shocked at the idea of women delegates to the Convention, and threatened if they were admitted, to withdraw. This had alarmed others who were not quite so conservative, but who feared to have anything occur to create disturbance. They had persuaded Mr. May to wait upon the ladies and urge them quietly to withdraw. Mr. May performed his part well, merely stating the facts of the case, and leaving them to act upon their own judgment. But when they decided to present their credentials and demand their rights as members of the Convention, his face beamed with joy, as he said to them, "You are right." At the appointed time they were seated with other ladies in attendance at the side of the platform. Presently Rev. Dr. Mandeville, of Albany, arose, turned his chair facing them, his back to the audience, and stared at them with all the impudence of a boor, as if to wither them with his piercing glance.
Dr. Mandeville objected in a speech of some length, characterized by more venom and vulgarity than it had ever before been our fortune to hear; and such as the most foul-mouthed politician or bar-room orator would have hesitated to utter before respectable audiences. He denounced the Woman's State Temperance Society, and all women who took an active public part in promoting the cause. Spoke contemptuously of woman going from home to attend a temperance convention, and characterized such as a sort of "hybrid species, half man and half woman, belonging to neither sex." The short dress and woman's rights questions were "handled without gloves." These movements must be put down; cut up root and branch, etc., etc., and finally his Reverence wound up with a threat that if the report was adopted without striking out the offensive sentence he would dissolve his connection with the Society. Having thus discharged his venom, and issued his commands, he took his hat and with a pompous air left the house and did not again show himself at the meetings.
A warm discussion followed the motion for striking out, which it would be impossible to describe. Mr. Havens, of New York, offered an amendment — substituting a sort of unmeaning compliment to the ladies, and asking their influence in their proper sphere — the domestic circle. The discussion was kept up, but amid the confusion of "Mr. President!" "Mr. President!" "Order!" "Order!" "I have the floor!" "I will
- ↑ The Lily was a temperance paper started in Seneca Falls, N. Y., in 1849. It was owned and edited by Mrs. Amelia Bloomer. Though starting as the organ of a society, it soon became her individual] property. She carried it successfully six years, her subscription list reaching 4,000. It was as pronounced on woman's rights as temperance, and did good service in both reforms. We are indebted to The Lily for most of our facts on the temperance movement in New York.
