The reader will see from these debates the amount of prejudice, wickedness, and violence, woman was compelled to meet from all classes of men, especially the clergy, in those early days, and on the other hand the wisdom, courage, and mild self-assertion with which she fought her battle and conquered. There is not a man living who took part in that disgraceful row who would not gladly blot out that page in his personal history. But the few noble men—lawyers, statesmen, clergymen, philanthropists, poets, orators, philosophers—who have remained steadfast and loyal to woman through all her struggles for freedom—have been brave and generous enough to redeem their sex from the utter contempt and distrust of all womankind.

NATIONAL CONVENTION AT CINCINNATI, OHIO.

In 1855, October 17th and 18th, the people of Cincinnati, Ohio, were summoned to the consideration of the question of Woman's Rights. A brief report in the city journals, is all we can find of the proceedings. From these we learn that the meetings were held in Nixon's Hall, that some ladies wore bloomers, and some gentlemen shawls, that the audiences were large and enthusiastic, that the curiosity to see women who could make a speech was intense. Martha C. Wright, of Auburn, a sister of Lucretia Mott, was chosen President. On the platform sat Mrs. Mott, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Josephine S. Griffing, Mary S. Anthony, of Rochester, N. Y.; Ernestine L. Rose, Adeline Swift, Joseph Barker, an Englishman, an ex-member of Parliament, Lucy Stone and her husband, Henry B. Blackwell, recently married. Mrs. Stone did not take her husband's name, because she believed a woman had a right to an individual existence, and an individual name to designate that existence.

After the election of officers,[19] the President stated the object of the Convention to be to secure equality with man in social, civil, and political rights. It was only seven years, she said, since this movement commenced, since our first Convention was called, in timidity and doubt of our own strength, our own capacity, our own powers; now, east, west, north, and even south, there were found advocates of woman's rights. The newspapers which ridiculed and slandered us at first, are beginning to give impartial accounts of our meetings. Newspapers do not lead, but follow public opinion; and doing so, they go through three stages in regard to reforms; they first ridicule them, then report them without comment, and at last openly advocate them. We seem to be still in the first stage on this question.

Mrs. Cutler said: "Let there be light, and there was light," "And many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." This light, this increase of knowledge, we are seeking. Men have always applied the last text to themselves, and did not expect woman to run to and fro and increase in knowledge. They objected to her raising her voice on this platform in the pursuit or diffusion of knowledge; but when she is employed upon the stage to minister to everything that pollutes and degrades man, no voice was raised against it. It was but a few years ago that a French queen brought over with her to the British Isles, a male mantua-maker. It was not supposed then that woman was capable of fitting woman's clothes properly. She has since advanced to have the charge of man's wardrobe; and it will be right when the time comes, for man to take care of himself. Conservatism opposes this now; but I love conservatism; it is guarding our institutions until the new mother is prepared to take the charge.

I desire that marriage shall not be simply a domestic union as in early days, or a social one as it has now become, but a complete and perfect union, conferring equal rights on both parties. I desire light from the source of light. The question is frequently asked, "What more do these women want?" A lady in Cincinnati told me that she did not desire any change, for she thought we had now entirely the best of it; while the men toiled in their shops and offices, the women walked the streets splendidly dressed, or lounged at home with nothing to do but spend the money their husbands earned. I never understood the elevating effect of the elective franchise until I went to England, where so few enjoy it. I attended a political meeting during the canvass of Derby, as a reporter for three or four political papers in the United States. One of the candidates proposed to legislate for universal suffrage; his opponent replied by showing the effect of it upon France, which he declared was the only country in which it existed. "You forget," exclaimed one, "America!" "America! never name her! a land of three millions of slaves." The multitude would not believe this; they shouted in derision, whenever the speaker attempted to resume. America was their last hope. If that country was given up to slavery, they could only despair. Party leaders rose and tried to calm them as Christ calmed the sea, but they could do nothing. "You are an American," said one near me; "get up and defend your country!" What could I say? I spoke, however, and pledged them that the stain of slavery should be wiped out.

Mr. Wise, of North Carolina, made a long and learned address, treating principally of geology and women. He claimed for woman more even than she for herself. He said: "Women are generally more competent to vote than their husbands, and sisters better fitted to be judges than their brothers, the mother more capable of wisely exercising the elective franchise than her booby son."

Lucy Stone said: The last speaker alluded to this movement as being that of a few disappointed women. From the first years to which my memory stretches, I have been a disappointed woman. When, with my brothers, I reached forth after the sources of knowledge, I was reproved with "It isn't fit for you; it doesn't belong to women." Then there was but one college in the world where women were admitted, and that was in Brazil. I would have found my way there, but by the time I was prepared to go, one was opened in the young State of Ohio—the first in the United States where women and negroes could enjoy opportunities with white men. I was disappointed when I came to seek a profession worthy an immortal being—every employment was closed to me, except those of the teacher, the seamstress, and the housekeeper. In education, in marriage, in religion, in everything, disappointment is the lot of woman. It shall be the business of my life to deepen this disappointment in every woman's heart until she bows down to it no longer. I wish that women, instead of being walking show-cases, instead of begging of their fathers and brothers the latest and gayest new bonnet, would ask of them their rights.

The question of Woman's Rights is a practical one. The notion has prevailed that it was only an ephemeral idea; that it was but women claiming the right to smoke cigars in the streets, and to frequent bar-rooms. Others have supposed it a question of comparative intellect; others still, of sphere. Too much has already been said and written about woman's sphere. Trace all the doctrines to their source and they will be found to have no basis except in the usages and prejudices of the age. This is seen in the fact that what is tolerated in woman in one country is not tolerated in another. In this country women may hold prayer-meetings, etc., but in Mohammedan countries it is written upon their mosques, "Women and dogs, and other impure animals, are not permitted to enter." Wendell Phillips says, "The best and greatest thing one is capable of doing, that is his sphere." I have confidence in the Father to believe that when He gives us the capacity to do anything He does not make a blunder. Leave women, then, to find their sphere. And do not tell us before we are born even, that our province is to cook dinners, darn stockings, and sew on buttons. We are told woman has all the rights she wants; and even women, I am ashamed to say, tell us so. They mistake the politeness of men for rights—seats while men stand in this hall to-night, and their adulations; but these are mere courtesies. We want rights. The flour-merchant, the house-builder, and the postman charge us no less on account of our sex; but when we endeavor to earn money to pay all these, then, indeed, we find the difference. Man, if he have energy, may hew out for himself a path where no mortal has ever trod, held back by nothing but what is in himself; the world is all before him, where to choose; and we are glad for you, brothers, men, that it is so. But the same society that drives forth the young man, keeps woman at home—a dependent—working little cats on worsted, and little dogs on punctured paper; but if she goes heartily and bravely to give herself to some worthy purpose, she is out of her sphere and she loses caste. Women working in tailor-shops are paid one-third as much as men. Some one in Philadelphia has stated that women make fine shirts for twelve and a half cents apiece; that no woman can make more than nine a week, and the sum thus earned, after deducting rent, fuel, etc., leaves her just three and a half cents a day for bread. Is it a wonder that women are driven to prostitution? Female teachers in New York are paid fifty dollars a year, and for every such situation there are five hundred applicants. I know not what you believe of God, but I believe He gave yearnings and longings to be filled, and that He did not mean all our time should be devoted to feeding and clothing the body. The present condition of woman causes a horrible perversion of the marriage relation. It is asked of a lady, "Has she married well?" "Oh, yes, her husband is rich." Woman must marry for a home, and you men are the sufferers by this; for a woman who loathes you may marry you because you have the means to get money which she can not have. But when woman can enter the lists with you and make money for herself, she will marry you only for deep and earnest affection.

