nature which reform is not yet able to control, became a mother and a
mayor the same week. Her husband had been city clerk, and held over; but
fortunately an arrangement was made with him to stay at home and take
care of the baby, unofficially, while the mayor attends to her public
duties. Thus the city clerk will gradually be initiated into the duties
of home rule, and when the mayor is elected to Congress he will be ready
to accompany her to Washington and keep house. The imagination likes to
dwell upon this, for the new order is capable of infinite extension. When
the State takes care of all the children in government nurseries, and the
mayor has taken her place in the United States Senate, her husband, if he
has become sufficiently reformed and feminized, may go to the House, and
the reunited family of two, clubbing their salaries, can live in great
comfort.

All this can be easily arranged, whether we are to have a dual government
of sexes or a mixed House and Senate. The real difficulty is about a
single Executive. Neither sex will be willing to yield to the other this
vast power. We might elect a man and wife President and Vice-President,
but the Vice-President, of whatever sex, could not well preside over the
Senate and in the White House at the same time. It is true that the
Constitution provides that the President and Vice-President shall not be
of the same State, but residence can be acquired to get over this as
easily as to obtain a divorce; and a Constitution that insists upon
speaking of the President as "he" is too antiquated to be respected. When
the President is a woman, it can matter little whether her husband or
some other woman presides in the Senate. Even the reformers will hardly
insist upon two Presidents in order to carry out the equality idea, so
that we are probably anticipating difficulties that will not occur in
practice.