Mr Giles Doherty rose to move an amendment, namely, that the word delegates should be held to include females. He was of opinion that the time was come when the talents of both sexes should be called, without partiality or favour, to rescue the legislative machine of this great empire from lapsing into the condition of a Screaming Farce. It was only a combination of superstition and arrogance on the part of men which had stood in the way of this being done before; and they were now paying the penalty by the degradation of that assembly, the membership of which they had been proud to associate with their names. The principle of the Bill, so far as it went, was right enough; he entirely concurred with the views of the hon. member in charge of it, so far as they went, but they did not go far enough. A reform of this kind must be drastic to be effective, and he did not for his part see the use of destroying the old jollification club of squires, if it were not to be replaced by a completely revolutionised body, which might reasonably be expected to accomplish the work the jolly squires had left undone. (Hear.)
Mr Normanton seconded the amendment. He would ask hon. gentlemen of all parties what good ever had been or ever would be done by continuing to withhold from legislation the benefit of feminine intelligence. It was nonsense to say that women were conservative or were this, that, or the other. Every political party, from the extreme Right to the extreme Left (to borrow the French mode), possessed its highly cultivated and intelligent women. More particularly, if the plan were about to be adopted of substituting paid delegates with plainly defined parliamentary duties for unpaid deputies almost irresponsible, the little experience which the country already possessed of employing women in public posts, certainly went to show that they discharged public duties quite as efficiently and as a rule more conscien-
