man in Jonesville, who wuz way up in political and moral life, havin'
held the offices of path-master and deacon. "But," sez he, with some
bitterness of sperit and speakin' skornfully:

"What if wimmen did dedicate it? They can git up dressed in their silks
and shiffoniers, and talk, talk, but they can't vote no matter how well
off they be. They've got to pony up and pay taxes and toe the mark in
law jest as men tell 'em to."

"Why," sez he, warmin' with his subject, "we men can set on you in
juries and you can't help yourselves, and hang you and so forth. And you
W.C.T.U. wimmen would have to let your tax money go to pay for drinkin'
shacks if we men of Jonesville, and the world, took it into our heads to
make you. Why," sez he, lookin' more and more big feelin' as he went on,
as why shouldn't he, as he recounted men's glorious advantages,

"Nate Flanders, who is most a fool, can vote and make you knuckle down
and do as he tells you to. And don't you remember that time the 'lection
run so clost they got up old bed-ridden Nate Haskins, whose brain had
been softenin' for years, and his wife had to dress him and git him
ready for the pole, he callin' on his wife, Nancy, to put on every
identical garment and tell where it went, and when they got him to the
pole he wouldn't vote because Nance wuzn't there to tell him which
ticket to vote. She'd jest kep' that voter alive for years, and been
head and hands for him, but she couldn't vote and he could."

Everybody has seen hosses run off the track when they wuz goin' too
fast; Josiah wuz so engaged in runnin' wimmen's pride down, he didn't
realize where he wuz gallopin' to. "And there wuz Jane Ellis who lost
her husband and two boys through drinkin', she had to let her tax money