nder the eye and by the care of the
Church, the school. He comes for exercise and amusement,--he gets these,
and a ticket to destruction besides,--and whose fault is it?"

"These are the aspects of public life," said I, "which make me feel that
we never shall have a perfect state till women vote and bear rule
equally with men. State housekeeping has been, hitherto, like what any
housekeeping would be, conducted by the voice and knowledge of man
alone.

"If women had an equal voice in the management of our public money, I
have faith to believe that thousands which are now wasted in mere
political charlatanism would go to provide for the rearing of the
children of the state, male and female. My wife has spoken for the boys;
I speak for the girls also. What is provided for their physical
development and amusement? Hot, gas-lighted theatric and operatic
performances, beginning at eight, and ending at midnight; hot, crowded
parties and balls; dancing with dresses tightly laced over the laboring
lungs,--these are almost the whole story. I bless the advent of croquet
and skating. And yet the latter exercise, pursued as it generally is, is
a most terrible exposure. There is no kindly parental provision for the
poor, thoughtless, delicate young creature,--not even the shelter of a
dressing-room with a fire, at which she may warm her numb fingers and
put on her skates when she arrives on the ground, and to which she may
retreat in intervals of fatigue; so she catches cold, and perhaps sows
the seed which with air-tight stoves and other appliances of hot-house
culture may ripen into consumption.

"What provision is there for the amusement of all the shop girls,
seamstresses, factory girls, that crowd our cities? What for the
thousands of young clerks and operatives? Not long since, in a
respectable old town in New England, the body of a beautiful girl was
drawn from the river in which she had drowned herself,--a young girl
only fifteen, who came to the city, far from home and parents, and fell
a victim to the temptation which brought her to shame and desperation.
Many thus fall every year who are never counted. They fall into the
ranks of those whom the world abandons as irreclaimable.

"Let those who have homes and every appliance to make life pass
agreeably, and who yet yawn over an unoccupied evening, fancy a lively
young girl all day cooped up at sewing in a close, ill-ventilated room.
Evening comes, and she has three time