hands. Why do the churches and charities that we love languish? Because we have no means of our own wherewith to sustain them. Why are working-women only paid half as much as working-men? Because it is impossible for men to furnish the whole support of one half the feminine community and pay the industrial half justly too. Why is our vote a matter of contempt and indifference to the country? Because we are poor, dependent on our fathers and husbands for food and shelter, and our vote, therefore, could represent neither physical strength nor money,—the two "powers behind the throne" that uphold all governments, and the only two that give the vote its value or even its meaning. I am not one of those who desire "manhood suffrage" for women, but I confess I am painfully impressed with the impotence and insignificance of my sex, when I see that "laughter" is all that generally greets the discussion of its enfranchisement, even in the graver hall of Congress!
If now there are any out of our two million "ladies" who are convinced from these reasons that it would be well if they could carry on the retail trade of the country, it is probable that several difficulties will present themselves to their minds as tending to make the thing impossible:—
1st. The want of capital wherewith to start retail stores;
2d. The want of time; for daily household duties, trifling as they individually are, would wholly interfere with business;
3d. The social prejudice, felt equally by both sexes, against women's publicly engaging in trade, even if in its present demoralized state it were desirable that they should do so.
There is only one method of overcoming these objections, and of making the transition at once practicable and agreeable.
This method is by an entire reorganization of the domestic interior on the basis of the great modern idea of Co-operation,—in short, by Co-operative Housekeeping.
