ash, and made a
terrible searching into dark holes and vile corners, before now.
_Female_ New York, I have faith to believe, has yet left in her enough
of the primary instincts of womanhood to give us a clean, healthy city,
if female votes had any power to do it."

"But," said Bob, "you forget that voting would bring together all the
women of the lower classes."

"Yes; but, thanks to the instincts of their sex, they would come in
their Sunday clothes: for where is the woman that hasn't her finery, and
will not embrace every chance to show it? Biddy's parasol, and hat with
pink ribbons, would necessitate a clean shirt in Pat as much as on
Sunday. Voting would become a _fete_, and we should have a population at
the polls as well dressed as at church. Such is my belief."

"I do not see," said Bob, "but you go to the full extent with our modern
female reformers."

"There are certain neglected truths, which have been held up by these
reformers, that are gradually being accepted and infused into the life
of modern society; and their recognition will help to solidify and
purify democratic institutions. They are,--

"1. The right of every woman to hold independent property.

"2. The right of every woman to receive equal pay with man for work
which she does equally well.

"3. The right of any woman to do any work for which, by her natural
organization and talent, she is peculiarly adapted.

"Under the first head, our energetic sisters have already, by the help
of their gallant male adjutants, reformed the laws of several of our
States, so that a married woman is no longer left the unprotected legal
slave of any unprincipled, drunken spendthrift who may be her
husband,--but, in case of the imbecility or improvidence of the natural
head of the family, the wife, if she have the ability, can conduct
business, make contracts, earn and retain money for the good of the
household; and I am sure no one can say that immense injustice and
cruelty are not thereby prevented.

"It is quite easy for women who have the good fortune to have just and
magnanimous husbands to say that they feel no interest in such reforms,
and that they would willingly trust their property to the man to whom
they give themselves; but they should remember that laws are not made
for the restraint of the generous and just, but of the dishonest and
base. The law which enables a married woman to hold her own property
does not forbid her to give it to the man