es, as extra help, for a
fortnight, and of course Maria was one of them. (I have looked at
the addresses of her letters, ever since, and not one has she sent
to Decatur). A committee has been appointed, and a report made on the
election frauds in our State, and we shall see, I suppose, whether any
help comes of it.

Now, you mustn't think, from all this, that I am an apostate from the
principle of Women's Rights. No, indeed! All the trouble we have had,
as I think will be evident to the millions who read my words, comes from
THE MEN. They have not only made politics their monopoly, but they have
fashioned it into a tremendous, elaborate system, in which there is
precious little of either principle or honesty. We can and we MUST "run
the machine" (to use another of their vulgar expressions) with them,
until we get a chance to knock off the useless wheels and thingumbobs,
and scour the whole concern, inside and out. Perhaps the men themselves
would like to do this, if they only knew how: men have so little talent
for cleaning-up. But when it comes to making a litter, they're at home,
let me tell you!

Meanwhile, in our State, things are about as bad as they can be.
The women are drawn for juries, the same as ever, but (except in
Whittletown, where they have a separate room,) no respectable woman
goes, and the fines come heavy on some of us. The demoralization among
our help is so bad, that we are going to try Co-operative Housekeeping.
If that don't succeed, I shall get brother Samuel, who lives in
California, to send me two Chinamen, one for cook and chamber-boy, and
one as nurse for Melissa. I console myself with thinking that the end of
it all must be good, since the principle is right: but, dear me! I had
no idea that I should be called upon to go through such tribulation.

Now the reason I write--and I suppose I must hurry to the end, or you
will be out of all patience--is to beg, and insist, and implore my
sisters in other States to lose no more time, but at once to coax, or
melt, or threaten the men into accepting their claims. We are now so
isolated in our rights that we are obliged to bear more than our proper
share of the burden. When the States around us shall be so far advanced,
there will be a chance for new stateswomen to spring up, and fill Mrs.
Whiston's place, and we shall then, I firmly believe, devise a plan to
cleanse the great Augean stable of politics by turning into it the river
of female honesty