But says Betsey, “The study that would be inevitable on a female in ordeh to make her vote intelligably, would it not be too wearing on her?”
“No! not a single bit; s’posin these soft, fashionable wimmen should read a little about the nation she lives in, and the laws that protects her if she keeps ’em, and hangs and imprisons her if she breaks ’em? I don’t know but it would be as good for her, as to pore over novels all day long,” says I; “these very wimmen that think the President’s bureau is a chest of draws where he keeps his fine shirts, and the tariff is a wild horse the senators keep to ride out on,--these very wimmen that can’t find time to read the constitution, let ’em get on to the track of a love-sick hero and a swoonin’ heroine, and they will wade through half a dozen volumes, but what they will foller ’em clear to Finis to see ’em married there,” says I, warmin’ with my subject, “Let there be a young woman hid in a certain hole, guarded by 100 and 10 pirates, and a young man tryin’ to get to her, though at present layin’ heavily chained in a underground dungeon with his rival settin’ on his back, what does a woman care for time or treasure, till she sees the pirates all killed off with one double revolver, and the young woman lifted out swoonin’ but happy, by the brave hero?” Says I, in a deep camp meetin’ voice, “If there had been a woman hid on the Island of Patmos, and Paul’s letters to the churches had been love letters to her, there wouldn’t be such a thick coat of dust on bibles as there is now.
“But if wimmen _don’t_ read about the laws they’ll know as much as some other folks do. I have seen men voters,” says I, and I cast a stern glance onto Josiah as I spoke, “whose study into national affairs didn’t wear on ’em enough to kill ’em at all. I have seen voters,” says I with another cuttin’ look at him, “that didn’t know as much as their wives did.” Josiah quailed a very little as I said this, and I continued on--“I have seen Irish voters, whose intellects wasn’t tiresome to carry round, and whose knowledge concernin’ public affairs wasn’t so good as it was about rum, and who would sell their votes for a drink of whiskey, and keep it up all day, votin’ and drinkin’ and then drinkin’ and votin’, and I guess wimmen won’t do any worse.”