I am detaining you too long, many of you standing, that I ought to apologize, but women have been wronged so long that I may wrong you a little. (Applause). A woman undertook in Lowell to sell shoes to ladies. Men laughed at her, but in six years she has run them all out, and has a monopoly of the trade. Sarah Tyndale, whose husband was an importer of china, and died bankrupt, continued his business, paid off his debts, and has made a fortune and built the largest china warehouse in the world. (Mrs. Mott here corrected Lucy. Mrs. Tyndale has not the largest china warehouse, but the largest assortment of china in the world). Mrs. Tyndale, herself, drew the plan of her warehouse, and it is the best plan ever drawn. A laborer to whom the architect showed it, said: "Don't she know e'en as much as some men?" I have seen a woman at manual labor turning out chair-legs in a cabinet-shop, with a dress short enough not to drag in the shavings. I wish other women would imitate her in this. It made her hands harder and broader, it is true, but I think a hand with a dollar and a quarter a day in it, better than one with a crossed ninepence. The men in the shop didn't use tobacco, nor swear—they can't do those things where there are women, and we owe it to our brothers to go wherever they work to keep them decent. The widening of woman's sphere is to improve her lot. Let us do it, and if the world scoff, let it scoff—if it sneer, let it sneer—but we will go on emulating the example of the sisters Grimké and Abby Kelly. When they first lectured against slavery they were not listened to as respectfully as you listen to us. So the first female physician meets many difficulties, but to the next the path will be made easy.

Lucretia Mott has been a preacher for years; her right to do so is not questioned among Friends. But when Antoinette Brown felt that she was commanded to preach, and to arrest the progress of thousands that were on the road to hell; why, when she applied for ordination they acted as though they had rather the whole world should go to hell, than that Antoinette Brown should be allowed to tell them how to keep out of it. She is now ordained over a parish in the State of New York, but when she meets on the Temperance platform the Rev. John Chambers, or your own Gen. Carey (applause) they greet her with hisses. Theodore Parker said: "The acorn that the school-boy carries in his pocket and the squirrel stows in his cheek, has in it the possibility of an oak, able to withstand, for ages, the cold winter and the driving blast." I have seen the acorn men and women, but never the perfect oak; all are but abortions. The young mother, when first the new-born babe nestles in her bosom, and a heretofore unknown love springs up in her heart, finds herself unprepared for this new relation in life, and she sends forth the child scarred and dwarfed by her own weakness and imbecility, as no stream can rise higher than its fountain.

We find no report of the speeches of Frances D. Gage, Lydia Ann Jenkins, Ernestine L. Rose, Euphemia Cochrane, of Michigan, nor J. Mitchell, of Missouri, editor of the St. Louis Intelligencer, nor of the presence of James Mott, whose services were always invaluable on the committees for business and resolutions.

In 1857, the Legislature of Ohio passed a bill enacting that no married man shall dispose of any personal property without having first obtained the consent of his wife; the wife being empowered in case of the violation of such act, to commence a civil suit in her own name for the recovery of said property; and also that any married woman whose husband shall desert her or neglect to provide for his family, shall be entitled to his wages and to those of her minor children. These amendments were warmly recommended by Gov. Salmon P. Chase in his annual message. The Select Committee[20] of the Senate on the petition asking the right of suffrage for woman, reported in favor of the proposed amendment, recommending the adoption of the following resolution:

Resolved, That the Judiciary Committee be instructed to report to the Senate a bill to submit to the qualified electors at the next election for Senators and Representatives an amendment to the Constitution, whereby the elective franchise shall be extended to the citizens of Ohio without distinction of sex.

But the bill was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 44 to 44. The petition had received 10,000 signatures. We give this able report in full.[21]

The proceedings of these early Conventions might be read with pride and satisfaction by the women of Ohio to-day, with all their superior advantages of education. Frances D. Gage was a natural orator. Her wit and pathos always delighted her audiences, and were highly appreciated by those on the platform. Her off-hand speeches, ready for any occasion, were exactly complemented by J. Elizabeth Jones, whose carefully prepared essays on philosophy, law, and government, would do honor to any statesman. Together they were a great power in Ohio. From this time Conventions were held annually for several years, the friends of woman suffrage being thoroughly organized; J. Elizabeth Jones was made General Agent. In her report of May 16th, 1861, she says:

And through the earnest efforts of Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Tilden, and many others, the Legislature was petitioned from year to year for a redress of legal and political wrongs. At a later period, the indefatigable exertions of Mrs. Adeline T. Swift sustained the interest and the agitation in such portions of the State as she could reach. As the fruit of her labor, many thousands of names, pleading for equality, have been presented to the General Assembly, which labor has been continued to the present time.

Our last effort, of which I am now more particularly to speak, was commenced early in the season, by extensive correspondence to enlist sympathy and aid in behalf of petitions. As soon as we could get the public ear, several lecturing agents were secured, and they did most efficient service, both with tongue and with pen. One of these was Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols, of Kansas, formerly of Vermont; and perhaps no person was ever better qualified than she. Ever ready and ever faithful, in public and in private, and ever capable, too, whether discussing the condition of woman with the best informed members of the legal profession, or striving at the fireside of some indolent and ignorant sister, over whose best energies "death is creeping like an untimely frost," to waken in her heart a desire for that which is truly noble and good.

Of another of our agents—Mrs. Cutler, of Illinois—equally as much can be said of her qualifications and her efficiency. Having been very widely acquainted with the sorrowful experiences of women, both abroad and in our own country, which have been caused by their inferior position, and by legal disabilities; and lamenting, too, as only great and elevated natures can, the utter wreck of true, noble womanhood in the higher circles of society, a necessity is thus laid upon her to do all in her power to lift both classes into a freer, better life.

Mrs. Frances D. Gage, of Ohio, deeply interested herself in this question in the beginning, and has never failed in faithful testimony and timely word, to promote its success. Although not identified with us as an agent, yet we had her active co-operation during the campaign. Her editorial connection with the press, and her lectures on the West India Islands, gave her abundant opportunity, which she did not fail to embrace, of circulating petitions and advocating the cause to which she has so largely given her energies.

