Two weeks later, a second meeting of the same character was held in Rochester; and this one, as showing signs of progress, was presided over by a woman, the first event of the kind that had occurred up to that date, although since then it has become a common occurrence, and as a general rule it has been found that women make excellent presiding officers. Several new recruits were enlisted at the Rochester meeting, both women and men, among the latter being the Rev. William Henry Channing, a popular Unitarian clergyman of that city. The Rochester meeting fully endorsed the resolutions and declaration of independence of the Seneca Falls meeting, and from that time the new movement of women’s rights was fully launched upon the great ocean of public discussion and public opinion. Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton were the acknowledged leaders; but soon other advocates of wide influence were enrolled in the cause, and its influence from that day has continued to widen and extend, until it now includes men and women of great distinction and power in every English-speaking country in the world. MRS. BLOOMER THINKS ABOUT IT. Mrs. Bloomer, at the time these meetings were held, was residing quietly at her home in Seneca Falls, engaged in a modest way in religious and temperance work. She had not yet thought much on the subject of women’s rights, so called, except so far as it related to the obstacles which the laws as then formed threw in the way of securing the triumph of total-abstinence principles. The Washingtonian movement had continued to exert its influence upon the community. Now total-abstinence societies sprang up, among them the Sons and Daughters of Temperance,—separate organizations, but including within their lists of members many thousands of both sexes. The _Temperance Star_ of Rochester was an organ of these organizations, and Mrs. Bloomer wrote freely and frequently for its columns. She attended the Mott-Stanton convention in Seneca Falls, but took no part in its proceedings and did not sign either the resolutions or declaration of independence.