Punch (58.1870)

Apbil 16, iftfO.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

155

bewitching creatures,—so strong while you are willing to be weak, so
TO MRS. PROFESSOR FAWCETT. irresistible while you choose to use your own weapons,—if you carei.

for votes, you have them already. Have you not the men's ? In a
{From Punch's own Correspondence.) j word here is my dilemma, dear Mrs. Professor. Either women don't

care for votes—in which case they will make a bad use of them; or
Deax Mks. Professor, ,, ™ , t.. they do care for them, in which case they have ours.

. \°Srhave latTely ^een dellve™? lectures on the Electoral Dis- j Look how r(lle in that pariiameilt for the business of which you
abilities of Women. I quite sympathise with your wifely desire to keep i DQ cape aad whoge budget yQU coutrol and appropriate. What man
abreast of your excellent and irrepressible husband. As it seems to be dareg ca[1 Mg home Ms Qwn p What man> fhat deserves to be called a
his special function to start untimely hares m the House ot Commons, ^ ft d wife> wisheg tQ be Qther thaa her humble servant,

you cannot be more congenia ly occupied than m agitating crude bread-winner, hewer of wood and drawer of water, within the walls of
changes out-of-doors. I can only hope that if your agi ation for the that gacred herPj of wbich the household hearth is the central sun ?
electoral rights of your sex ever carries it as far as the polling-booth, it Depend u it if Nature had meant you for the francQisej you would
will be content to stop there, and not press forward to the House. ii baye had [t } fiut th lf yqu had beea in qur placej we

own I do not like to contemplate the possibility ot two b awcetts in - should haye been jn ^ Do tMl)k it WQuld be a better wor]d
the field-or rather on the Commons—at once, and one ot them m pet- for fhe ch ? Leavi you to ponder the question, I remain, my
ticoats, uniting the normal feminine unwillingness to take an answer, : j **- pmfP„n1. ,T i

to the special irrepressibility and deafness to all reasons but his own of, m B' x roiessor> Your faithful friend and servant,

the eminent man whose wife, by natural selection, you have become. ^TOtf®^.

I fiud now that you have dropped the limitation with which your -
sister agitators started, and that you go in for repealing the electoral

disabilities of all women— mairied as well as single. You are logical BABOO KESHUB CHUNDER SEN.

in this, as well as wise in your generation. I am not aware whether! rT, . . . ,

a i\, i. ™„„ „„0 t i,„~„r ™„ rofnco +r> I IIhis great Indian reformer is invited to a Tea Meeting oy the British and

you admit that man and wile is one tlesh. 1 know you reluse to t?.1; •„„ tt-^ : a - * * *i, rr c t> i

'j .. ' i ' c ~ t i. j j-k *. u^„\a * oreign Unitarian bocietv at the Hanover Square -Rooms]

admit that man and wife is one purse. I cannot wonder that you should

refuse to admit, by implication, that man and wife is one mind, and

that a vote given to the wife will be only another given to the husband.

One object of the various movements you are so active in pro-
moting— Women's Suffrage Movement, Women's Separate Property
Movement, Women's Examination Movement, Women's University
Movement, Women's Admission to the Professions Movement, &c,—
is the cultivation of a bold spirit of self-dependence and self-assertion
in your sex, which, if you could develop it to the full, would, I doubt
not, soon dispose of all objections to a married woman's franchise
founded on the assumption that the wife would be likely to be g%ided
by her husband in giving her vote.

Besides, if married women are not to have votes, you lose what seems
likely to be one of the chief motives to electoral activity among your
sex. As a rule, women—married women, iu particular, with home
cares and labours heavy upon them—care little, as yet, about politics.
You admit this, but explain it by their exclusion, thus far, from politi-
cal functions. But one thing they do care about—bless em !—and that
is the comfort of their homes, and the satisfaction of " paying their
way." Women, as far as I have seen, hate and fear debt, far more
than men, and when trusted with any voice or control in money mat-
ters, are keener bargainers, and better husbands of their husbands'
earnings than we are. One value, at least, the franchise will have in
their eyes—it will be worth money. As they don't care for politics,
aud do care for money—for family needs, above all—they wdl be likely
enough not only to see that their husbands vote for the side that pays
best—as the election reports show they do now, very generally, in the
class usually influenced by bribes—but will bring another vote to the
agent's book, for another lump of " sugar." But the unanimity of the
vote will be the wife's work, not the husband's; and what oftenest de-
termines it will be the colour of the candidate's money. I feel pretty
sure that whatever the female franchise nay cost the country, it will
cost candidates a pretty penny.

