a highly interesting one in many particulars, and the pioneers of the cause who engaged in active service twenty years ago proved themselves as ardent as in the early days.
The following letters were read:
Dear Madam:—I received your kind letter some weeks ago, and beg to apologize for the delay of this reply. Pray accept my thanks for your kind expressions regarding my small efforts to keep alive the great cause we have all so near at heart. I regret to hear that one who, like yourself, has been a pioneer on the way when the path was the ruggedest, should for many years have been incapacitated from aiding its progress. May you now be restored fully to activity. We certainly want all true workers, albeit the progress of the cause surpasses our most sanguine expectations, on that as well as on this side of the Atlantic.
Pray accept my thanks for your kind invitation to your Convention. It will not, I think, ever be likely that I shall visit America, but I shall always read with deep interest of all that goes forward there. Accept, dear madam, my thanks for your kindness and sincere regard.
Madam:—I regret that I am unable to accept the invitation with which you have honored me, for I have been an invalid for some months, and am not sufficiently well to undertake any journey. I can assure you that the cause of woman is gradually but firmly gaining ground in Scotland, and that each month we are gaining in the right direction. At present there are six female medical students studying in our university. The College of Surgeons has thrown its doors open, without any restriction, to the female student.
The Merchants' Maiden Company has, within the last, few months, opened large schools in connection with its hospitals, offering as its prizes Bursaries in the university to girls as well as boys, which I think is one of the strongest moves which as yet has been made in behalf of women. The petition in favor of the medical education of women was largely signed in Scotland. The Society for the higher education of Women is progressing well' and the professors spoke highly of the efficiency of their working pupils. In the university classes of botany and natural history all the female students were in the honor list, and Miss Edith Pechey was the first chemistry student for the year.
With best wishes and thanks to you and your committee for your kind invitation, I am truly yours,
Madam:—I beg to thank you for the circular and your accompanying note, both inviting me to attend the Twentieth Aniversary of the inauguration of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States, to be held in New York on the 20th and 2Ist of October. I have once traveled through your country with very much pleasure, and, { hope, with some profit, and I have a strong desire to come again; but as it is impossible for me to do so now, I can not attend your meeting. I need not say that I sympathize with your object. It seems to me to be inconsistent with the principles of your Government, and of ours, to deny to women the power to control those who legislate for them. Until they obtain this control through the suffrage, they will suffer many disadvantages and be the victims of unequal laws. How soon they will obtain it must depend mainly upon their own efforts. In the meantime the present agitation will give them an interest in many public questions, will in itself be an education in preparation for political power, and will exercise an influence in favor of more equal legislation between men and women.
Very truly yours,
FROM MRS. DR. TAYLOR.
