ap, asking that she
give it a careful reading, revise it, and send it where it would be
published; and no postage stamps accompanied this nervy request. A woman
whose grammar and rhetoric were most defective announced that she had
written a book called "The Intemperate Life of my Father;" also two
stories and a play. She would send all of them to Miss Anthony, to 'fix
up just as if they were her own and help her sell them; she wanted the
proceeds to assist her brothers who had failed in business.' It is a
common occurrence for persons to ask, without so much as enclosing a
stamp, that she prepare an address on woman suffrage and send for them
to read as their own production. One enthusiastic poem begins:

"When the grain is ripe we will gather the sheaves,
And weave a crown for your brow of laurel leaves."

A man from the great Northwest sends a long article entitled, "Sun and
Moon Bathed in Blood! Ring, Ring the Bells!" desiring that it be put in
the "index of the biography," meaning the appendix. One writes: "You are
said to be very good about assisting helpless girls; now you could not
find one more helpless than I am;" and then requests that she select,
have made and pay for a school outfit for her. Another has a great
scheme for starting a "workingwoman's home" and wants Miss Anthony to
furnish the money. The list might be extended almost indefinitely and,
while one is amused and disgusted by turns, there are among this vast
correspondence many letters which touch the heart. During the tariff
debate in Congress in 1897 a paragraph was widely published that a tax
was to be placed on tea, and this note, evidently written by a child,
was received: "My mamma goes out to work while I go to school and she
loves her cup of tea. Our groceryman tells us we will have to pay more
for it now. I have heard how good you are to the poor, do please spare
time to write to the President and ask him not to make our tea dearer.
Tell him to put the tax on beer and whiskey."

Miss Anthony is very conscientious about answering letters, too much so,
her friends think, for she is a slave to her correspondence. Sometimes,
however, she reaches the point of exasperation, as when she opened eight
pages of a faintly written scrawl beginning, "My heart goes out to you
in sympathy." "Well, I wish it would go out in blacker ink," she
exclaimed, and threw it into the waste-basket. Invitations to lecture
and to attend all sorts of gatherin