FREEDOM AND FRANCHISE OF WOMEN.
"Will the new Reform Bill allow women who are householders to vote for members of the House of Commons? I have just thought of this matter. If no express exception be made, female householders will be entitled to vote. And what existing law is there to reject a woman if she were returned to Parliament? I have no such high opinion of men as to think them intellectually superior to women. There are not a hundred men in England to be matched with Frances Wright;* and I know none superior. That woman is qualified to be a member of the House of Commons. We shall not make this leap at once, but I am sure we shall come to this: women will claim and exercise the elective franchise and sit in Parliament. In ancient times such was the case in this country. I can see no evil in a Parliament of women or in the mixing of men and women in public affairs and offices; I would have them put on a perfect equality with men.
"The ladies may be assured that whenever they will stir to assert the rights of women I will assist them; and be assured that the rights of man will be best secured in the maintenance of the rights of women."**
* Madame D'Arusmont, who was then lecturing in America.
** The Prompter, April 9th, 1831.
Prejudice. "Like all others I am most interested about myself, but as I am made up altogether of public politics, in some cases myself is the public. Here is a note to correspondents from the editor of the Times about which I shall have a few words to say of myself in the only space left to me in this week's issue of the Gauntlet: 'To Correspondents.—As the letter of Richard Carlile would do him injury we decline to publish it. His stupidity and ignorance cannot fail to make him an object of contempt with all reasoning people, but we have too much generosity to turn the man's folly against him. He is what Mr. Coke called Mr. Joseph Hume—'a muddle-headed fellow.'"*
* The Gauntlet, London, April 21,1833.
In answer, Carlile said he had borne injuries enough of this kind, and the Times had shouted—"'At him, give it to him, spare him not, kill him, crucify him, away with him, he is a pestilent fellow'; but I sometimes steal a march upon the editor of the Times by getting a friend to copy an article, and then it passes, and brings me the compliment of being a talented correspondent. No correspondent that it has had, has been more complimented for talent by this editor than I have been when unknown to him; but if he discovers the writer's name is Carlile, then he condemns, rants, swears and curses." We have abundant evidence that this was true in other cases besides that of the Times. A most prolific writer, Carlile contributed many leading articles and editorials to the Press of the country, and was for many months a regularly paid contributor to the Durham Chronicle and other papers. Over the nom de plume of "Theophilus Clay" or the "Hermit of Enfield", he did a vast amount of miscellaneous writing, and towards the end of his life supported his family almost entirely in this way. But it was the name—Carlile.
"The name, the name's the thing,
To catch their venom and their sting."
If we may take the liberty of paraphrasing the lines of the immortal bard.
SECRET ORDERS.