“Ahem!” sez he. “Ahem, as it were. As I was saying, my dear madam, these angelic angels of our homes are too ethereal, too dainty to mingle with rude crowds. We political men would fain keep them as they are now; we are willing to stand the rude buffetin’ of—of—voting, in order to guard these sweet delicate creatures from any hardships. Sweet tender beings, we would fain guard thee—ah, yes, ah, yes.” Sez I, “Cease instantly, or my sickness will increase, for such talk is like thoroughwort or lobelia to my moral and mental stomach. You know and I know that these angelic tender bein’s, half-clothed, fill our streets on icy midnights, huntin’ up drunken husbands and fathers and sons. They are driven to death and to moral ruin by the miserable want liquor drinkin’ entails. They are starved, they are froze, they are beaten, they are made childless and hopeless by drunken husbands killin’ their own flesh and blood. They go down into the cold waves and are drowned by drunken captains; they are cast from railways into death by drunken engineers; they go up on the scaffold and die for crimes committed by the direct aid of this agent of Hell. “Wimmen had ruther be flyin’ round than to do all this, but they can’t. If men really believed all they say about wimmen, and I think some on ’em do in a dreamy sentimental way—If wimmen are angels, give ’em the rights of angels. Who ever hearn of a angel foldin’ up her wings and goin’ to a poor-house or jail through the fault of somebody else? Who ever hearn of a angel bein’ dragged off to police court for fightin’ to defend her children and herself from a drunken husband that had broke her wings and blacked her eyes, got the angel into the fight and then she got throwed into the streets and imprisoned by it? Who ever hearn of a angel havin’ to take in washin’ to support a drunken son or father or husband? Who ever hearn of a angel goin’ out as wet-nurse to git money to pay taxes on her home to a Govermunt that in theory idolizes her, and practically despises her, and uses that money in ways abominable to that angel. If you want to be consistent, if you’re bound to make angels of wimmen, you ort to furnish a free safe place for ’em to soar in. You ort to keep the angels from bein’ tormented and bruised and killed, etc.” “Ahem,” sez he, “as it were, ahem.” But I kep’ right on, for I begun to feel noble and by the side of myself: “This talk about wimmen bein’ outside and above all participation in the laws of her country, is jest as pretty as anything I ever hearn, and jest as simple. Why, you might jest as well throw a lot of snowflakes into the street, and say, ‘Some of ’em are female flakes and mustn’t be trompled on.’ The great march of life tromples on ’em all alike; they fall from one common sky, and are trodden down into one common ground.