Besides the General Agent, whose time was divided between correspondence, lecturing, and the general details of the movement, there were other and most efficient workers, especially in canvassing for signatures. We are indebted to Mrs. Anne Ryder, of Cincinnati, for much labor in this direction; and also to Mrs. Howard, of Columbus for similar service. Miss Olympia Brown, a graduate of Antioch College, canvassed several towns most successfully—adding thousands of names to the lists heretofore obtained. Equally zealous were women, and men also, in various sections of the State. By means of this hearty co-operation, both branches of the Legislature were flooded with Woman's Rights petitions during the first part of the session—a thousand and even two thousand names were presented at a time.

Our main object this year, as heretofore, has been to secure personal property and parental rights, never ignoring, however, the right to legislate for ourselves. We were fortunate in the commencement in enlisting some of the leading influences of the State in favor of the movement. Persons occupying the highest social and political position, very fully endorsed our claims to legal equality, and rendered valuable aid by public approval of the same. We took measures at an early period to obtain the assistance of the press; and by means of this auxiliary our work has been more fully recognized, and more generally appreciated than it could otherwise have been. Without exception, the leading journals of the State have treated our cause with consideration, and generously commended the efforts of its agents.

So numerous were the petitions, and so largely did they represent the best constituency of the State, that the committees in whose hands they were placed, felt that by all just parliamentary usage, they were entitled to a candid consideration. Accordingly they invited several of us who had been prominent, to defend our own cause in the Senate chamber, before their joint Committee and such of the General Assembly and of the public, as might choose to come and listen. From the reports of the numerous letter-writers who were present, I will place one extract only upon record.

"The Senate chamber was filled to overflowing to hear Mrs. Jones, Cutler, and Gage, and hundreds went away for want of a place to stand. Columbus has seldom seen so refined and intelligent an audience as that which gathered round those earnest women, who had none of the charm of youth or beauty to challenge admiration, but whose heads were already sprinkled with the frosts of life's winter. Earnest, truthful, womanly, richly cultivated by the experiences of practical life, those women, mothers, and two of them grandmothers, pleaded for the right of woman to the fruit of her own genius, labor, or skill, and for the mother her right to be the joint guardian of her own offspring. I wish I could give you even the faintest idea of the brilliancy of the scene, or the splendor of the triumph achieved over the legions of prejudice, the cohorts of injustice, and the old national guard of hoary conservatism. If the triumph of a prima donna is something to boast, what was the triumph of these toil-worn women, when not only the members of the Committee, but Senators and Members of the House, crowded around them with congratulations and assurances that their able and earnest arguments had fully prevailed, and the prayers of their petitioners must be granted."

The address of the first speaker was a written argument on legal rights. It was solicited by members of the General Assembly for publication, and distributed over the State at their expense.

The change in public sentiment, the marked favor with which our cause began to be regarded in the judicial and legislative departments, encouraged us to hope that if equal and exact justice were not established, which we could hardly expect, we should at least obtain legal equality in many particulars. The Senate committee soon reported a bill, drafted by one of their number—Judge Key—and fully endorsed by all the judges of the Supreme Court, securing to the married woman the use of her real estate, and the avails of her own separate labor, together with such power to protect her property, and do business in her own name, as men possess. The last provision was stricken out and the bill thus amended passed both Houses, the Senate by a very large majority.

Although this secures to us property rights in a measure only, yet it is a great gain. He, who in abject bondage has striven with his fetters, rejoices to have the smallest amount of their weight removed. We have, therefore, reason to be grateful not only for the benefits we shall derive from this Act, but for the evidence of a growing sense of justice on the part of those who claim for themselves the exclusive right to legislate. Senator Parish had already prepared a Bill for Guardianship, and to change the Laws of Descent, that something more than a paltry dower should be secured to the widow in the common estate; but the press of business, and the sudden commencement of open hostilities between the North and South, precluded all possibility of further legislation in our behalf. While Judge Key has deservedly received universal thanks from the women of Ohio, for proposing and carrying through the Legislature the Property Bill, they are no less indebted to the Hon. Mr. Parish for his faithful defense of their cause, not only during the present session, but in years past. If all the Honorable Senators and Representatives who have given their influence in favor of it were to be mentioned, and all the faithful men and earnest women who have labored to promote it, the list would be long and distinguished.

J. Elizabeth Jones.

Thus, in a measure, were the civil rights of the women of Ohio secured. Some of those who were influential in winning this modicum of justice have already passed away; some, enfeebled by age, are incapable of active work; others are seeking in many latitudes that rest so necessary in the declining years of life.

The question naturally suggests itself, where are the young women of Ohio, who will take up this noble cause and carry it to its final triumph? They are reaping on all sides the benefits achieved for them by others, and they in turn, by earnest efforts for the enfranchisement of woman, should do what they can to broaden the lives of the next generation.

In Ohio, as elsewhere, the great conflict between the North and South turned the thoughts of women from the consideration of their own rights, to the life of the nation. Many of them spent their last days and waning powers in the military hospitals and sanitariums, ministering to sick and dying soldiers; others at a later period in the service of the freedmen, guiding them in their labors, and instructing them in their schools; all alike forgetting that justice to woman was a more important step in national safety than freedom or franchise to any race of men.

CHAPTER VII.

From 1843 to 1853 inclusive, I edited The Windham County Democrat, published by my husband, Geo. W. Nichols, at Brattleboro.

Early in 1847, I addressed to the voters of the State a series of editorials setting forth the injustice and miserable economy of the property disabilities of married women. In October of the same year, Hon. Larkin Mead, of Brattleboro, "moved," as he said, "by Mrs. Nichols' presentation of the subject" in the Democrat, introduced in the Vermont Senate a bill securing to the wife real and personal property, with its use, and power to defend, convey, and devise as if "sole." The bill as passed, secured to the wife real estate owned by her at marriage, or acquired by gift, devise, or inheritance during marriage, with the rents, issues, and profits, as against any debts of the husband; but to make a sale or conveyance of either her realty or its use valid, it must be the joint act of husband and wife. She might by last will and testament dispose of her lands, tenements, hereditaments, and any interest therein descendable to her heirs, as if "sole." A subsequent Legislature added to the latter clause, moneys, notes, bonds, and other assets, accruing from sale or use of real estate. And this was the first breath of a legal civil existence to Vermont wives.

In 1849, Vermont enacted a Homestead law. In 1850, a bill empowering the wife to insure, in her own interest, the life, or a term of the life of her husband; the annual premium on such insurance not to exceed $300; also an act giving to widows of childless husbands the whole of an estate not exceeding $1,000 in value, and half of any amount in excess of $1,000; and if he left no kin, the whole estate, however large, became the property of the widow. Prior to this Act, the widow of a childless husband had only half, however small the estate, and if he left no kindred to claim it, the remaining half went into the treasury of the State, whose gain was the town's loss, if, as occasionally happened, the widow's half was not sufficient for her support.[22]

In 1852, I drew up a petition signed by more than 200 of the most substantial business men, including the staunchest conservatives, and tax-paying widows of Brattleboro, asking the Legislature to make the women of the State voters in district school meetings.

