Miss Muller has allowed a writing-table and an escritoire to
be carried away from Cadogan Place, by way of distraint, in place of the taxes which she refuses to pay until she is allowed a vote. She held a meeting on the occasion last Wednesday, at which she ventured on the somewhat doubtful proposition that if fifty other women would do the same, the women's franchise would be carried at once. For our parts, we doubt whether the effect of fifty women following Miss Muller's very unreasonable example would be serious ; whether these voluntary and morbid martyrdoms would disturb the tranquillity of the British public at all,—even though Miss Babb, Miss Briggs, and Miss Todd should attend at each of the fifty distraints, and make speeches such as they made for Miss Mailer. Miss Muller did not mend her case by speaking of the agricultural labourers as "ignorant and besotted men, who had been behind the plough for ages." It is the men who have been behind the plough for ages who really need representation. As for Miss Muller, there are hundreds in the House of Commons already who adequately represent her views both as regards the women's franchise and as regards the contempt with which she views the ." ignorant and besotted men who have been behind the plough for ages."
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