Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/47

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

LETTER III

Arguments in favour of woman suffrage

My dear C,

I am afraid that my legal mind (as E. calls it) has perhaps made me rather wearisome to you. When I was examining the most solid of the arguments in favour of the revolution demanded by suffragists, I insisted on distinctions really important in themselves, but which are likely to tell more with lawyers than with laymen or with women. Please, however, listen to two remaining arguments which, though in my judgment little better than fallacies, are intelligible to all persons. The one—namely, the Fourth Argument—will be received with special favour by hardworked and often underpaid women of the labouring classes; the other—namely, the Fifth Argument—is certain to impress benevolent ladies engaged in good works, and inclined to advocate every measure which, on the face of it, tends towards the

37