ABSTRACT
I HAD no intention of taking part this year in the proceedings of my friends on this platform, having other special interests on hand. I expected that the debate would go on as usual; that we should hear calm, and well-delivered, and (as they seem to us) unanswerable arguments from our advocates, and receive from our opponents in reply that playful shower of remarks wholly beside the question, of solemn platitudes and rather offensive jokes (the brickbats and rotten eggs of controversy) which a few gentlemen in the House of Commons seem to consider proper for the use of masculine senators. We could afford to leave these 'Chartered Libertines of Debate,' as the Morning Post elegantly styles one of them, to enliven Parliament as to them seemed fit. But the case is changed when our cause is gravely condemned by a great and generous-hearted statesman – a man whom those who differ from him politically as widely as I do, yet regard with unfeigned admiration and warm personal sympathy and respect. It is because such a man as John Bright can misunderstand our case so astoundingly as his speech proves him to do, that I feel bound to come forward and say, 'No! things are not all smooth and right with women. No! their interests are not always consulted or provided for by men.
