no legal right to the guardianship of her own children? Perhaps you do not know that "the married women of this country, when their children are seven years old, have no kind of power to prevent their children from being removed if their husbands choose to remove them!" Would this be the case if women were virtually represented? Finally, using the very same argument which has been so often applied to the working classes—Is it right or just that any one should be forced to contribute to the revenue of the country, and at the same time be debarred from controlling the national expenditure? Either this argument is good for nothing, or it applies to women as forcibly as it does to men. I think it does apply both to men and women, and that, therefore, it is not accurate to say that women are already sufficiently represented, and that their interests are, under the present system, fully protected.
Now let us turn to the second argument urged against the extension of the suffrage to women, namely, a woman is so easily influenced, that if she had a vote it would practically have the same effect as giving two votes to her nearest male relation, or to her favourite clergyman. This is a curious argument; if it were applied indiscriminately to both men and women, very few people indeed would have votes. For instance, it might be said that the Times newspaper exercises an extraordinary influence over the political opinions of thousands of people. This is perfectly true; nearly every one must have noticed how, in ordinary society, the conversation of nine people out of ten echoes the general tone of the leading articles in the day's Times. Now it may be said, following out the argument just quoted, the effect of giving all these people votes is only to multiply a million-fold the voting power of the editor of the Times, or the writers of the articles in that journal; therefore all people who take their political views from the Times ought to be precluded from exercising the franchise. By carrying out the principle, nearly every one would be disfranchised, except the great leaders of political thought, such as Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Bright, Mr. Mill, Lord Salisbury, and the editors of some of the principal papers. For
