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PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT.

A gaunt, tall, spectacled creature, gender feminine, number singular,
person first, case always possessive, that's the standard bearer; a
broomstick from the top of which floats a petticoat, that's the
standard. Under that standard march in the U.S. at least 20,000,000
feminines, and--horrible to relate--gal children are on the increase.

Certainly the devil must have invented petticoats. After EVE had
finished up that little apple job, she went into the petticoat business,
and--hence all our tears. Instantly petticoat government became a
possibility. Then, as her daughters became wiser, they invented the
weeping business, the swooning business, and the curtain lecture
business; they went for our pocket-books and they got them, and
petticoat government became a probability. Not satisfied with the
pocket-books, they are now going for the business by means of which we
fill the books, and oh, what a hankering they have for public pap! They
stick to the curtain lecture business, but now they do it before the
curtain. Alas, petticoat government is now a certainty!

It's all very well for you to talk about the grandeur of the governments
of BOADICEA, and ELIZABETH and CATHERINE, but I don't believe that BOA,
or LIZZY, or KATE would have been very nice as a companion, if she and
you were sitting before the fire, and she wanted stamps and was going
for them as a matter of business. Besides, there was only one of them at
a time, and they didn't trouble common people much, but in this
enlightened nineteenth century I have seen a poor, miserable, six foot