throw her life into the scale, then, though her sister-women cry out against her, and the air shakes with contemptuous laughter, still she must be heard. When the tumult dies down—which is merely an interruption—she will be listened to again. Why does she want the vote?
In order to answer this we must put platitudes aside, and face the facts of woman's life as we find them in the working-class community to-day. It is of no use to look back a century or two, for then, perhaps, we could not understand. Swift as the mountain storm have been the industrial events which have within the last few decades changed the position and prospects of wage-earning women. If these swift happenings have changed the thoughts of only the more intelligent minority as yet, that is not to be wondered at—still less is it to be taken as a pledge of indifference on the part of the majority in the future. What hundreds see to-day, tens of thousands will see to-morrow.
It is a fashion among pretty writers to say that the Home is woman's true sphere. The pretty phrase is true. Woman's whole mission will probably be found at last to consist in making a great home of the whole habitable planet. But in so far as it applies to the actual conditions of life, and pressing necessities and duties of an increasing multitude of women to-day, the phrase is like an arrow shot by a careless hand into the desert air, and with no destination but to fall perhaps at last into some aching heart. The average wage of wool-combers is about 18s. per week, and factory-workers generally hardly average
