oon of a compulsory Government education, and an educational
franchise founded thereon. But, it must be asked--and answered also--What
is there in such a test, even as it stands now, only partially applied,
which is not as fair for women as it is for men? 'Is it just that an
educated man, who is able independently to earn his own livelihood,
should have a vote: but that an equally educated woman, equally able
independently to earn her own livelihood, should not? Is it just that a
man owning a certain quantity of property should have a vote in respect
of that property: but that a woman owning the same quantity of property,
and perhaps a hundred or a thousand times more, should have no vote?'
What difference, founded on Nature and Fact, exists between the two
cases?

If it be said that Nature and Fact (arguments grounded on aught else are
to be left to monks and mediaeval jurists) prove that women are less able
than men to keep a house over their head, or to manage their property,
the answer is that Fact is the other way. Women are just as capable as
men of managing a large estate, a vast wealth. Mr. Mill gives a fact
which surprised even him--that the best administered Indian States were
those governed by women who could neither read nor write, and were
confined all their lives to the privacy of the harem. And any one who
knows the English upper classes must know more than one illustrious
instance--besides that of Miss Burdett Coutts, or the late Dowager Lady
Londonderry--in which a woman has proved herself able to use wealth and
power as well, or better, than most men. The woman at least is not
likely, by gambling, horseracing, and profligacy, to bring herself and
her class to shame. Women, too, in every town keep shops. Is there the
slightest evidence that these shops are not as well managed, and as
remunerative, as those kept by men?--unless, indeed, as too often
happens, poor Madame has her Mantalini and his vices to support, as well
as herself and her children. As for the woman's power of supporting
herself and keeping up at least a lodging respectably, can any one have
lived past middle age without meeting dozens of single women, or widows,
of all ranks, who do that, and do it better and more easily than men,
because they do not, like men, require wine, beer, tobacco, and sundry
other luxuries? So wise and thrifty are such women, that very many of
them are able, out of their own pittance, to support besid