a little pistol in her pocket which she knew
how to use. This belligerent little lady
having presently subsided amid the storm
raised by this announcement, the president
invited the startling editor with the
cool manner and classic features to address
the meeting. This was objected to by
several ladies, who wanted to speak, and
thought their rights once more invaded
by the tyrant man. The startling editor,
however, advanced, pushed back his luxuriant
locks, pulled his coat-sleeves up a trifle
so as to betray his cuffs, and ran his keen
eye over the audience. "In the world's
growth," said he, suddenly, as if it had just
occurred to him, "man has been a tortoise;
but woman has been a snail. Now, I don't
mean to deify the women: I've known and
loved many women."

(Hear, hear, from the younger ladies,
frowns from the elders.)

"But there isn't an angel among 'em."

This caused a marked sensation. The
president looked sharply at the speaker;
"Oh, oh," came from several gallant
gentlemen in a corner; the speaker was
regarded with looks of disapproval by all
the female eyes. He hastened to recover
his position.

"However, women are better than men."
(At this amende honorable there was a
tumult of shrill applause, accompanied by
parasol thumps and fan rattling.) "And
I hope to see the day when the women
will vote."

"Will the speaker permit me?" said a
thin irascible-looking man on the platform.
"I wish to put him one question."

"Very well, sir."

"Do you want women to step down into
the dirty pool of politics?"

"No; I want them to go down like an
angel into the troubled waters."
(Commotion.)

"And you would like to see them go to
the polls?"

"Yes; I'd rather see a woman in the
street with a ballot in her hand than the
Grecian bend in her back."

This sally delighted the straight-laced
and elderly apostles, who applauded
energetically: the younger and fashionable
element blushed and frowned. The latter
had more than once excited the president's
ire. Now she had her revenge. Glancing
disdainfully at her brilliantly-dressed and
somewhat refractory disciples, she knocked
on the table, and said, in a most cutting
manner:

"We must really have order. If you
applaud so vigorously, you'll shake down
somebody's back hair."

Here, a little variety was given to the
entertainment by the appearance of the
noted ballad singers, the "Hopkinson
family," on the stage. These started off
in a blithe ditty, which celebrated the
downfall of the tyrant man from his
pedestal, and the entrance of women into
congressional halls and cabinet councils.

The warblers having ceased their
warbling, the president rose, evidently primed
with a subject of importance.

"The hat," said she, looking straight at
the door, "will now be passed round. I
beg that part of the audience near the
door, not to run away before the hat
reaches them. It is grateful to get dollars
of sympathy as well as words of
sympathy." The fashionables at the door,
shamed by this stratagem into staying,
were forced to contribute; and the
president peered with satisfaction into the hat,
when it had gone its rounds, and came
back heavy with the "sinews of war."

The discussion was then resumed by a
recent convert, a young man with very
long whiskers, who seemed to be still in
doubt on several points. He wanted to
know whether making bread, bringing up
children, and keeping secrets, were
compatible with the cause?

Half a dozen ladies hastened to answer,
but the negro apostle secured the floor.
He assumed a lofty and indignant air
toward his white brother; said that
Reverend Selina Sharpe made "de bess
bread he ever ate;" that the great Mrs.
Boldstone had fourteen of "de bess
behaved children in the country;" and
that Mrs. Lucretia Stubbins "presided
over her household like a queen." All of
which seemed thoroughly to convince the
convert, who was seen and heard no more.

The president, looking at her watch, now
admonished the meeting that the dinner
hour had arrived, and begged to make just
two final remarks. "We are asked," she
said, taking up an oratorical pose, "if,
having the suffrage, we will fight. I
answer, we are even ready for that; but we
hope to introduce, with our ballots, the
reign of universal peace. Brothers and
sisters, it is our mission, for the present, to
keep the world in hot water!"

A little fiery lady took the floor by storm.
She was indignant, she said in a high voice,
when the president declared that this meeting
was only a means of agitation—indignant.
yes, indignant, that it should be used