"And I tell you, gentlemen, with my one term's experience in the Legislature and what it has taught me--I tell you that there is no outrage which wealth and power can commit upon man that it cannot and does not commit doubly upon woman! There is no cruelty upon all this cruel earth half so terrible as the tyranny of sex! And again, I tell you that to woman every man is a capitalist in wealth and in power, and I reiterate:--the destruction of the poor is their _poverty._ It has been doubly woman's destruction. Her absolute financial dependence upon men has given him the power and--alas, that I should be compelled to say it!--the will, to deny her all that is best and loftiest in life, and even to crush out of her the love of liberty and the dignity of character which cares for the better things. Look at her education! Look at the disgraceful 'annexes' and side shifts which are made to prevent our sisters from acquiring even the same, or as good, an education as we claim for ourselves. Look--" He paused and lowered his voice. "Look at the awful, the horrible, the beastly laws we pass for women, while we carefully keep them in a position where they cannot legislate for themselves. Do you know there is no law in any state--and no legislature would dare try to pass one--which would bind a ten-year-old boy to any contract which he might have been led, driven, or coaxed into, or have voluntarily made, if that contract should henceforth deprive him of all that gives to him the comforts, joys, or decencies of life! All men hold that such a boy is not old enough to make such a contract. That any one older than he, who leads him into a crime or misdemeanor, or the transfer of property, or his personal rights and liberty, is guilty of legal offence. The boy is without blame, and his contract is absolutely void--illegal. But in more than one state we hold that a little girl of ten may make the most fatal contract ever made by or for woman, and that she is old enough to be held legally responsible for her act and for her judgment. The one who leads her into it, though he be forty, fifty, or sixty years old, is guiltless before the law. I tell you, gentlemen, there is no crime possible to humanity that is as black as that infamous law, sought to be re-enacted by our own state at this very time, and which has already passed one house!" He explained, as delicately as he could, the full scope and meaning of the bill. Surprise, consternation, swept over the room. Men, a few of whom had heard of the bill before, but had given it scant attention, saw a horror and disgust in the eyes of the women which aroused for the first time in their minds, a flickering sense of the enormity of such a measure. No one present was willing that any woman should believe him guilty of approving such legislation, and yet Avery impressed anew upon them that the bill had passed one house with a good majority. On his way out of the room, a tall girl stepped to his side.