In some of the counties of our State we have ladies as superintendents of schools and professors in colleges. One of the professors in the Industrial University at Champaign is a lady. Throughout the State you may find ladies who excel in every branch of study and in every trade. It was a lady who took the prize at "the Exposition" for the most beautiful piece of cabinet-work. This is said to have been a marvel of beauty and extraordinary as a specimen of fine art. She was a foreigner; a Scandinavian, I believe. Another lady is a teacher of wood-carving. We have physicians, and there are two attorneys, Perry and Martin, now practicing in the city of Chicago. Representatives of our sex are also to be found among real-estate agents and journalists, while, in one or two instances as preachers they have been recognized in the churches. CATHERINE A. STEBBINS of Michigan said: "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay!" So said the poet; and I say, Better a week with these inspired women in conference than years of an indifferent, conventional society! Their presence has been a blessing to the people of this District, and will prove in the future a blessing to our government. These women from all sections of our country, with a moral and spiritual enthusiasm which seeks to lift the burdens of our government, come to you, telling of the obstacles that have beset their path. They have tried to heal the stricken in vice and ignorance; to save our land from disintegration. One has sought to reform the drunkard, to save the moderate drinker, to convert the liquor-seller; another, to shelter the homeless; another, to lift and save the abandoned woman. "Abandoned?" once asked a prophet-like man of our time, who added, "There never was an abandoned woman without an abandoned man!" Abandoned of whom? let us ask. Surely not by the merciful Father. No; neither man nor woman is ever abandoned by him, and he sends his instruments in the persons of some of these great-hearted women, to appeal to you to restore their God-given freedom of action, that "the least of these" may be remembered. But in our councils no one has dwelt upon _one_ of the great evils of our civilization, the scourge of war; though it has been said that women will fight. It is true there are instances in which they have considered it a duty; there were such in the rebellion. But the majority of women would not declare war, would not enlist soldiers and would not vote supplies and equipments, because many of the most thoughtful believe there _is_ a better way, and that women can bring a moral power to bear that shall make war needless.