upon the polls like a wolf on the fold, to annihilate his election.
Oglesby, erst warrior of Illinois, spake with such endearing
gallantry of his "dear constituents," whom he did all his wit could
do to make ridiculous, that the Senate laughed, and even Roscoe
Conkling, who never condescends to sneer at a woman in public,
turned and listened and smiled his most sardonic smile. Then
Thurman blew his loudest regulation blast--sure portent of
approaching battle--and rose and moved that the petition be
referred to the committee on public lands, of which Oglesby is
chairman. At this proposition--intended to be equally humorous and
contemptuous--the whole Senate laughed aloud.

There was one senator man enough and gentleman enough to lift the
petition from this insulting proposition. It was Senator Sargent,
of California, the husband of the woman who, though a senator's
wife, is brave enough to be the treasurer of the National Suffrage
Association. He turned to Mr. Thurman and demanded for the petition
of more than 10,000 women at least the courtesy which would be
given to any other.... Then the craven Senate declared Thurman's
motion, which was only an insult, carried. Let it be recorded of
the Senate of the Forty-fifth Congress that the one petition which
it received as a preposterous joke and treated with utter contempt
and outrage was that of tens of thousands of the mothers, wives and
daughters of the land.

The Capital of Sunday was perfectly correct when it said: "The
ladies managed the business badly. If they had employed the female
lobby, the venerable Solons would have softened and thrown open
their doors as readily as their hearts." It seems an ungracious
thing to say; but it is the truth. The woman who wins her way with
the majority of these men is the siren of the gallery and the
anteroom, who sends in her card and her invitation to the senator
at his desk. She never talks of "rights." She cares for no "cause"
but her own cause of ease and pelf. She shakes her tresses,
"banged" and usually blonde; she lifts her alluring eyes, and nine
times out of ten makes him do as she listeth. No wonder when the
earnest appeal of honest women reaches his hands, he has neither
response, honor nor justice to give it.

Miss Anthony had been speaking in all parts of the country for a
quart