It is better to have the power of self-protection than to depend on any man, whether he be the Governor in his chair of State, or the hunted outlaw wandering through the night, hungry and cold and with murder in his heart. We are tired of the pretense that we have special privileges and the reality that we have none; of the fiction that we are queens, and the fact that we are subjects; of the symbolism which exalts our sex but is only a meaningless mockery. We demand that these shadows shall take substance. The coat of arms of the State of New York represents Liberty and Justice supporting a shield on which is seen the sun rising over the hills that guard the Hudson. How are justice and liberty depicted? As a police judge and an independent voter? Oh, no; as two noble and lovely women! What an absurdity in a State where there is neither liberty nor justice for any woman! We ask that this symbolism shall assume reality, for a redeemed and enfranchised womanhood will be the best safeguard of justice. Mrs. Blake was followed by Mrs. Martha McClellan Brown, of Cincinnati Wesleyan College, who spoke on Disabilities of Woman. Miss Anthony read the report from Missouri by Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, who strongly supported her belief in the constitutional right of women to the franchise. A letter of greeting was read from Miss Fannie M. Bagby, managing editor St. Louis _Chronicle_; Miss Phoebe W. Couzins (Mo.) gave a brilliant address entitled What Answer? At the evening session the hall was crowded. The speech of Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood (D. C.), the first woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court, was a severe criticism on the disfranchising of the women in Utah as proposed by bills now before Congress. It was a clear and strong legal argument which would be marred by an attempt at quotation. In an address on Women Before the Law, the report says: