political equality for the colored people of the South is that the laws now generally make no difference of color in penalties for crime.  In slavery times there were dozens of crimes which were punished more severely by the statute if committed by a slave or a free negro than if done by a white.  I feel very sure that under the reign of impartial suffrage we should see fewer such announcements as this, which I cut from a late New York “Evening Express:”—­