average poor drudge, and that the worst white, slave trader of my
acquaintance is a decenter man than the best vice crusader. In the
same way I am convinced that the average woman, whatever her
deficiencies, is greatly superior to the average man. The very ease
with which she defies and swindles him in several capital
situations of life is the clearest of proofs of her general superiority.
She did not obtain her present high immunities as a gift from the
gods, but only after a long and often bitter fight, and in that fight
she exhibited forensic and tactical talents of a truly admirable order.
There was no weakness of man that she did not penetrate and take
advantage of. There was no trick that she did not put to effective
use. There was no device so bold and inordinate that it daunted her.


The latest and greatest fruit of this feminine talent for combat is the
extension of the suffrage, now universal in the Protestant countries,
and even advancing in those of the Greek and Latin rites. This fruit
was garnered, not by an, attack en masse, but by a mere foray. I
believe that the majority of women, for reasons that I shall presently
expose, were not eager for the extension, and regard it as of small
value today. They know that they can get what they want without
going to the actual polls for it; moreover, they are out of sympathy
with most of the brummagem reforms advocated by the professional
suffragists, male and female. The mere statement of the
current suffragist platform, with its long list of quack sure-cures for
all the sorrows of the world, is enough to make them smile sadly. In
particular, they are sceptical of all reforms that depend upon the
mass action of immense numbers of voters, large sections of whom
are wholly devoid of sense. A normal woman, indeed, no more
believes in democracy in the nation than she believes in democracy