Up to 1850 I had not taken position for suffrage, but instead of disclaiming its advocacy as improper, I had, since 1849, shown the absurdity of regarding suffrage as unwomanly. Having failed to secure her legal rights by reason of her disfranchisement, a woman must look to the ballot for self-protection. In this cautious way I proceeded, aware that not a house would be opened to me, did I demand the suffrage before convicting men of legal robbery, through woman's inability to defend herself.

The petition was referred to the Educational Committee of the House, whose chairman, editor of the Rutland Herald, was a bitter opponent, and I felt that he would, in his report, lampoon "Woman's Rights" and their most prominent advocates, thus sending his poison into all the towns ignorant of our objects, and strengthening the already repellant prejudices of the leading women at the capital. I wrote to Judge Thompson, editor of the Green Mountain Freeman (a recent accession to the press of the State and friendly to our cause), what I feared, and asked him to plead before the Committee and interest influential members to protect woman's cause against abuse before the House. He counseled with leading members of the three political parties—Whig, Free-Soil, and Democrat—including the Speaker of the House, and they advised, as the best course, that "Mrs. Nichols come to Montpelier, and they would invite her, by a handsome vote, to speak to her petition before the House." "When," added Judge T., "you can use your privilege to present the whole subject of Woman's Rights. Come, and I will stick by you like a brother." I went. The resolution of invitation was adopted with a single dissenting vote, and that from the Chairman of the Educational Committee, who unwittingly made the vote unanimous by the unfortunate exclamation, "If the lady wants to make herself ridiculous, let her come and make herself as ridiculous as possible and as soon as possible, but I don't believe in this scramble for the breeches!"

In concluding my plea before the House (in which I had cited the statutes and decisions of courts, showing that the husband owned even the wife's clothing), I thanked the House for its resolution, and referred to the concluding remark of the Chairman of the Educational Committee, and said that though I "had earned the dress I wore, my husband owned it—not of his own will, but by a law adopted by bachelors and other women's husbands," and added: "I will not appeal to the gallantry of this House, but to its manliness, if such a taunt does not come with an ill grace from gentlemen who have legislated our skirts into their possession? And will it not be quite time enough for them to taunt us with being after their wardrobes, when they shall have restored to us the legal right to our own?"

With a bow I turned from the Speaker's stand, when the profound hush of as fine an audience as earnest woman ever addressed, was broken by the muffled thunder of stamping feet, and the low, deep hum of pent-up feeling loosed suddenly from restraint. A crowd of ladies from the galleries, who had come only at the urgent personal appeal of Judge Thompson, who had spent the day calling from house to house, and who a few months before had utterly failed to persuade them to attend a course of physiological lectures from Mrs. Mariana Johnson, on account of her having once presided over a Woman's Rights Convention, these women met me at the foot of the Speaker's desk, exclaiming with earnest expressions of sympathy: "We did not know before what Woman's Rights were, Mrs. Nichols, but we are for Woman's Rights."

Said Mrs. Thompson to me upon our return to her home: "I broke out in a cold perspiration when your voice failed and you leaned your head on your hand."[23] "I thought you were going to fail," continued Mrs. Thompson. "Yes," said the Judge, "I was very doubtful how it would come out when I saw how sensitive Mrs. Nichols was. But," (turning to me), "you have had a complete triumph! That final expression of your audience was perfect. Mr. Herald with his outside recruits did not come forward with the suit of male attire at the close, as he had advertised he would, (I did not tell Mrs. N. this, my dear," said the Judge.) "He'll catch it now, in the House and out." And he did "catch it."

The effort brought me no reproach, no ridicule from any quarter, but instead, cordial recognition and delicate sympathy from unexpected quarters, and even from those who had heard but the report of persons present. The editorial criticism of the Chairman of the Educational Committee, paid me the high compliment of saying, that "in spite of her efforts Mrs. Nichols could not unsex herself; even her voice was full of womanly pathos." The report of the Committee was adverse to my petition, but not disrespectful. Though the petition failed, the favorable impression created was regarded as a great triumph for woman's rights.

From the time I spoke at the Worcester Convention, 1850, until I left for Kansas, October, 1854, I responded to frequent calls from town and neighborhood committees and lyceums—in the county and adjoining territory of New Hampshire and Massachusetts as well as Vermont, to lecture or join in debate with men and women, the women voting me their time, on the subject of woman's legal and political equality. In these neighborhood lyceums, ministers and deacons and their wives and daughters took part. Generally wives were appointed in opposition to their husbands, and from their rich and varied experience did excellent execution. In order to secure opposition, I used to let the negative open and close, other wise the debate was sure to be tame or no debate at all. In all my experience it was the same; the "affirmative" had the merit and the argument.

The clergy often spoke—always when present—and in the negative, if it was their first hearing; and without a single exception they faced the audience at the close with a cordial endorsement of the cause. Said one such: "I told you, ladies and gentlemen, that I had given little attention to the subject, and you see that I told the truth. Mrs. Nichols has made out her case, and let her and the women laboring like her, persevere, and woman will gain her rights." "Let your wife go all she can," said one of these converts to Mr. Nichols, "she is breaking down prejudices and making friends for your paper. Your political opponents have represented her as a masculine brawler for rights, and those who have never met her know no better. I went to hear her, full of misgivings that it might be so."

In the winter of 1852 I went as often as twice a week—late p.m. and returned early a.m.—from six to twenty miles. I was sent for where there was no railroad. I often heard of "ready-made pants," and once of a "rail," but the greater the opposition, the greater the victory.

On a clear, cold morning of January, 1852, I found myself some six miles from home at a station on the Vermont side of the Massachusetts State line, on my way to Templeton, Mass., whither I had been invited by a Lyceum Committee to lecture upon the subject of "Woman's Rights." I had scarcely settled myself in the rear of the saloon for a restful, careless two hours' ride, when two men entered the car. In the younger man I recognized the sheriff of our county. Having given a searching glance around the ear, the older man, with a significant nod to his companion, laid his hand upon the saloon door an instant, and every person in the car had risen to his feet, electrified by the wail of a "Rachel mourning for her children." "O, father! she's my child! she's my child!" I reached the door, which was guarded by the sheriff, in a condition of mental exaltation (or concentration), which to this day reflects itself at the recollection of that agonizing cry of the beautiful young mother, set upon by the myrmidons of the law whose base inhumanity shames the brute! "Who is it?" "What is it?" "What does it all mean?" were the anxious queries put up on all sides. I answered: "It means, my friends, that a woman has no legal right to her own babies; that the law-makers of this Christian country (!) have given the custody of the babies to the father, drunken or sober, and he may send the sheriff—as in this case—to arrest and rob her of her little ones! You have heard sneers at 'Woman's Rights.' This is one of the rights—a mother's right to the care and custody of her helpless little ones!"

