gone; now, dear Mrs. Wright, won’t you give an address?  Be brave and make this beginning.  You can speak so much better, so much more wisely, so much more everything than I can; do rejoice my heart by consenting.  I wish I could see you tonight; I’m sure I could prevail upon you.  Yours beseechingly.”  She got no aid from any quarter, and went on alone through the dreary winter.  To those who were to advertise her meetings she said:  “I should like a particular effort made to call out the teachers, seamstresses and wage-earning women generally.  It is for them rather than for the wives and daughters of the rich that I labor.”

In February she returned to Rochester to look after Mr. Garrison’s lecture and entertained him at her home.  As it had been decided not to hold a convention at Albany she took this opportunity to go there and present the petitions to the Legislature.  They were referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Samuel G. Foote, chairman.  Mr. Foote was a lawyer, prominent in society, the father of daughters, and yet reported as follows on the petition asking that a woman might control her wages and have the custody of her children: 

The committee is composed of married and single gentlemen.  The bachelors, with becoming diffidence, have left the subject pretty much to the married gentlemen.  They have considered it with the aid of the light they have before them and the experience married life has given them.  Thus aided, they are enabled to state that the ladies always have the best place and choicest titbit at the table.  They have the best seat in the cars, carriages and sleighs; the warmest place in winter and the coolest in summer.  They have their choice on which side of the bed they will lie, front or back.  A lady’s dress costs three times as much as that of a gentleman; and at the present time, with the prevailing fashion, one lady occupies three times as much space in the world as a gentleman.  It has thus appeared to the married gentlemen of your committee, being a majority (the bachelors being silent for the reason mentioned, and also probably for the further reason that they are still suitors for the favors of the gentler sex) that if there is any inequality or oppression in the case, the gentlemen are the sufferers.  They, however, have presented no petitions for redress, having doubtless made up their minds to yield to an inevitable destiny.

On the whole, the committee have concluded to recommend no measure, except that they have observed several instances in which husband and wife have both signed the same petition.  In such case, they would recommend the parties to apply for a law authorizing them to change dresses, so that the husband may wear petticoats, and the wife breeches, and thus indicate to their neighbors and the public the true relation in which they stand to each other.

The Albany Register said “this report was received with roars of laughter.”  Judge Hay, Lydia