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Untitled Article
on a large scale , in the county hospital . She helps to elect the sovereigns of India , who hold their august sittings in Leadenhallstreet . All this is reasonable and constitutional ; but— -vote for a Member of Parliament—preposterous ! What makes this matter yet more odd is that a man does not vote because he is a man , still less because he is an honest man , or a wise man ,, but because he is a ten pounder or upwards . There , and there alone , is his qualification . But though the woman be a fifty-pounder and upwards , and both honest and wise into the bargain , yet it availeth not . Truly it is very
mysterious . So thought one Mary Smith , who thereupon petitioned the Legislature that female householders , possessing the requisite property qualification , might be included within the enfranchising provisions of the Reform Act . This petition , which we have not been able to see , is said to
have contained some very foolish things , and some very disgusting ones . It may be so ; but we cannot imagine that it contained anything so foolish , or so disgusting , as the conversation which followed its presentation in the House of Commons . Many newspapers declined to publish what we will not insult the poor by calling pot-house ribaldry .
Who or what Mary Smith is , we neither know nor care ; nor have we a word to say on behalf of the judiciousness of her petition , or of her selection of an advocate ; nor are we offering any opinion on the expediency of granting , or even attending to its prayer : but we must say that its reception was most disgraceful ; and that the distinction against which she petitioned is a very curious anomaly in our social institutions . Be not alarmed , gentle reader ; nor suppose that we are about to pen an eulogy on woman , or an assertion of her political rights .
We are not going to descant on domestic virtues , and Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi , and Dorcas , and Mrs . Hutchinson , and the patient Grizzle . We shall not talk of patriotism either , nor celebrate the peasant girls of Uri and Untervvalden , who died in the ranks in the memorable fight against French invasion ; or the noble ladies of Warsaw , who gave their golden trinkets to be melted and coined into ducats for the pay of the Polish army in the late righteous rebellion . We will say nothing against the
common horror of female politicians . Our only purpose is to mention , and merely to mention , a few particulars in which there is great room for improvement in the condition of women . In the first place , then , we cannot perceive how the interests of civilized society should require or be promoted by the prevention of women ' s attaining the fullest measure of strength , health , and activity , of which their bodily frames are capable . Qf course it is essential to social order , that women who are kitchen drudges should be robust ^ and that ladies who are drawing-
Untitled Article
A Political and Social Anomaly . 639
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 639, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/63/
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