er cohorts were routed horse and foot.

When the attack upon Western women was well under way, and Mr. Rice, a
dapper little chap, looking like a freshman from high school, was
rolling out his arraignment of Denver women in particular as typical of
the nethermost depths to which the voting female may descend, Carroll
Renner wrote a few lines on a bit of paper, and gave it to one of the
ushers, and a few minutes later she had the satisfaction of watching the
portly Mrs. Briglow-Jorliss read it. When Mr. Rice had concluded his
diatribe, the lady stated in dulcet tones that Mr. Frank Earl was said
to be in the audience, and as he lived in Denver, and was known to have
strong views on this question, there was an urgent request that he
should come to the platform, that they might know from one who had long
witnessed with regret the deteriorating effects of woman suffrage that
nothing that they had heard was in any way exaggerated. She vouched for
Earl as one whom she had known since his boyhood, a member of one of the
most highly respected families in New York, and who had never failed to
reply when she had needed statistics from the field of woman's
dethronement.

There was a bustle and stir over the audience, and John Earl looked a
good deal startled, while Leonora was openly delighted. An excellent
speaker, and a trained debater, the occasion had no terrors for Frank
Earl. In fact, he confessed to himself as he made his way to the
platform, he had not had so much fun as he expected to enjoy in the next
fifteen minutes for many a long day. He was introduced with many rather
florid expressions, and began by stating his position calmly,
unmistakably, as opposed to the extension of the franchise to women. He
then made a few complimentary references to those ladies who nobly put
aside their own devotion to the home, the sphere they adorned so
admirably, in order to save their misguided suffrage sisters from the
evil effects of their mistaken zeal.

There were a good many suffragists and some suffragettes in that
anti-suffrage meeting, and Frank saw that the chilly audience had at
last thawed, melted, warmed up and was rapidly approaching the point
where it might reasonably be expected to boil over.

"I am unalterably against the extension of the franchise to women," he
repeated, and went on, "but my reasons for this opposition are concrete
and practical rather than abstract and theoretical, and are based upon
the experienc