From that excited crowd—all young men and grown boys, I being the only woman among them—rose thick and fast—"They've no business with the woman's babies!" "Pitch 'em overboard!" "I'll help." "Good for you; so'll I!" "All aboard." (The conductor had come upon the scene). "All aboard." "Wait a minute till he gets the other child," cries the old man, rushing out of the saloon with a little three-year-old girl in his arms, while the sheriff rushed in. Standing behind the old man, I beckoned to the conductor, who knew me, to "go on," and in five minutes we were across the Massachusetts line, and I was in the saloon. With his hand on her child, the sheriff was urging the mother to let go her hold. "Hold on to your baby," I cried, "he has no right to take it from you, and is liable to fine and imprisonment for attempting it. Tell me, Mr. C——, are you helping the other party as a favor, or in your official capacity? In the latter case you might have taken her child in Vermont, but we are in Massachusetts now, quite out of your sheriff's beat." "The grandfather made legal custodian by the father, was he? That would do in Vermont, sir, but under the recent decision of a Massachusetts Court, given in a case like this, only the father can take the child from its mother, and in attempting it you have made yourselves liable to fine and imprisonment." Thus the "sheriffalty" was extinguished, and mother and child took their seat beside me in the car.

Meantime the conductor had made the old gentleman understand that they could get off at the next station, where they might take the "up train," and get back to their "team" on the Vermont side of the "line." As they could get no carriage at the bare little station, and with the encumbrance of the child, could not foot it six miles in the cold and snow, they must wait some three or four hours for the train, which suggested the possibility of a rescue. I could not stop over a train, but I could take the baby along with me, if some one could be found—The conductor calls. The car stops. As the child robbers step out (the little girl, clutched in the old grandfather's arms) 'mid the frantic cries of the mother and the execrations of the passengers, two middle-aged gentlemen of fine matter-of-fact presence, entered. I at once met their questioning faces with a hurried statement of facts, and the need of some intelligent, humane gentleman to aid the young mother in the recovery of her little girl. Having spoken together aside, the younger man introduced "Dr. B——, who lives in the next town, where papers can be made out, and a sheriff be sent back to bring the men and child; the lady can go with the doctor, and the baby with Mrs. Nichols. I would stop, but I must be in my seat in the Legislature." "I have no money, only my ticket to take me to my friends," exclaimed the anxious mother. "I will take care of that," said the good doctor; "you won't need any." "They will have to pay," I whispered....

I gave my lecture at Templeton to a fine audience; accepted an invitation to return and give a second on the same subject, and having left the dear little toddler happy and amply protected, at noon next day found myself back at Orange, where I had left the mother. Here the conductor, who by previous arrangement, left a note from me telling her where to go for her baby, reported that the party had been brought to Orange for trial, spent the night in care of the sheriff, and were released on giving up the little girl and paying a handsome sum of the needful to the mother. He had scarcely ended his report when the pair entered the car, like myself, homeward bound. The old gentleman, care-worn and anxious, probably thinking of his team left standing at the Vermont station, looked straight ahead, but the kind-hearted sheriff caught my eye and smiled. In my happiness I could not do otherwise than give smile for smile.

Arrived at home, I found the affair, reported by the conductor of the evening train, had created quite an excitement, sympathy being decidedly with the mother. I was credited with being privy to the escapade and the pursuit, and as having gone purposely to the rescue. Had this been true, I could not have managed it better, for a good Providence went with me. I received several memorial "hanks" of yarn, with messages from the donors that "they would keep me in knitting-work while preaching woman's rights on the railroad"—a reference to my practice of knitting on the cars, and the report that I gave a lecture on the occasion to my audience there.

And thus was the seed of woman's educational, industrial, and political rights sown in Vermont, through infinite labor, but in the faith and perseverance which bring their courage to all workers for the right.

WISCONSIN.

In September and October, 1853, I traveled 900 miles in Wisconsin, as agent of the Woman's State Temperance Society, speaking in forty-three towns to audiences estimated at 30,000 in the aggregate, people coming in their own conveyances from five to twenty miles. I went to Wisconsin under an engagement to labor as agent of the State Temperance League, an organization composed of both sexes and officered by leading temperance men—at the earnest and repeated solicitations of its delegates whom I met at the "Whole World's Temperance Convention," held in New York City in September, and who were commissioned by the League to employ speakers to canvass the State; the object being to procure the enactment of a "Maine Law" by the next Legislature. These delegates had counseled, among others, with Horace Greeley, who advised my employment, curiosity to hear a woman promising to call out larger audiences and more votes for temperance candidates in the pending election.

I, at first, declined to make the engagement, on the ground that I could not be spared from my newspaper duties; but to escape further importunity, finally consented to "ask my husband at home," and report at New York, where one of the gentlemen would await my answer, and myself, if I decided to accept their proposition. My husband's cheerful, "Go, wife, you will be doing just the work you love, and enjoying a journey which you have not means otherwise to undertake," and a notice from Mrs. Lydia F. Fowler, that she would join us in the trip with a view to arranging for physiological lectures at eligible points in the State, decided me to go. Mrs. F.'s company was not only a social acquisition, but a happy insurance against pot-house witlings on the alert to impale upon the world's dread laugh, any woman who, to accomplish some public good, should venture for a space to cut loose from the marital "buttons" and go out into the world alone!

In making the engagement, I had taken it for granted, that the right and propriety of woman's public advocacy of temperance was a settled question in the field to which I was invited. But arrived at Milwaukee, I found that the popular prejudice against women as public speakers, and especially the advocacy of Woman's Rights, with which I had for years been identified, had been stirred to its most disgusting depths by a reverend gentleman who had preceded us, and who had for years been a salaried "agent at large," of the New York State Temperance Society. A highly respectable minority of the Executive Committee of the League endorsed the action of their delegation, but were overruled by a numerical majority, and I found myself in the position of agent "at large," while the reverend traducer secured his engagement in my place.

This turn of affairs, embarrassing at first, proved in the end providential—a timely clearance for a more congenial craft—since the women of the State had organized a Woman's State Temperance Society, and advertised a Convention to meet the following week at Delavan, the populous shire town of Walworth County, fifty miles distant in the interior. Thither the friendly Leaguers proposed to take us. Meantime it was arranged that Mrs. F. and I should address the citizens of Milwaukee. A capacious church was engaged for Sabbath evening, from which hundreds went away unable to get in. But neither clergyman nor layman could be found willing to commit himself by opening the services; and with "head uncovered," in a church in which it was "a shame for a woman to speak," I rested my burden with the dear Father, as only burdens are rested with Him, in conscious unity of purpose.

