Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
crowd rose, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and, with the wildest
enthusiasm, gave cheer after cheer in honor of the great leader. Sir
Wilfrid Lawson, in his introductory remarks, facetiously alluded to the
resolution adopted by the Conference as somewhat in advance of the ideas
of the speaker of the evening. The house broke into roars of laughter,
while the Father of Liberalism, perfectly convulsed, joined in the
general merriment.
But when at length his time to speak had come, and Mr. Bright went over
the many steps of progress that had been taken by the Liberal party, he
cunningly dodged the question of the emancipation of the women of
England. He skipped round the agitation of 1867, and John Stuart Mill's
amendment presented at that time in the House of Commons; the extension
of the municipal suffrage in 1869; the participation of women in the
establishment of national schools under the law of 1870, both as voters
and members of school boards; the Married Women's Property Bill of 1882;
the large and increasing vote for the extension of Parliamentary
suffrage in the House of Commons, and the adoption of the resolution by
that great Conference the day before. All these successive steps toward
woman's emancipation he carefully remembered to forget.
While in London Miss Anthony and I attended several enthusiastic reform
meetings. We heard Bradlaugh address his constituency on that memorable
day at Trafalgar Square, at the opening of Parliament, when violence was
anticipated and the Parliament Houses were surrounded by immense crowds,
with the military and police in large numbers, to maintain order. We
heard Michael Davitt and Miss Helen Taylor at a great meeting in Exeter
Hall; the former on home rule for Ireland, and the latter on the
nationalization of land. The facts and figures given in these two
lectures, as to the abject poverty of the people and the cruel system by
which every inch of land had been grabbed by their oppressors, were
indeed appalling. A few days before sailing we made our last visit to
Ernestine L. Rose, and found our noble coadjutor, though in delicate
health, pleasantly situated in the heart of London, as deeply interested
as ever in the struggles of the hour.
A great discomfort, in all English homes, is the inadequate system of
heating. A moderate fire in the grate is the only mode of heating, and
they seem quite oblivious to the danger of throwing a door open into a
cold hall at one's back, while the servants pass in and out with the
various courses at dinner. As we Americans were sorely tried, under such
circumstances, it was decided, in the home of my son-in-law, Mr. Blatch,
to have a hall-stove, which, after a prolonged search, was found in
London and duly installed as a presiding deity to defy the dampness that
pervades all those ivy-covered habitations, as well as the neuralgia
that wrings their possessors. What a blessing it proved, more than any
one thing making the old English house seem like an American home! The
delightful summer heat we, in America, enjoy in the coldest seasons, is
quite unknown to our Saxon cousins. Although many came to see our stove
in full working order, yet we could not persuade them to adopt the
American system of heating the whole house at an even temperature. They
cling to the customs of their fathers with an obstinacy that is
incomprehensible to us, who are always ready to try experiments.
Americans complain bitterly of the same freezing experiences in France
and Germany, and, in turn, foreigners all criticise our overheated
houses and places of amusement.
While attending a meeting in Birmingham I stayed with a relative of
Joseph Sturge, whose home I had visited forty years before. The meeting
was called to discuss the degradation of women under the Contagious
Diseases Act. Led by Josephine Butler, the women of England were deeply
stirred on the question of its repeal and have since secured it. I heard
Mrs. Butler speak in many of her society meetings as well as on other
occasions. Her style was not unlike that one hears in Methodist camp
meetings from the best cultivated of that sect; her power lies in her
deeply religious enthusiasm. In London we met Emily Faithful, who had
just returned from a lecturing tour in the United States, and were much
amused with her experiences. Having taken prolonged trips over the whole
country, from Maine to Texas, for many successive years, Miss Anthony
and I could easily add the superlative to all her narrations.
It was a pleasant surprise to meet the large number of Americans usually
at the receptions of Mrs. Peter Taylor. Graceful and beautiful, in full
dress, standing beside her husband, who evidently idolized her, Mrs.
Taylor appeared quite as refined in her drawing room as if she had never
been exposed to the public gaze while presiding over a suffrage
convention. Mrs. Taylor is called the mother of the suffrage movement.
The reform has not been carried on in all respects to her taste, nor on
what she considers the basis of high principle. Neither she nor Mrs.
Jacob Bright has ever been satisfied with the bill asking the rights of
suffrage for "widows and spinsters" only. To have asked this right "for
all women duly qualified," as but few married women are qualified
through possessing property in their own right, would have been
substantially the same, without making any invidious distinctions. Mrs.
Taylor and Mrs. Bright felt that, as married women were the greatest
sufferers under the law, they should be the first rather than the last
to be enfranchised. The others, led by Miss Becker, claimed that it was
good policy to make the demand for "spinsters and widows," and thus
exclude the "family unit" and "man's headship" from the discussion; and
yet these were the very points on which the objections were invariably
based. They claimed that, if "spinsters and widows" were enfranchised,
they would be an added power to secure to married women their rights.
