“Ah! your husband! yes, wimmen should have husbands instead of rights. They do not need rights, they need freedom from all cares and sufferings. Sweet, lovely beings, let them have husbands to lift them above all earthly cares and trials! Oh! angels of our homes,” says he, liftin' his eyes to the heavens, and kinder shettin' 'em, some as if he was goin' into a trance, “fly around, ye angels, in your native haunts! mingle not with rings, and vile laws; flee away, flee above them.” And he kinder moved his hand back and forth, in a floatin' fashion, up in the air, as if it was a woman a flyin' up there, smooth and serene. It would have impressed some folks dretful, but it didn't me. I says reasonably,-- “Dorlesky would have been glad to flew above 'em. But the ring and the vile laws laid holt of her, unbeknown to her, and dragged her down. And there she is, all dragged and bruised and brokenhearted by it. She didn't meddle with the political ring, but the ring meddled with her. How can she fly when the weight of this infamous traffic is a holdin' her down?” [Illustration: “FLY AROUND, YE ANGELS.”] “Ahem!” says 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 the rude crowds. We political men would fain keep them as they are now: we are willing to stand the rude buffetings of--of--voting, in order to guard these sweet, delicate creatures from any hardships. Sweet, tender beings, we would fain guard you--ah, yes! ah, yes!” [Illustration: WOMAN'S RIGHTS.] Says I, “Cease instantly, or my sickness will increase; for such talk is like thoroughwort or lobelia to my moral stomach.” Says I, “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 frozen, they are beaten, they are made childless and hopeless, by drunken husbands killing 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 of crimes committed by the direct aid of this agent of hell. [Illustration: SOMEBODY BLUNDERED.]