out of
her home? In the old days there was work and responsibility enough for
woman without going outside her own gate. The women were the bakers and
brewers, the soap and candle-makers, the loom-workers of the world. You
men,' she said, delicately flattering them, '_you_ have changed all
that. You have built great factories and warehouses and mills. But how
do you keep them going? By calling women to come in their thousands and
help you. But women love their homes. You couldn't have got these women
out of their homes without the goad of poverty. You men can't always
earn enough to keep the poor little home going, so the women work in the
shops, they swarm at the mill gates, and the factories are full.'

'True! True, every blessed word!' said the old newsvendor.

'Hush!' she said. 'Don't interrupt. In taking women's business out of
the home you haven't freed her from the need to see after the business.
The need is greater than ever it was. Why, eighty-two per cent of the
women of this country are wage-earning women! Yet, you go on foolishly
echoing: Woman's place is at home.'

'True! True!' said the aged champion, unabashed.

'Then there are those men, philanthropists, statesmen, who believe they
are safeguarding the interests of women by making laws restricting their
work, and so restricting their resources without ever consulting these
women. If they consulted these women, they would hear truths that would
open their blind eyes. But no, the woman isn't worthy of being
consulted. She is worthy to do the highest work given to humanity, to
bear and to bring up children; she is worthy to teach and to train them;
she is worthy to pay the taxes that she has no voice in levying. If she
breaks the law that she has no share in making, she is worth hanging,
but she is not worth consulting about her own affairs--affairs of
supremest importance to her very existence--affairs that no man, however
great and good, can understand so well as she. She will never get
justice until she gets the vote. Even the well-to-do middle-class
woman----'

'Wot are _you_?'

'And even the woman of what are called the upper classes--even she must
wince at the times when men throw off the mask and let her see how in
their hearts they despise her. A few weeks ago Mr. Lothian Scott----'

'Boo! Boo!'

'Hooray!'

''ray for Lothian Scott!'

In the midst of isolated cheers and a volume of booing, she went on--

'When he brought a resolution be