Our afternoon meeting of women alone was a sad spectacle.  There was scarcely a sunny, joyous countenance in the whole 300, but a vast number of deep-lined, careworn, long-suffering faces—­more so, even, than those of our own pioneer farmers’ and settlers’ wives, as I have many times looked into them.  Their life of dependence on men is even more dreadful than that of monogamy, for here it is two, six, a dozen women and their great broods of children each and all dependent on the one man.  Think of fifteen, twenty, thirty pairs of shoes at one strike, or as many hats and dresses!...

But when I look back into the States, what sorrow, what broken hearts are there because of husbands taking to themselves new friendships, just as really wives as are these, and the legal wife feeling even more wronged and neglected.  I have not the least doubt but the suffering there equals that here—­the difference is that here it is a religious duty for the man to commit the crime against the first wife, and for her to accept the new-comer into the family with a cheerful face; while there the wrong is done against law and public sentiment.  But even the most devoted Mormon women say it takes a great deal of grace to accept the other wives, and be just as happy when the husband devotes himself to any of them as to herself, yet the faithful Saint attains to such angelic heights and finds her glory and the Lord’s in so doing.  The system of the subjection of woman here finds its limit, and she touches the lowest depths of her degradation.

The empire totters and Brigham feels the ground sliding from under his feet.  These men will be very likely to try the “variety” plan of Stephen Pearl Andrews, but the women will hate that even worse than polygamy.  One man came to me relating a new vision, direct from Christ himself, to that effect, and I said:  “Away with your man-visions!  Women propose to reject them all, and begin to dream dreams for themselves.”

While at Salt Lake they received complimentary passes to California and throughout that State, from Governor Leland Stanford, always a helpful friend to woman suffrage.  They reached San Francisco July 9, and took rooms at the Grand Hotel, at that time the best in the city.  Their coming had been heralded by the press and they experienced the royal California welcome, receiving flowers, fruit, calls and invitations in abundance.  Mrs. Stanton made her first speech in Platt’s Hall to an audience of 1,200; all seemed delighted and the papers were very complimentary.  At that time the whole coast was much excited over the murder of A.P.  Crittenden by Laura D. Fair, and the entire weight of opinion was against her.  Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, always ready to defend their sex, determined to hear the story from her own lips, hoping for the sake of womanhood to learn some mitigating circumstances.  The afternoon papers came out with an attack upon them for making this visit to the jail, and in the evening at Miss Anthony’s first lecture there was an immense audience, including many friends of Crittenden, determined that there should be no justification of the woman who killed him.