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The Woman Socialist

opposition of many men and women to woman suffrage. Though they are not conscious of the fact, it is nevertheless a fact not difficult of proof, that there is an intimate connection between the opposition to the enfranchisement of women and the most revolting incidents revealed in the tremendous murder-trial now taking place in New York. Both are effects of the same cause.

There is a strange psychological law operating in every individual, in some more than in others, by which intense pleasure is derived from the infliction of pain on a helpless creature. A moment's reflection will convince of the truth of this, and will probably bring to the mind of the reader an occasion in his own life when he found pleasure in a cruel act. A helpless baby thrashed, an innocent dog beaten, a cat tormented, a horse maimed—we know them all; and we know the remorse that has often followed the unreasoning cruelty.

In men this love of power and desire for domination has been fostered, and its exercise in its cruellest forms makes copy for the sensational press.

In women the law operates in a still