Mrs. F. addressed the audience on the physiological effects of alcoholic drinks. I followed, quoting from the prophecy of King Lemuel, that "his mother taught him," Proverbs xxxi., verses 4, 5, 8, 9, "Open thy mouth for the dumb; in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy." The spirit moved audience and speaker. We forgot ourselves; forgot everything but "the poor and needy," the drunkard's wife and children "appointed to destruction" through license laws and alienated civil rights.

At Delavan we met a body of earnest men and women, indignant at the action of the Executive Committee of the League, to which many of them had contributed funds for the campaign, and ready to assume the responsibility of my engagement, and the expenses of Mrs. F., who in following out her original plan, generously consented to precede my lectures with a brief physiological dissertation apropos to the object of the canvass. The burden of the speaking, as planned, rested with me, provided my hitherto untested physical ability proved equal, as it did, to the daily effort.

In counsel with Mrs. R. Ostrander, President of the Society, and her sister officials, women of character and intelligence, I could explain, as I could not have done to any body of equally worthy men, that in justice to ourselves, to them, and to the cause we had at heart, we must make the canvass in a spirit and in conditions above reproach. "I can not come down from my work," said Miss Lyon, founder of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, when importuned to rebut some baseless scandal. To fight our way would be to mar the spirit and effect of our work. We must place the opposition at a disadvantage from the first; then we could afford to ignore it altogether and rise to a level with the humane issues of the campaign. It was accordingly arranged that the friends should make appointments and secure us suitable escort to neighboring towns; and to distant and less accessible points a gentleman was engaged to take us in a private carriage,—his wife, a woman of rare talent and fine culture, to accompany us. A programme which was advertised in the local papers and happily carried out.

From Delavan we returned to Milwaukee to perfect our arrangements. From thence our next move was to Waukesha, the shire town of Waukesha County, twenty miles by rail, to a Temperance meeting advertised for "speaking and the transaction of business." The meeting was held in the Congregational church, the pastor acting as chairman. The real business of the meeting was soon disposed of, and then was enacted the most amusing farce it was ever my lot to witness. The chairman and his deacon led off in a long-drawn debate on sundry matters of no importance, and of less interest to the audience, members of which attempted in vain, by motions and votes, to cut it short. When it had become sufficiently apparent that the gentlemen were "talking against time" to prevent speaking, there were calls for speakers. The chairman replied that it was a "business meeting, but Rev. Mr. ——, from Illinois, would lecture in the evening." Several gentlemen rose to protest. One said he "had walked seven miles that his wife and daughters might ride, to hear the ladies speak." Another had "ridden horseback twelve miles to hear them." A storm was impending; the chairman was prepared; he declared the meeting adjourned and with his deacon left the house.

There was a hurried consultation in the ante-room, which resulted in an urgent request for "Mrs. Nichols to remain and speak in the evening." The speaker noticed for the evening, joined heartily in the request; "half an hour was all the time he wanted." But when the evening came, he insisted that I should speak first, and when I should have given way for him, assured me that he "had made arrangements to speak the next evening," and joined in the "go on, go on!" of the audience. So it was decided that I should remain over the Sabbath, and Mrs. F. return with the friends to Milwaukee.

Meantime it had transpired that in the audience were several Vermonters from a settlement of fourteen families from the vicinity of my home; among them a lady from my native town; we had been girls together. "We know all about Mrs. N.," said one. "We take the Tribune, and friends at home send us her paper." So the good Father had sent vouchers for His agent at large. But this was not all. I had a pleasant reserve for the evening. I had recognized in the deacon, a friend from whom I had parted twenty-one years before in Western New York. In the generous confidence of youthful enthusiasm we had enlisted in the cold-water army; together pledged ourselves to fight the liquor interest to the death. And here my old friend, whose début on the Temperance platform I had aided and cheered, had talked a full hour to prevent me from being heard! Was I indignant? Was I grieved? Nay! It was not a personal matter. Time's graver had made us strange to each other. His name and voice had revealed him to me; but the name I bore was not that by which he had known me. Besides, I remembered that twenty-one years before, I could not have been persuaded to hear a woman speak on any public occasion, and I had nothing to forgive,—my friend had only stood still where I had left him. Such, suppressing his name, was the story I told my audience on that evening. And with his puzzled and kindly face intently regarding me, I assured my hearers that I had not a doubt of his whole-souled and manly support in my present work. Nor was I disappointed.

Next morning, (Sabbath) I listened to a scholarly sermon on infidel issues and innovations from the chairman of the "business meeting" of the previous afternoon, he having stayed away from my lecture to prepare it. In the evening, after the temperance lecture of my Illinois friend, I improved the opportunity of a call from the audience, the Rev. Chairman being present, to meet certain points of the sermon, personal to myself and the advocates of rights for women, closing with a brief confession of my faith in Christ's rule of love and duty as impressing every human being into the service of a common humanity—the right to serve being commensurate with the obligation, as of God and not of man.

One week later, another business meeting was held in the same house, and in its published proceedings was a resolution introduced by the Rev. Chairman, endorsing Mrs. Nichols, and inviting her "to be present and speak" at a County Convention appointed for a subsequent day. Not long after he sent me, through a brother clergyman, an apology that would have disarmed resentment, had I felt any, toward a man who, having opposed me without discourtesy and retracted by a published resolution, was yet not satisfied without tendering a private apology.

I had achieved a grateful success; license to "plead the cause of the poor and needy," where, how to do so, without offending old-time ideas of woman's sphere, had seemed to the women under whose direction I had taken the field, the real question at issue. In consideration of existing prejudices, they had suggested the prudence of silence on the subject of Woman's Rights. And here, on the very threshold of the campaign, I had been compelled to vindicate my right to speak for woman; as a woman, to speak for her from any stand-point of life to which nature, custom, or law had assigned her. I had no choice, no hope of success, but in presenting her case as it stood before God and my own soul. To neither could I turn traitor, and do the work, or satisfy the aspirations of a true and loving woman.

For more than a quarter of a century earnest men had spoken, and failed to secure justice to the poor and needy, "appointed to destruction" by the liquor traffic. They had failed because they had denied woman's right to help them, and taken from her the means to help herself. In speaking for woman, I must be heard from a domestic level of legal pauperism disenchanted of all political prestige. In appealing to the powers that be, I must appeal from sovereigns drunk to sovereigns sober,—with eight chances in ten that the decision would be controlled by sovereigns drunk.

To impress the paramount claim of women to a no-license law, without laying bare the legal and political disabilities that make them "the greatest sufferers," the helpless victims of the liquor traffic, was impossible. It would have been stupidly unwise to withhold what with a majority of voters is the weightier consideration, that in alienating from women their earnings, governments impose upon community taxes for the support of the paupered children of drunken fathers, whose mothers would joyfully support and train them for usefulness; and who, as a rule, have done so when by the death or divorce of the husband they have regained the control of their earnings and the custody of their children. Thus proving, that man, by his disabling laws, has made woman helpless and dependent, and not God, who has endowed her with capabilities equal to the responsibilities He has imposed.

