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And this consideration furnishes the answer to another of Mr. Smith's arguments. He considers that the admission of women to the suffrage, instead of mitigating, is likely to aggravate the violence of political strife, and in support of this view refers to the Reign of Terror, the revolt of the Commune, and the American Civil War. I must own this latter reference has taken me by surprise. I have never heard before that the women of the United States during the civil war "notoriously rivalled the men in fury and atrocity." I remember some very great atrocities committed during that war; for example, the massacre at Fort Pillow, the treatment of prisoners of war in some of the Southern military hospitals, the attempts to burn down some of the public buildings and hotels in New York; but these were all committed by men, and I have never heard of similar acts committed or attempted by American women. If Mr. Smith knows of any such, he ought to enlighten the world by stating them, or else withdraw his injurious assertion. On the other hand, I have heard, and I imagine so must Mr. Smith, of the magnificent devotion to their country shown by the women of the Northern States in organising and working hospital corps, and in actual services rendered to the wounded on the field, mitigating thus the hardships and horrors of war in a manner to reflect honour on their country and on their sex. As to the women of the Reign of Terror and the Commune, they were, at all events, not worse than the men; and the shocking crimes committed by both, so far as they are not purely mythical, are, no doubt, referable to the same causes—the tremendous excitement of the time, the wild doctrines current, and, above all, the absolute inexperience in political affairs of those to whom power for the moment fell.
Again, what is the bearing of Mr. Smith's statements regarding the great freedom of divorce existing in some of the States of the Union? "Male legislators," it seems, "have already carried the liberty of divorce so far that the next step would be the total abolition of marriage and the
