THE WOMEN’S FRANCHISE.

Evening Star, Issue 8775, 16 March 1892, Page 4

THE WOMEN’S FRANCHISE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— Mr Fish says that women don't want the franchise. Very probably his acquaintances don’t; but other people and their acquaintances do. As a proof, I myself, in a few days’ canvassing in a district where tbe bouses are scattered, Jathered somewhere about 300 signatures, understand that others in other parts of the same district have gathered about 200, and not more than half the borough has been canvassed yet. The refusals I oonld almost count on my fingers, I find the experience of other oanvassers to be similar. The refusals are* very few and easily classified.

Bridget, young and pretty, who would like to sign, but can't write, and doesn’t like to say so, and deolines, bat with a smile that warms your heart to see. Bridget, older and not pretty, who voicferates with inimitable Tipperary: “If there was 500 hotils I’d vote for ivory wan av ’em. An’ I’ll build an hotil mesilf.” “ But you oan’t, my dear." “ Sure an* faith but I will,” Then there’s the grim, elderly Scotchwoman, of the peat-hut-on-the-hillside class, who has been taught tp look upon her “ mon ” as her Qod and conscience, and herself as bis goods and chattels; that however wicked a mon may be a mon had a right to be, being a mon, and that the woman, being his property, has only to endure and submit. As one of them said to me: “I daurna. I dinna ken what my mon wad dae tae me gin I pit my hon’ to ony siclike paper.” Then there's the woman—alas, that there should be such women—who looks as if she had not washed for a month, whose scanty bits of furniture are grimy and slovenly set (the money to buy better having been taken by husband or wife, or both, to furnish the publican’s parlor), and whoso children are dirty, half fed, half clad, and wholly neglected. she demands of you “ Why should yon shut up ah honest*roan’s business?” “If people choose to take their last sixpences to him, what business is it of anybody’s?” “If he chooses to keep open all night, why shouldn’t he, as long as he can get customers?” etc., eto. All these I beg to present to Mr Fish, They will help to swell his list. He is heartily welcome to them, except young and pretty Bridget. Taken as a nation, there isn’t a modester flower under the sun, bless her sweet grey eyes I And as she crows to understand the subject, there won’t be a greater enemy to' the drink than she, if her “ praste” be of Cardinal Manning's type, and will let her, ' ' Yea, there’s another class'of refusal—the twopenny ha’penny snob, who,' on ~ the

strength of her husband being in some trumpery billet, tries to assume airs of Sentility. And she keeps yon at the oor, with upturned nose and face like an loiole, while she tells you that “ she takes no Interest iu such things, She doesn’t take a glass of wine onoe in a month, nor her husband; but she doesn’t see why they shouldn’t if they choose. Why should they trouble themselves about other people?” And so the millions who are dragged down to damnation through the drink are nothing to her, provided that she, being so genteel, can have her glass of wine when she pleases. She is the worst and most disgraceful of the lot, for she ought to know better, and is so cased up in ignorant selfishness that she won’t know. I beg, with the greatest fervor, to present her also to Mr Fish.—l am, eto., A Canvasser. Dunedin, March 14.