A LECTURER.
Mrs. Bloomer’s life during the latter part of 1853 was a very busy one. In addition to her duties as editor and publisher of the Lily and clerk in the post office, she was also frequently invited to deliver addresses on Temperance. A few of these invitations she accepted, and appeared before well-pleased audiences in villages of western New York. She never until later years acquired the habit of extemporaneous speaking, but all her addresses were carefully written out and delivered from manuscript. There is a big pile of her writings now before me. They are all characterized by great earnestness in appeal both to the reason and sympathies of her hearers.
Mrs. Bloomer’s appeals were mainly addressed to her own sex, but she never failed to call upon the men also to practise total abstinence and give their influence in all proper ways for the overthrow of the liquor traffic. She also introduced other questions into her addresses. She insisted that the laws relating to women were narrow and unjust and should be changed. She thought that women should have a voice in making the laws and also in their enforcement. When this change should be brought around, she had hopes that woman would be relieved from the curse of drunkenness under which she suffered so keenly. And it so happened that it was frequently said of Mrs. Bloomer that “she talks on temperance, but she gives us a large supply of woman’s rights, also.” To this Mrs. Bloomer in the Lily in April, 1853, made the following reply:
“Some of the papers accuse me of mixing Woman’s Rights with our Temperance, as though it was possible for woman to speak on Temperance and Intemperance without also speaking of Woman’s Rights and Wrongs in connection therewith. That woman has rights, we think that none will deny; that she has been cruelly wronged by the law-sanctioned liquor traffic, must be admitted by all. Then why should we not talk of woman’s rights and temperance together? Ah, how steadily do they who are guilty shrink from reproof! How ready they are to avoid answering our arguments by turning their attention to our personal appearance, and raising a bugbear about Woman’s Rights and Woman’s Wrongs! and a ready response to the truth we utter wells up from women’s hearts, and breaks forth in blessings and a hearty God-speed in our mission.”