ating however that she should inform
him as soon as she was at liberty. She begged various speakers to
assist her but received no favorable replies. Lucy Stone wrote, "I wish
you had a good husband; it is a great blessing." Her intense desire for
help may be judged by a letter to Martha C. Wright in regard to a
meeting which had been announced for Auburn: "Mrs. Gage has gone; now,
dear Mrs. Wright, won't you give an address? Be brave and make this
beginning. You can speak so much better, so much more wisely, so much
more everything than I can; do rejoice my heart by consenting. I wish I
could see you tonight; I'm sure I could prevail upon you. Yours
beseechingly." She got no aid from any quarter, and went on alone
through the dreary winter. To those who were to advertise her meetings
she said: "I should like a particular effort made to call out the
teachers, seamstresses and wage-earning women generally. It is for them
rather than for the wives and daughters of the rich that I labor."

In February she returned to Rochester to look after Mr. Garrison's
lecture and entertained him at her home. As it had been decided not to
hold a convention at Albany she took this opportunity to go there and
present the petitions to the Legislature. They were referred to the
Senate Judiciary Committee, Samuel G. Foote, chairman. Mr. Foote was a
lawyer, prominent in society, the father of daughters, and yet reported
as follows on the petition asking that a woman might control her wages
and have the custody of her children:

The committee is composed of married and single gentlemen. The
bachelors, with becoming diffidence, have left the subject pretty
much to the married gentlemen. They have considered it with the aid
of the light they have before them and the experience married life
has given them. Thus aided, they are enabled to state that the
ladies always have the best place and choicest titbit at the table.
They have the best seat in the cars, carriages and sleighs; the
warmest place in winter and the coolest in summer. They have their
choice on which side of the bed they will lie, front or back. A
lady's dress costs three times as much as that of a gentleman; and
at the present time, with the prevailing fashion, one lady occupies
three times as much space in the world as a gentleman. It has thus
appeared to the married gentlemen of your committee, being a
majority (the bachelors