the "egregious anomaly" that in the constitutional process of events a woman would become vested with the supreme political authority, and yet women were denied the simplest political function. "In the common opinion of common statesmen, the fitness of woman to vote for an individual's elevation to the temporary dignity of a legislator in the House of Commons is a mere joke; yet her naming scores of persons legislators for life, and all their heirs legislators too, through all generations, is an essential portion of that ancestral wisdom under which we live. . . . In truth this mystery is hard to swallow, and warily must a loyal subject steer his course so as neither to be convicted of constructive treason by the Tories, nor ridiculed even by Radicals for the extravagances of his theories." Then after further criticism of the anomalies of the case he concludes: "In claiming science, politics, philosophy and all the higher regions of thought for himself and warning off intrusion by placarding them with the word unfeminine, he has deprived himself of the best sympathy, the most efficient aid, the mightiest stimulus and the noblest reward of his own most honourable toils. All this is very foolish and inconsistent, but legislation and Society are full of anomalies."

When in later years the legislature was asked to repeal this egregious anomaly, the vote of the leader of the Anti-Corn Law Bill, Mr. C. P. Villiers, was always recorded in favour of such repeal in the House of Commons.

To this period belongs what appears to be the earliest leaflet printed in favour of Women's Suffrage a quaint

little slip of yellow paper of which a facsimile is here given, from a copy preserved by Miss Ashurst Biggs.

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NEVER will the nations of the earth be well governed, until both sexes, as well as all parties, are fairly represented, and have an influence, a voice, and a hand in the enactment and administration of the laws. One would think, the sad mismanagement of the affairs of our own country, should, in all modesty, lead us MEN to doubt our own capacity for the task of governing a nation, or even a State, alone; and to apprehend that we need other qualities in our public councils-qualities that may be found in the female portion of our race. If woman be the complement of man, we may surely venture the intimation, that all our social transactions will be incomplete, or otherwise imperfect, until they have been guided alike by the wisdom of each sex. The wise, virtuous, gentle mothers of a State or nation, might contribute as much to the good order, the peace, the thrift of the body politic, as they severally do to the well-being of their families, which for the most part, all know, is more than the fathers do.

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Leaflet from Anne Knight of Quiet House, Chelmsford-circa 1847.

This leaflet was one of a packet sent to her mother, Mrs. Joseph Biggs (then of Leicester) by Anne Knight of Quiet House, Chelmsford-an aged Quaker lady of strong political opinions. "I wish," she writes in the letter which accompanied the packet (dated in April 1847), "that talented philanthropists in England would come forward in this critical juncture of our nation's affairs and insist on the right of suffrage for all men and all women unstained with crime . . . . and take the liberty of requesting thy opinion as well as hearty co-operation in the demand for justice to us all, whether gowned or coated, in order that all may have a voice in the affairs of their country at a time when all interests are roused and it is important that 'every man should do his duty, and every woman also.'”1

In the chapter, contributed by Caroline Ashurst Biggs to the American History of Women's Suffrage on the movement in Great Britain, it is related that Anne Knight assisted in founding the

The next sign of the leaven which was steadily working, was an article in the Westminster Review of July 1851 on the Enfranchisement of Women, suggested by the Women's Rights Convention which had been held in Worcester, Massachusetts, on 23rd and 24th of the previous October. This article was reprinted as a pamphlet and widely circulated by the Women's Suffrage Society in 1868,1 with the name of the writer, Mrs. John Stuart Mill. The article concludes with mention of a petition of women, agreed to by a public meeting at Sheffield, claiming the elective franchise, and presented to the House of Lords by the Earl of Carlisle on 13th February 1851.

In 1855 the leavening process appeared in a lucid, able pamphlet, The Right of Women to Exercise the Elective Franchise, by "Justitia" (published by Chapman & Hall); later that pamphlet was reprinted by the National Society for Women's Suffrage with the name of the author, Mrs. Henry Davis Pochin.

In the following extract thence, summing up actual evils and possible benefits, the reason and the justification of the new movement may be clearly read.

"The evils of the present system with the corresponding benefit of the advocated reforms, may be shortly summed up as follows:

"Sheffield Female Political Association," which, at a meeting held in the Democratic Temperance Hotel, Sheffield, 26th February 1851, adopted the first address on suffrage formulated by women in England. History of Women's Suffrage, vol. iii. p. 837.

It was afterwards published in Mr. J. S. Mill's Dissertations and Discussions.