But the history of the past gives us no such assurance. It is not
certain that women would be more just than men, and a small privileged
class of aristocrats have long governed their fellow-countrymen. The
fact that the spinsters in the movement advocated such a bill, shows
that they were not to be trusted in extending it. John Stuart Mill, too,
was always opposed to the exclusion of married women in the demand for
suffrage.
My sense of justice was severely tried by all I heard of the
persecutions of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Bradlaugh for their publications on
the right and duty of parents to limit population. Who can contemplate
the sad condition of multitudes of young children in the Old World whose
fate is to be brought up in ignorance and vice--a swarming, seething
mass which nobody owns--without seeing the need of free discussion of
the philosophical principles that underlie these tangled social
problems? The trials of Foote and Ramsey, too, for blasphemy, seemed
unworthy a great nation in the nineteenth century. Think of
well-educated men of good moral standing thrown into prison in solitary
confinement, for speaking lightly of the Hebrew idea of Jehovah and the
New Testament account of the birth of Jesus! Our Protestant clergy never
hesitate to make the dogmas and superstitions of the Catholic Church
seem as absurd as possible, and why should not those who imagine they
have outgrown Protestant superstitions make them equally ridiculous?
Whatever is true can stand investigation and ridicule.
In the last of April, when the wildflowers were in their glory, Mrs.
Mellen and her lovely daughter, Daisy, came down to our home at
Basingstoke to enjoy its beauty. As Mrs. Mellen had known Charles
Kingsley and entertained him at her residence in Colorado, she felt a
desire to see his former home. Accordingly, one bright morning, Mr.
Blatch drove us to Eversley, through Strathfieldsaye, the park of the
Duke of Wellington. This magnificent place was given to him by the
English government after the battle of Waterloo. A lofty statue of the
duke, that can be seen for miles around, stands at one entrance. A drive
of a few miles further brought us to the parish church of Canon
Kingsley, where he preached many years, and where all that is mortal of
him now lies buried. We wandered through the old church, among the
moss-covered tombstones, and into the once happy home, now silent and
deserted--his loved ones being scattered in different quarters of the
globe. Standing near the last resting place of the author of "Hypatia,"
his warning words for women, in a letter to John Stuart Mill, seemed
like a voice from heaven saying, with new inspiration and power, "This
will never be a good world for women until the last remnant of the canon
law is civilized off the face of the earth."
We heard Mr. Fawcett speak to his Hackney constituents at one of his
campaign meetings. In the course of his remarks he mentioned with
evident favor, as one of the coming measures, the disestablishment of
the Church, and was greeted with loud applause. Soon after he spoke of
woman suffrage as another question demanding consideration, but this
was received with laughter and jeers, although the platform was crowded
with advocates of the measure, among whom were the wife of the speaker
and her sister, Dr. Garrett Anderson. The audience were evidently in
favor of releasing themselves from being taxed to support the Church,
forgetting that women were taxed not only to support a Church but also a
State in the management of neither of which they had a voice. Mr.
Fawcett was not an orator, but a simple, straightforward speaker. He
made one gesture, striking his right clenched fist into the palm of his
left hand at the close of all his strongest assertions, and, although
more liberal than his party, he was a great favorite with his
constituents.
One pleasant trip I made in England was to Bristol, to visit the Misses
Priestman and Mrs. Tanner, sisters-in-law of John Bright. I had stayed
at their father's house forty years before, so we felt like old friends.
I found them all liberal women, and we enjoyed a few days together,
talking over our mutual struggles, and admiring the beautiful scenery
for which that part of the country is celebrated. The women of England
were just then organizing political clubs, and I was invited to speak
before many of them. There is an earnestness of purpose among English
women that is very encouraging under the prolonged disappointments
reformers inevitably suffer. And the order of English homes, too, among
the wealthy classes, is very enjoyable. All go on from year to year with
the same servants, the same surroundings, no changes, no moving, no
building even; in delightful contrast with our periodical upheavals,
always uncertain where we shall go next, or how long our main
dependents will stand by us.
From Bristol I went to Greenbank to visit Mrs. Helen Bright Clark. One
evening her parlors were crowded and I was asked to give an account of
the suffrage movement in America. Some clergymen questioned me in regard
to the Bible position of woman, whereupon I gave quite an exposition of
its general principles in favor of liberty and equality. As two distinct
lines of argument can be woven out of those pages on any subject, on
this occasion I selected all the most favorable texts for justice to
woman, and closed by stating the limits of its authority. Mrs. Clark,
though thoroughly in sympathy with the views I had expressed, feared
lest my very liberal utterances might have shocked some of the strictest
of the laymen and clergy. "Well," said I, "if we who do see the
absurdities of the old superstitions never unveil them to others, how is
the world to make any progress in the theologies? I am in the sunset of