Mr. Fawcett (a newly married man too) earnestly supported the motion, and said that the time for chaff on the subject had gone by. Mr. Laing talked nonsense about the ideal of woman, said that Juliet, Ophelia and Desdemona had nothing to do with votes--the poets understood woman better than Mr. Mill. Sir George Bowyer, like a gallant knight, supported your cause. Lord Galway said the motion placed admirers of the fair sex in an awkward position. Mr. Onslow said that two young ladies had told him they would vote for the man who gave them the best pair of diamond ear-rings. Mr. Mill was pleased, as well he might be, at the fearful debility of his opponents, and took the division, which was, For the Ladies 73 Against 196 ___ Majority 123 for keeping you out, dears. This speech of Mr. Mill's was the event of the week. At any rate it cannot be said that _Punch_ failed to do justice to the debate on its merits. His account is both ampler and fairer than many reports of important discussions in Parliament which appear in the daily press of to-day. But this was the day of verbatim reports. _Punch_ mentions one debate which occupied thirty-six columns of closely-printed small type in _The Times_. [Illustration: MILL'S LOGIC, OR FRANCHISE FOR FEMALES "Pray clear the way, there, for these--ah--persons."] By way of an offset to the admissions made in his Parliamentary report, _Punch_ published a long, open letter to Mr. Mill. The argument founded on the derogatory word "person" need not detain us. The letter is signed "Judy," but the voice is the voice of _Punch_, who would not give women the vote because he believed they could exercise their political rights of sovereignty more effectually by proxy. Why should they wish to exercise power through the franchise when they were already omnipotent over those who had the franchise? Men were not much the happier or the better or the wiser for their politics. Mill's proposal to exclude married women from the franchise is dexterously turned to account as an admission that female influence was paramount as it was; that it was unnecessary to give women what they already exercised through their husbands. In fine, till women were married, they were learning to rule their husbands. After they were married they had their husbands to rule. Politics were the natural occupation of the inferior or slavish sex. When would Mill's logic open his eyes to the fact that, like the Constitutional Sovereign, _la femme règne et ne gouverne pas_? Such a letter brought but cold comfort to the Suffragists. It was like feeding them with the East Wind. But at its worst it was an immense improvement on the heavy facetiousness of _Punch's_ earlier manner. In May, 1868, _Punch_ virtually sided with his "dear enemy":--