Worse than unwise would it have been to allow an unjust prejudice against Woman's Rights, to turn the edge of my appeals for a law in the interest of temperance, when by showing the connection, as of cause and effect, between men's rights and women's wrongs, between women's no-rights and their helplessness and dependence, I could disarm that prejudice and win an intelligent support for both temperance and equal rights. On such a showing I based my appeals to the noble men and women of Wisconsin. I assured my audiences, that I had not come to talk to them of "Woman's Rights," that indeed I did not find that women had any rights in the matter, but to "suffer and be still; to die and give no sign." But I had come to them to speak of man's rights and woman's needs.

From the Lake Shore cities, from the inland villages, the shire towns, and the mining communities of the Mississippi, whose churches, court-houses, and halls, with two or three exceptions, could not hold the audiences, much less seat them; the responses were hearty, and when outspoken, curiously alike in language as well as sentiment on the subject of rights. "I like Mrs. Nichols' idea of talking man's rights; the result will be woman's rights," said a gentleman rising in his place in the audience at the close of one of my lectures. On another occasion, "Let Mrs. Nichols go on talking men's rights and we'll have women's rights." "Mrs. Nichols has made me ashamed of myself—ashamed of my sex! I didn't know we had been so mean to the women," was the outspoken conclusion of a man who had lived honored and respected, his threescore years and ten. This reaction from the curiosity and doubt which everywhere met us in the expressive faces of the people, often reminded me of an incident in my Vermont labors for a Maine law.

In accepting an invitation to address an audience of ladies in the aristocratic old town of C——, in an adjoining county, I had suggested, that as it was votes we needed, I would prefer to address an audience of both sexes. Arrived at C——, I found that the ladies of the committee, having acted upon my suggestion, were intensely anxious as to the result. "An audience," they said, "could not be collected to listen to woman's rights; the people were sensitive even to the innovation of a mixed audience for a woman, and they felt that I ought to be informed of the facts." And I felt in every nerve, that they were suffering from fear lest I should fail to vindicate the womanliness of our joint venture. But the people came, a church, full; intelligent, expectant, and curious to hear a woman. The resident clergyman, of my own faith, declined to be present and open with prayer. A resident Universalist clergyman present, declined to pray. A young Methodist licentiate in the audience, not feeling at liberty to decline, tried. His ideas stumbled; his words hitched, and when he prayed: "Bless thy serv—a'hem—thy handmaid, and a'hem—and let all things be done decently and in order;" we in the committee pew felt as relieved as did the young Timothy when he had achieved his amen!

Utterly unnerved by the anxious faces of my committee, I turned to my audience with only the inspiration of homes devastated and families paupered, to sustain me in a desperate exhibit of the need and the "determination of women, impelled by the mother-love that shrinks neither from fire or flood, to rescue their loved ones from the fires and floods of the liquor traffic, though to do so they must make their way through every platform and pulpit in the land!" "Thank God!" exclaimed the licentiate on my right. "Amen!" emphasized the chairman oh my left. My committee were radiant. My audience had accepted woman's rights in her wrongs; and I —— only woman's recording angel can tell the sensations of a disfranchised woman when her "declaration of intentions" is endorsed by an Anti-Woman's Rights audience with fervent thanks to God!

Latter-day laborers can have little idea of the trials of the early worker, driven by the stress of right and duty against popular prejudices, to which her own training and early habits of thought have made her painfully sensitive. St. Paul, our patron saint, I think had just come through such a trial of his nerves when he wrote: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." The memory of the beautiful scenery, the charming Indian summer skies, the restful companionship of our family party in the daily drive, and the generous hospitality of the people of Wisconsin, is one of the pleasantest of a life, as full of sweet memories as of trials, amid and through which they have clung to me with a saving grace.

The Temperance majority in the ensuing election, so far as influenced by canvassing agents, was due to the combined efforts of all who labored for it, and of these it was my good fortune to meet a younger brother of William H. and O. C. Burleigh, who from his man's stand-point of precedents and statistics did excellent service.

The law enacted by the Legislature securing to the wives of drunkards their earnings and the custody and earnings of their minor children, I think I may claim as a result of appeals from the home stand-point of woman's sphere. As a financial measure diverting the supplies and lessening the profits of the liquor traffic, this law is a civil service reform of no mean promise for the abatement of pauper and criminal taxes. In a plea of counsel for defendant in a case of wife-beating to which I once listened, said the gentlemanly attorney: "If Patrick will let the bottle alone"—"Please, your honor," broke in the weeping wife, "if you will stop Misthur Kelly from filling it."

KANSAS.

In October, 1854, with my two eldest sons, I joined a company of two hundred and twenty-five men, women, and children, emigrants from the East to Kansas. In our passage up the Missouri River I gave two lectures by invitation of a committee of emigrants and Captain Choteau and brother, owners of the boat. A pious M.D. was terribly shocked at the prospect, and hurried his young wife to bed, but returned to the cabin himself in good time to hear. As the position was quite central, and I wished to be heard distinctly by the crowd which occupied all the standing room around the cabin, I took my stand opposite the Doctor's berth. Next morning, poor man! his wife was an outspoken advocate of woman's rights. The next evening she punched his ribs vigorously, at every point made for suffrage, which was the subject of my second lecture.

The 1st of November, 1854—a day never to be forgotten—heaven and earth clasped hands in silent benedictions on that band of immigrants, some on foot, some on horseback, women and children, seventy-five in number, with the company's baggage, in ox-carts and wagons drawn by the fat, the broken-down, and the indifferent "hacks" of wondering, scowling Missouri, scattered all along the prairie road from Kansas City to Lawrence, the Mecca of their pilgrimage.

In advance of all these, at 11 o'clock a.m., Mrs. H—— and myself were sitting in front of the Lawrence office of the New England Emigrant Aid Company, in the covered wagon of Hon. S. C. Pomeroy, who had brought us from Kansas City, and entered the office to announce the arrival of our company; when a hilarious explosion of several voices assured us that good lungs as well as brave hearts were within. Directly Col. P. and Dr. (Governor) Robinson came out. "Did you hear the cheering?" asked the Doctor. "I did, and was thinking when you came out, what a popular man the Colonel must be to call forth such a greeting!" "But the cheers were for Mrs. Nichols," was the reply; and the Doctor proceeded to tell us that, "the boys" had been hotly discussing women's rights, when one of their advocates who had heard her lecture, expressed a wish that his opponents could hear Antoinette Brown on the subject; a second wished they could hear Susan B. Anthony; and a third wished they could hear Mrs. Nichols. On the heels of these wishes, the announcement of Colonel Pomeroy, that "Mrs. Nichols was at the door," was the signal for triumphant cheering. "The boys" wanted a lecture in the evening. The Doctor said: "No; Mrs. Nichols is tired. To-morrow the thatching of the church will be completed, and she can dedicate the building."

