advocated woman's educational, industrial and political rights. According to the "History of Woman Suffrage," she organized the first woman suffrage society and sent the first petition for suffrage to the legislature. That was in 1848 in her native town. During the Civil War she went with her two sons, one a surgeon, to the battle-fields of Virginia and did efficient service as a volunteer nurse. In 1869 she with her family removed to Louisiana, where she buried her second husband. In 1879, as a new State constitution was being framed, a paper from Mrs. Collins, giving her ideas of what a just constitution should be, was read to the delegates and elicited praise from the New Orleans press. For the last twelve years. she has resided in Hartford, Conn. In 1885 she, with Miss F. K. Burr, organized the Hartford Equal Rights Club, and she is its president. She wrote occasional stories, to illustrate some principle, for the "Pacific Rural" and other journals. Not ambitious to acquire a literary reputation, and shrinking from publicity, she seldom appended her name. For several years she wrote each week for the Hartford "Journal," under the pen-name " Justitia," a column or two in support of human rights, especially the rights of woman. She also urged the same before each legislature of Connecticut. As a solution of the liquor problem, some years since she advocated in the Hartford "Examiner" the exclusive manufacture and sale of liquor at cost by the government. She also urged a change from the present electoral system to that of proportional representation, and industrial cooperation in place of competition. Always abreast or in advance of the world's progressive thought, her pen is ever busy. Dignified and quiet, modest to a fault, she is justly noted among the intellectual inhabitants of Hartford.
laura sedgwick collins.
COLLINS, Miss Laura Sedgwick musician, dramatic reader and amateur actor, was born in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. At an early age she gave unmistakable evidence of marked ability, and even genius, both as a musician and an elocutionist. She studied under able masters and was graduated several years ago from the Lyceum School of
Acting, New York City. She is a skilled pianist, a reader of established reputation, and, though not upon the professional dramatic stage, has appeared in many difficult rules for the benefit of charities, in the theaters of New York, Brooklyn and other cities. She has studied vocal music and has a sympathetic voice of wide range. She has composed music, much of which is published, and has a large collection of songs, part-music and pianoforte selections and a volume of poems yet to be brought out. "The Two Republics," a march which she wrote, was played at the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, and Monsieur Bartholdi expressed to her his compliments upon its merits. She composed a minuet for the first performances in English in this country of "Les Precieuses Ridicules," given at the Lyceum Theater, New York. She was also prominently identified with the performance of Sophocles' tragedy of "Electra," which was given in March, 1889, in the Lyceum Theater, New York, and subsequently in the Mollis Street Theater, Boston, Mass., and by the request of the Faculty in Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass. She composed all of the music for that play and taught it to the chorus, which contained only a few persons who could read music. On 10th December, 1S89, at Proctor's Twenty-third Street Theater, New York, was the occasion of the first presentation of a character sketch in four acts, entitled "Sarah Tarbox, M A.," which was written especially for Miss Collins by Charles Barnard. In that work six won a brilliant success. She spoke with imaginary characters, rode in an imaginary railroad train, went to the theater, attended a reception; yet no one was before the audience but herself. She interpreted vividly all the different parts throughout the entire play; she held the audience during the phases of a scene on Broadway, New York, a scene in a boarding-house room, closing with a scene in St. Luke's Hospital, without the aid of any properties and with but two plain chairs on the stage. In the play she used her various gifts and figured as composer, pianist, singer, dancer and reciter. The achievement was unique in the history of the stage. She has since brought out other successful monologues. Her versatility is coupled with high merit in each line of effort.
COLLINS, Mrs. Miriam O'Leary, actor, born in Boston, Mass., in 1864. Her father, William Curran O'Leary, of London, Eng., was an artist and designer by profession. Her mother's maiden name was Minam Keating, and at the time of her marriage she was on a visit to Boston from Halifax, N. S., her native place, Their daughter Miriam was their first child. She received her education in the public schools of Boston, and attended the Franklin grammar school and the girls' high school, and was graduated from both with honors. Her aim throughout her years of preparation was to fit herself as a teacher. After her father's death, encouraged by her cousin, Joseph Haworth, and by other friends, she chose the stage as her profession and began at once her efforts in that direction. Her first success was as Rosalie in "Rosedale" during the engagement of Lester Wallack in the Boston Museum. She spent one season in the company of Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett, after which she returned to the Boston Museum, and is now (1892) a member of the stock company of that theater. She has appeared in many widely different roles, ranging from
