186

A WORD WITH THE WOMEN

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(By Elia W. Peattie.)

Miss Susan B. Anthony send the following notice:

The twenty-seventh annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage association will be held in Atlanta, Ga., January 31 to February 5. The object of these conventions is to educate women into a knowledge of their rights and duties as citizens of a republic, and through them to arouse the nation to a sense of national wrong perpetrated by the disfranchisement of half the people of the United States, in opposition to the principles of government declared by our laws and constitution.

Though twenty-six states have granted some slight concessions to women citizens, in no states of the union, save Wyoming and Colorado, are women yet admitted to the dignity of equal rights in citizenship.

In only six states of the Union are mothers conceded to be legal owners of their own children. Rev. Anna Shaw. Lillie Devereaux Blake, Carrie Chapman-Catt of Iowa, Dora Phelps Buell of Colorado, and Mary C. Francis of Ohio are among the speakers.
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It is interesting to person who were born along in the years 62-3 and 4—it is not necessary to mention names—to observe the alteration of sentiment that is continually going on between the north and south. Persons born in the years mentioned are not quite sane in all particulars. They have a certain frenzy of the brain when matters involving patriotism, and especially sectionalism, are under discussion. This is their birth mark—their sad mental heritage. Looking at the question from the point of view of a martial statesman, such as Napoleon, it may be almost said the be a pity that no war has arisen while this generation was in its prime. For if that war had involved the defense of the country, there would have risen a band of patriotic fanatics who would have counted it a privilege, so morbid is their mentality, to die in such a service. One does not mean to say that willingness to die for a country is morbid. But a desire to die for anything or anybody is certainly opposed to those wholesome laws by which nature protects and perpetuates herself. At present, the very generous action of the people of Georgia in sending relief to our people in the stricken western country brings up recollections of the old fast fading prejudice. This relief movement from Georgia is directed by ex-Governor Northen, a valiant fighter in the confederacy. The relief sent goes, to no small extent, to old union soldiers who have settled upon government land in the west. There is no use in being maudlin over this exhibition of manliness. A good American finds no occasion to express surprise at generosity, sacrifice and humanity of one of her countrymen. But certainly this will all help to lay the old ghosts—the haggard, horrible ghosts that have prevented the forming of so many friendships, embittered so many homes, caused such miserable misrepresentations. One wishes every prosperity to Georgia. But if the time should come when an “act of providence” deprives any portion of that state of its natural bounty of harvest, the corn that makes our plains blossom and rustle in the glory of summer, shall go southward to repay that which is given now.
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The mother of Florence, Maybrick sends out a most pitiful appeal to “the thoughtful people of England” for the release of her daughter, and also for the establishment of an English court of criminal appeal. With this poor mother’s review of the evidence in the Maybrick case comes Gail Hamilton’s masterly defense of her countrywoman, and also a reprint of a letter to the Liverpool Review by “A Disgusted Liberal,” who insinuates that Mr. Asquith is afraid to introduce a bill for a court of criminal appeal, because it will open a way to the reconsideration of Mrs. Maybrick’s case, in which Mr. Asquith has not shown himself as humane as might have been expected. The following is an interesting paragraph in the Countess de Roques’ defense of her daughter:

“Unfortunately, there is no open court of appeals. This is, in the opinion of learned men, the real cause of Mrs. Maybrick being still in prison: and it is astonishing that while there is in civil cases (where properly is involved) an absolute right of appeal to the slightest court of the realm, there is no similar open court (except upon points of law) where human life is concerned: and as this injustice to the subject must call for legislation to prevent other prisoners, in like circumstance, having to undergo similar sufferings, my child’s martyrdom cannot fail to produce an essential reform in the law, by which the prisoner shall invariably be “given the benefit of the doubt.”