Victoria rules 400,000,000 souls; the Empress of China over 400,000,000; Queen Wilhelmina over 30,000,000, and the Queen Regent of Spain over 20,000,000. Our sex, with crowns on their brows, may enter Parliaments; may govern empires. In every state or class which is upon an aristocratic basis they are indulged to the fullest. As we know, many women have political power and rank conferred on them in monarchies, and when that happens, their rank and power are equal to those of men. But in republics no woman is deemed worthy of publicity, honour or renown-all are rebuffed or disowned. Democracy has had to follow the army of progress led by aristocracy, but it has done so far in the rear, protesting, denouncing, ridiculing and execrating. Had a republic been the first and only form of government, woman's position would have remained for ever the same as that she occupied in the Dark Ages, for a republic is incapable of any feeling for her except that of prejudice, and ever glories in seeing her prostrate, "covered with the dust of obedience."

It is an axiom of the philosophers that the po

sition assigned to woman by a nation is a true index of its civilization. Then where do republics register upon civilization's thermometer? (A voice: "Below zero!"-Laughter and applause.)

WOMAN'S LEGAL STATUS

Every effort to introduce more advanced legislation for our sex has been bitterly opposed by republics. They have occasionally been persuaded to amend and patch some grotesque law, but they have done so in a spirit of vindictiveness that almost drove to madness the proud women who have had to appeal to them.

Let us contrast this with aristocracies where many legal and political privileges have been granted to our sex by those in power (and generally without women asking them), simply as a matter of right and in accordance with the advance of civilization. Let us take Russia for example. (Hisses and moans.) Russia, God bless her, was the first government in Christian Europe to grant wives the right to individually

hold and control property, the first government to grant to large numbers of women any political recognition. Throughout the length and breadth of that vast empire, wives are mistresses of their own fortunes and all woman-householders can vote either direct or by proxy in municipal matters. These are privileges they have had for centuries, and were enjoyed by them at a time when every wife in every republic was simply a legal and political serf. There are no other women who are so free socially* as those in the land of the Great White Czar; and the Russian government is doing more, as a government, to advance the interests of our sex than the combined republics of the world. (Voices: "Are these facts? Can they be proved?") Yes, for

*Young girls in America formerly went about unchaperoned and that was the only ground for the common impression abroad that American women were freer than others of their sex; but to-day no young women are more rigidly chaperoned than those in America. Exclusive of Turkey, no married women in Europe demand and possess so little genuine liberty as married women in America, where Society's laws are absolutely man's laws-as political and financial dependents cannot create laws of any kind either for themselves or others,

I make no statements which you cannot verify. My love for our young friend here and my allegiance to every member of my sex impels me to tell you "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"-and I do so in the full consciousness that, if such ever becomes known, I shall be victimized to my very grave.

But there is France, a republic, at your very door, and you need not cross the sea for an example of democracy. France has accomplished less in the elevation and in the practical amelioration of woman's condition than any other advanced country in Europe. Woman in France, as wife, as daughter, in her relation to divorce, in her political, legal and civil life, has about the lowest status in Europe.

Then there are the republics of South America where neither legally, politically, nor educationally, is woman much advanced beyond her mediaval conditions-in fact, her legal and educational status generally is far inferior to that of woman in parts of the Orient (especially in Turkey); while her political standing is not so good as in Japan.

But let us return again to the government I live in the American Republic-that government which eternally brags and prates about liberty and equality and see if it does better generally for women than a government which never brags or prates about liberty and equality. Let us see the wife's legal status therein—in sixteen States a wife has no right to her own. earnings and the husband can collect the same for his own use; in eight States she has no right to her own property; in several States she has no interest in the estate her husband owned at their marriage, and on his dying she has no dower therein. In no State of the Union, if the wife dies first, can she bequeath any part of her property which she, as wife, has helped the husband amass, even to their children, for during the husband's life she has only an interest of a pauper or dependent in such estate. In several States a wife has no right to her own inherited property, which, unless placed in the hands of trustees (and away from her own management) becomes absolutely her husband's property at their marriage, and at his death she is only en