and critical comments, which did a great educational work and roused much thought on the whole question.
Conventions were held during the summer at Saratoga and Newport. The following letter from Celia Burleigh gives a bird's-eye view of that at Saratoga:
The advocates of Woman Suffrage have fairly earned the title of Revolutionists by their recent bold move on the enemy's stronghold. The great foe to progress is want of thought, and the devotees of fashion are about the last to come into line and work for any great reform. Not a little surprise, and some indignation, were expressed by the representatives of upper tendom sojourning here, that strong-minded women were not only coming to Saratoga, but actually intending to hold a convention. What next? What place would henceforth be safe from the assaults of these irrepressible amazons of reform? Saratoga has survived the shock, however; Flora McFlimsey has looked in the face of Miss Anthony, and has not been turned to stone. More than that, finding the convention pouring into the parlors of Congress Hall, and escape actually cut off, Flora, after deliberating whether to faint and be carried out, or gratify her curiosity by looking on, finally submitted gracefully to the inevitable and did the latter. From her crimson cushioned arm chair by the window, she saw the meeting called to order, saw one after another of "those horrid women, whose names are in the newspapers," quietly taking their places, doing the thing proper to be done, and carrying forward the business of the meeting. Really, they were not so dreadful after all. They neither wore beards nor pantaloons. There was not even a woman with short hair among them. On the contrary, they seemed to be decidedly appreciative of "good clothes" and if less familiar with the goddess of fashion than Miss Flora they did not walk arm in arm with her, they at least followed at no great distance and were, to a woman, finished off with the regulation back-bow of loops and ends. Spite of herself, Miss McFlimsey became interested, and when Miss Anthony mentioned the fact that the majority of men felt it necessary to talk down to women, instead of sharing with them their best thoughts and most vital interests, Flora looked reflective, as if in that direction might lie the clew to the insufferable stupidity which she often found in the young gentlemen of her acquaintance.
That a Woman Suffrage Convention should have been allowed to organize in the parlors of Congress Hall, that those parlors should have been filled to their utmost capacity by the habitual guests of the place, that such men as Millard Fillmore, Thurlow Weed, George Opdyke, and any number of clergymen from different parts of the country, should have been interested lookers-on, are significant facts that may well carry dismay to the enemies of the cause. That the whole business of the Convention was transacted by women in a dignified, orderly, and business-like manner, is a strong intimation that in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, women are capable of learning how to conduct meetings and manage affairs. Even the least friendly spectator was compelled to