“A new department is about to be created in the Post-office. It is to consist entirely of ladies by birth and education, who will have to pass an examination in (1) handwriting and orthography, (2) English, (3) arithmetic, and (4) geography. Thirty ladies are to be nominated as quickly as possible, out of whom ten will be selected as first-class clerks, with a beginning salary of £80 per annum.
“Would this be of the least use to your friend? If so, there is no time to be lost.”
The placing of women on the School Board and on Boards of Guardians enlisted most active co-operation from Miss Buss from the earliest days of such movements. In her busiest times she could always arrange for a drawing-room meeting, and much canvassing work was arranged at Myra Lodge, on the occasion of the first School Board elections. Every one who can remember those days will recall the excitement and enthusiasm with which she greeted the arrival of the post-card with the announcement—
| Garrett | 47,558 |
| Huxley | 13,494 |
The elections of Miss Davies, Miss Chessar, Miss Garrett, and Mrs. Maitland on the School Board, and of Lady Lothian, Miss Andrews, and Miss Lidgett on the St. Pancras Board of Guardians, were events that made the “seventies” stirring times for women. And in this stir Miss Buss came very much to the front. She never could make a speech in public herself, but she was the cause of many speeches that were made then and since then.
Like so many of the most thoughtful women-leaders, Miss Buss placed the Suffrage Question in the forefront of things likely to help the position and moral power of women. She saw no discrepancy between the possession of a vote and the development of the domestic virtues; and she believed that the possession of power would tend to make women worthy to use it, in opposition to the other view that it may be well to educate them for this use before giving it. We used often to argue this matter, as I inclined to the latter view, though I could not be blind to the utter absurdity of refusing to such women as Frances Mary Buss the power given to the most illiterate or debased peasant.
In politics, Miss Buss was led by her heart, as most women will be to the end of time, being the missing factor that will, in the good days coming, redeem and raise political life from its present depths. This woman was inevitably on the side of Progress and Reform, and being herself too wise to even imagine unwisdom, might easily have been led too far where her sympathies were touched; as, for example, on the Home Rule question, into which she threw herself with all the ardour with which in her youth she had followed the Anti-Slavery movement in America, and, later in life, the War of Italian Unity.
Here is a little story told by one of her friends, which is very characteristic—
“She liked us for being in favour of Home Rule for Ireland. One night, at Myra Lodge, she sounded me on my political views. I tried to evade her questions, and said I feared my views would be unpalatable to her (she looked, to my thinking, like a Tory). When, after much pressure, I said, to show how bad I was, ‘Well, Miss Buss, if you must know, then I approve of Home Rule!’ she skipped over the room like a girl of seventeen, to Mrs. Bryant, and said, in delighted tones, ‘Mrs. Bryant, Mr. —— is a Home Ruler!’ and brought her over to me. It was delightful to see her pleasure!”
It was not delightful to refuse her that pleasure by not responding sufficiently to her enthusiasm, much as I, for one, would have liked to do so. But it made no difference whether one quite said as she did, or not; for she might have suggested those words of George Eliot’s: “That seems to me very great and noble—the power of respecting a feeling one does not share or understand.” In all discussions it was hers “gently to hear, kindly to judge.” For real tolerance it would have been as difficult to match her as in the strength and vigour with which she maintained her own ground. That she was loyal to England if tender to Ireland her words to her nephew show, when she says—