Has it never occurred to you that iu parcelling out life into two
great fields, the one inside, the other outside the house-doors, and in
creating two beings so distinct in body, mind, and affections as men
and women, the Framer of the Universe must have meant the two for
different funciions ? Can you deny, or shut your eyes to the fact that
a similar distinction runs through the whole animal kingdom? Surely,
so long as the masculine creature keeps aloof from the domain of the
feminine, and leaves to her the nursing and rearing and training of the

Who on earth, of living men,
Is Baboo Keshub Chundeb Sen ?

I doubt if even one in ten
Knows Baboo Keshub Chundeb Sen.

Have you heard— if so, where and when—
Of Baboo Keshub Chundeb Sen ?

The name surpasses human ken—
Baboo Keshub Chundeb Sen !

To write it almost spoils my pen:
Look—Baboo—Keshub—Chundeb—Sen !

From fair Cashmere's white-peopled glen
Comes Baboo Keshub Chundeb Sen ?

Or like " my ugly brother Ben,"
Swarth Baboo Keshub Chundeb Sen ?

Big as ox, or small as wren,
Is Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen ?
Let's beard this " lion" in his den—
This Baboo Keshub Chundeb Sen.

So come to tea and muffins, then,
With Baboo Keshub Chundeb Sen.

BATHER, TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING.

The following is an extract from an account of the Boat Race :—■

" We understand it is the intention of the authorities to take an early
opportunity of coming to a clear understanding with the Thames Conservancy
on the subject of the steamers, and for keeping the river clear on practice days
on future occasions, failing which it is their intention to remove the race
elsewhere, and this, we need scarcely say, would be a great loss to the Metro-
polis and its inhabitants."

Is not this a little unreasonable? The Thames does not flow
merely to serve as a course for the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race
—it has other uses. It is conserved for business as well as pleasure.
The traffic on the river is not insignificant; and if it is to be inter-
family, and the ordering and gracing of the home, there lies a tremen- fered with on practice days, as well as on the day of the race, the

dously strong presumption against the wisdom of the feminine entry
on the masculine domain of business and politics ?

I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance ; but I have never pic-
tured you to myself as one of those formidable, bass-voiced, big-armed
men-women, whose assault on the position of our sex is inspired by an

" authorities " (we presume the two University Boat Clubs are meant,)
will of course be ready to make compensation to those who otherwise
will suffer, that they may sport. The threat to remove the race else-
where must be borne with submission; perhaps, however, the loss
would not be confined to the Metropolis and its inhabitants ; perhaps

unfitness to rule in their own. On the contrary, I should expect to the crews themselves and their University friends might not feel quite

find you as charming, graceful, and feminine as your pretty name—
Millicent. May 1 presume on that impression to ask you, entre
nous, and in strictest confidence, how you manage matters with the
Professor when you want to carry a point ? Do you argue with him ?
I should hope not, judging from my experience of him in the House.
I see how Gladstone fares at his hands. I imagine you must have a
very different way of going to work with him. If you have that wifely
power which is your right, at home, may I ask how this is acquired
and retained? Is it by any arts within masculine reach, or by a magic
all feminine, and all your own—such as all men succumb to from the
wand of some Circe or other ?

Don't trouble yourself to give an answer. I read it in your face—on
your lips, that smile without speaking. Ah! there is the female

the same stimulating interest in the struggle, if fought out in the
oriental privacy of King's Lynn, even with all the assistance the
Eastern Counties Railway could give it.

When we hear that the Derby is to be run on Salisbury Plain, we
shall believe in the possibility of the University Boat Race being
rowed and won on some other water than the Thames.

A Barrel of Barrels.

franchise, Frau Professorin. Give women votes ! Bless you, dear, | " Shotten Herrings ?

The papers have a story about a man who received a barrel, found
to be full of revolvers and cartridges. He stated that he had supposed
it to contain Herrings. Suggests our ever ready friend Shakspeabe,