engage in the great benevolent enterprises of the day.
At length an indignation meeting was announced to be held at the village
church in Wimbledon. The house was thronged at an early hour, and great
excitement pervaded the assembly, when the chairman and other officers
appeared and ascended the platform, which had been erected for their
convenience. It must be admitted that Dea. Allen, sitting in the glaring
light of the uncurtained windows, contemplated with rather wrathful
visage the ample green damask Bloomers, which adorned the lower limbs of
the several officiating ladies; but he quite forgot his anger when the
president sublimely arose, and, advancing to the front of the stand,
said in a loud, commanding tone:

"We will now proceed with the business of this convention. If there is
any person in the house that wishes to pray, she, or he, can do so. We
hold to liberty and equal rights for all."

She then stood in silence several moments, gazing over the assembly with
a self-possessed and confident air. But it appeared no person was moved
with a spirit of prayer. So the lady president, after a preparatory hem,
proceeded with the duties of her office. She, in a brief speech,
explained the reason for holding this meeting, and the object it had in
view.

"I have spoken in public before," said she; "often has my voice been
raised against tyranny and oppression in all its forms; but never until
to-day has it been my happy privilege to address so large an assembly of
the inhabitants of my native village on the holy subjects of freedom and
philanthropy. It inspires my soul with fresh courage to behold your
eager faces, for they seem to say your minds are awakening to the
demands of the down-trodden portions of your race. We hold this
convention to arouse an interest in the cause of reform, which shall
lead to strong and energetic action.

"It is too painfully true that Wimbledon is a sink of immorality, vice
and pollution, where moral turpitude stalks with giant strides, and
abominable barbarisms are practised under the glaring light of heaven.
(Sensation.) The object of this meeting is to crush the oppressor's
might, and raise his hapless victims to their proper position in
society. I call upon the women of this assembly to rise from the depths
of their degradation, rush boldly in the faces of their enslavers, and
assert their rights; and, having asserted, maintain them, even at the
point of the sword. (Sensation and