There are many things which we have not allowed woman to understand: she has been stinted in her education and secluded in her pursuits beyond the organic requisition of her sex. Public affairs of the highest importance pass through her mind like the blurred impression made upon her by the multifariousness of a daily newspaper; and we know what candid awkwardness balks the attempt to seize and unsnarl the vital points of the morning sheet. The marriages and deaths, being in large type and a conventional place, compete with the advertisements of low-priced cottons and flannels, and are only forgotten when the column that flatters with the latest fashions storms the well-dressed heart. Perhaps the same sheet announces the last pathetic moment of the Crimean campaign, which men follow with the eager interest of participants, as they are pledged to the cause of either party because they estimate the weal or woe of human races. Perhaps the Franco-Prussian war is creating an historic epoch in the politics and religion of Europe, involving new adjustments of the social and democratic life, making Luther's half battles whole ones, and leading all the bitter experiences of France into the solution of a republic. It is safe to say that the majority of women are indifferent to the closely printed columns which men follow with almost the literal precision of the compositors who set them up. Perhaps the statement may be hazarded that the emancipation of woman depends considerably upon her rivalry with man at the newsstands, and her patient sifting of the contents of her purchase. The proposition is not so fantastic as it may appear. I have been astonished at the repugnance of sprightly and intelligent women for the labor that the genuine news of the day from every nation requires, as it deserves, to be extracted from papers of value and dignity; for each throb of honest news carries forward the second-hand that marks the hours of mankind. Woman prefers to know the interests of the planet by hearsay, to sit over her fine task and listen to some man who has sopped up each crisis: he distils the day into a few drops of her luxury. It evaporates like the scent upon her handkerchief. She will hardly derive the benefit of discussing it. Her native sense ought to be furnished with a just appreciation of public affairs, enlightened observation of them, well-balanced abhorrence of all the iniquities, sustained and practical reflection upon the great proceedings of the world. If the claims of the household can never afford her time for this, she must decline the peril of increasing masculine ignorance by the weight of a single ballot.