ideas were practically applied in the relations of life, women would sink from the social elevation they now hold and become the mere appendages of men.  Miss Anthony concluded with a flourish of trumpets, that the woman’s rights question could not be put down, that women’s souls were beginning to expand, etc., after which she gathered her short skirts about her tight pants, sat down and wiped her spectacles.

A letter written to Miss Anthony by her father during this tour shows that even thus early he recognized the utter inability of women to effect great reforms without a vote:  “I see notices of your meetings in multitudes of papers, all, with a few exceptions, in a rejoicing mood that woman at last has taken hold in earnest to aid in the reformation of the mighty evils of the day.  Yet with all this ‘rejoicing’ probably not one of these papers would advocate placing the ballot in the hands of woman as the easiest, quickest and most efficient way of enabling her to secure not only this but other reforms.  They are willing she should talk and pray and ’flock by herself in conventions and tramp up and down the State, footsore and weary, gathering petitions to be spurned by legislatures, but not willing to invest her with the only power that would do speedy and efficient work.”

At this time interest in the study of phrenology was at its height and while Miss Anthony was in New York she had an examination made of her head by Nelson Sizer (with Fowler & Wells) who, blindfolded, gave the following character sketch: 

You have a finely organized constitution and a good degree of compactness and power.  There is such a balance between the brain and the body that you are enabled to sustain mental effort with less exhaustion than most persons.  You have an intensity of emotion and thought which makes your mind terse, sharp, spicy and clear.  You always work with a will, a purpose and a straightforwardness of mental action.  You seldom accomplish ends by indirect means or circuitous routes, but unfurl your banner, take your position and give fair warning of the course you intend to pursue.  You are not naturally fond of combat, but when once fairly enlisted in a cause that has the sanction of your conscience and intellect, your firmness and ambition are such, combined with thoroughness and efficiency of disposition, that all you are in energy and talent is enlisted and concentrated in the one end in view.

You are watchful but not timid, careful to have everything right and safe before you embark; but when times of difficulty and danger arrive, you meet them with coolness and intrepidity.  You have more of the spirit of acquisition than of economy; you would rather make new things than patch the old.  Your continuity is not large enough.  You find it at times difficult to bring the whole strength of your mind to bear upon a subject and hold it there patiently in writing or speaking.