"I have been struck with the respectability of your American streets," I said to her. "One never sees vice flaunting by daylight; and, in the evening, whenever I have been through the great arteries of your city, I have never seen anything that could shock the eyes of an honest woman. In Paris, the boulevards are infested with harlots from eight o'clock in the evening; and the evil is much worse in London, where from four or five in the afternoon a whole district is given over to them."
"You are right," said the lady; "but if the streets of New York are respectable, it is thanks to us. If we had waited until the men swept our pavements, we should have had to wait a long time. We cleaned them ourselves."
"What do you mean?"
"A few years ago, several young women, among whom I might name members of our best society, resolved upon going out alone in the evenings, and of striking the first man who dared to accost them. They persevered for a long while, and finally succeeded in accomplishing the disinfection of the main streets. Vice still exists; but it keeps within doors, and hides instead of parading itself. If you are able to go out at night with your wife, or even your young daughters; if a lady can go to the theatre alone, and, if it please her, return home on foot, it is to us that thanks are due. And do you not think that women, young, good-looking, and well-bred, who could master their disgust so far as to do that which the authorities were too cowardly to undertake, are not worthy to have a deliberative voice in the councils of the nation?"
I could not answer this.
Certainly, woman's influence upon public morality is most salutary, and ought to be given free play. I do not doubt that, if women occupied seats in all Town Councils, the streets would promptly be purified, and women would be able to go into the public thoroughfares at all hours as freely as their husbands and brothers.
I am going to launch a rather dangerous assertion.
It seems to me that the American woman does not render to man a hundredth part of the adoration he renders to her. If love could spring from gratitude, Jonathan would be the most beloved of men; but does it ever spring from such a source?
In the eyes of the American woman, man has his good points. He ensures her a good position when he marries her; he works hard to satisfy her smallest wishes; and so long as his signature has any value at the foot of a cheque, this will be an extenuating circumstance in his favour.