[54] WOMAN SUFFRAGE.--_Editor Commonwealth_:--Enclosed is a letter I sent to the editor of _The Nation_. As I consider his allusion to it insufficient, will you have the kindness to print it, no paper but yours, that I know of, being now open to the subject. All that the editor of _The Nation_ has a right to say is, that he has not investigated the statistics. Most of the women who have signed the petitions are women who have not a male relative in the world interested in the matter. Very truly yours, BOSTON, _Jan. 20, 1866_. CAROLINE H. DALL. 70 WARREN AVENUE, BOSTON, _Jan. 6, 1866_. _To the Editor of The Nation_:--I saw with surprise in _The Nation_, received to-day, a paragraph on "Universal Suffrage," which contained the following lines: "We think the women of the United States ought to have the franchise if they desire it, and we think they ought to desire it. But until they do desire it, and show that they do, by a _general_ expression of opinion, we are opposed to their being saddled with it on grounds of theoretical fitness, etc." Surely, it is difficult to explain such a sentence in a professedly far-seeing and deep-thinking journal! That argument will serve as well for the lately enfranchised blacks as for women, for no one will pretend that of the millions set free, a bare majority would of themselves contend for the franchise. That argument might have refused them freedom itself, for a large majority of Southern slaves knew too little of it to desire it, however they may have longed to be rid of a taskmaster and the pangs which slavery brought. During the last four years women have been silent about their "rights" in the several States, because pressed by severe duties. Desirous to establish a reputation for discretion, we have refrained from complicating the perplexities of any Senator; but now that a constitutional amendment is pending we must be careful, even if we gain no franchise, to lose no _opportunity_.