Thus truths sown broadcast among the stereotyped beliefs and prejudices of the old and populous communities of the East, had wrought a genial welcome for myself and the advocacy of woman's cause on the disputed soil of Kansas. But, alas! for the "stony ground." One of "the boys" didn't stay to the "dedication." He had "come to Kansas to get away from the women," and left at once for Leavenworth. I wonder if the Judge—he is that now, and a benedict—remembers? I still regret that lost opportunity for making his acquaintance.

At Lawrence, the objective point of all the Free State immigration, where I spent six weeks in assisting my sons to make a home for the winter, I mingled freely with the incoming population, and gave several lectures to audiences of from two to three hundred, the entire population coming together at the ringing of the city dinnerbell. I returned to Vermont early in January, 1855, and in April following, with two hundred and fifty emigrants (my husband and younger son accompanying me), rejoined my other sons in the vicinity of Baldwin City, where we took claims and commenced homes. I presented the whole subject of Woman's Rights on the boats in going and returning, as at first, by invitation. In the summer of 1855, delegates were elected to a Constitutional Convention, which later convened at Topeka. Governor Robinson, who with six other delegates voted for the exclusion of the word "male" from qualification for elector, sent me an invitation to attend its sessions, speak before it for woman's equality, and they would vote me a secretary's or clerk's position in the Convention. My husband's fatal illness prevented me from going.

In January, 1856, I returned from Kansas to Vermont, widowed and broken in health, to attend to matters connected with my husband's estate. Prevented by the ruffian blockade of the Missouri from returning as intended, I spent some time in the summer and all of the autumn of 1856 and January, 1857, lecturing upon Kansas, the character and significance of its political involvements, its promise and importance as a free or slave State, and its claims to an efficient support in the interest of freedom. In September, being appealed to by the "Kansas National Aid Committee," at the instance of Horace Greeley, I engaged for two months in a canvass of Western New York, lecturing and procuring the appointment of committees of women to collect supplies for the suffering people of Kansas; my two oldest sons, C. H. and A. O. Carpenter being among its armed defenders, the latter having been wounded in the fight between the invaders under Captain Pate and the forces under John Brown and Captain S. Shores, at Black Jack.

Between May, 1856, and February, 1857 (not counting my engagement with the Aid Committee), I gave some fifty Kansas lectures in the States of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New York, followed occasionally by one or two lectures on the legal and political disabilities of women; receiving more invitations on both subjects than I could possibly fill.

My experiences in these semi-political labors were often racy, never unsatisfactory. In a public conveyance one day, an honest old Pennsylvania farmer asked if I was "the lady who made an appointment to speak in his place on Kansas, and did not come?" I replied that I had filled all the appointments made for me with my knowledge; that I made a point of keeping my promises. "I believe you, ma'am," said he. "I suspicioned then it was jest a republican trick. You see, ma'am, our folks all are dimocrats and wouldn't turn out to hear the republican speakers; so they appointed a meeting for you and everybody turned out, for we'd hearn of your lectures. But instid of you, General D—— and Lawyer C—— came, and we were mad enough. I was madder, 'cause I'd opened my house, seein' as it was the largest and most convenient in the neighborhood."

Occasionally I stumbled on a loose segment of woman's sphere, even among the friends of "free Kansas." In a populous Vermont village, at a meeting called for the purpose, a committee was appointed to invite me to speak, composed of the two clergymen of the village and Judge S——. Reverend W—— excused himself from the service on the ground of "conscientious scruples as to the propriety of women speaking in public." Judge S——, a man who for a quarter of a century had, by a racy combination of wit and logic, maintained his ground against the foes of temperance and freedom, with inimitable gravity thanked the audience for the honor conferred on him; adding, "I have no conscientious scruples about getting desirable information wherever I can find it."

In Sinclairville, Chautauque County, New York, where I arrived late, in consequence of a railroad accident, I found a crowded church. A gentleman introduced to me as "Mr. Bull" was sitting at a table in the extreme front corner of the spacious platform, recording the names and advance payments of a class in music, which, as I had been told outside, was being organized by a gentleman who had arrived with the news of my probable detention.

During the next half hour gentlemen rose at three several times and requested Mr. B—— to "postpone the class business till the close of the lecture: that people had come from a distance to hear the lecture, and were anxious to return home, the night being dark and rainy." "I will be through soon. I like to finish a thing when I begin." "There'll be time enough," were the several replies, given in a tone and with an emphasis that suggested to my mind a doubt of the speaker's sympathy with my subject. When the clock pointed to eight, I quietly took my seat in the desk and was smoothing my page of notes when there fell on my astonished ear—"I was about to introduce the lady speaker, but she has suddenly disappeared." Stepping forward, I said, "Excuse me, sir; as the hour is very late I took my place to be in readiness when you should be through with your class." "Madam, you will speak on this platform." "I noticed, sir, that I could not see my audience from the platform, also that the desk was lighted for me." "Madam, you can't speak in that pulpit!" "This is very strange. Will you give me your reasons?" "It's none of your business!" "Indeed, sir, I do not understand it. Will you give me your authority?" "It's my pulpit, and if you speak in this house to-night you speak from this platform!" "Excuse me, sir; I mistook you for the music-teacher, who, as I was told, was organizing a class in music." And stepping quickly to the platform to restore the equanimity of the house, I remarked, as indicating my position, that my self-respect admonished me to be the lady always, no matter how ungentlemanly the treatment I might receive; that the cause of humanity, the cause of suffering Kansas was above all personal considerations, and proceeded with my lecture.

At the close, Mr. B—— arose and said: "I owe this audience an apology for my ungentlemanly language to Mrs. Nichols. I am aware that I shall get into the public prints, and I wish to set myself right." A gentleman in the audience rose and moved, "that we excuse the Rev. R. B—— for his ungentlemanly language to Mrs. Nichols to-night, on the score of his ignorance." The motion was seconded with emphasis by a man of venerable presence. "Friends," I appealed, "this is a personal matter; it gives me no concern. It will affect neither me nor my work. Please name suitable women for the committee of relief which I am here to ask." Business being concluded, I turned to Mr. B——, who was shut in with me by a press of sympathizing friends, and expressed my regret, that he should have said anything to place him under the necessity of apologizing, adding, "but I hope in future you will remember the words of Solomon: 'Greater is he that controlleth his own spirit, than he that taketh a city.' Good-night, sir." I learned that a few months before he had prevented his people from inviting Antoinette Brown to speak to them on Temperance, by declaring that "he would never set his foot in a pulpit that had been occupied by a woman." When three weeks later I heard of his dismissal from his charge in S——, I could appreciate the remark of his brother clergyman in a neighboring town, to whom I related the incident, that "Brother B—— is rather given to hooking with those horns of his, but he's in hot water now."