Excerpt from The Woman's World, 1889 Now if we apply this principle to the position of women with regard to the representative institutions of this country, I think we may say that the labours of the friends of light, from John Stuart Mill downwards, during the last twenty years have succeeded in proving that the exclusion of all women, except one, from direct political power is an anomaly; it is felt by the great body of quiet reasonable people throughout the country to be absurd, and its long continuance becomes therefore impossible. Some of the more glaring features of this anomaly and absurdity may be pointed out. Some years ago, before the two great extensions of the suffrage in 1867 and 1884, the possession of the Parliamentary franchise was a privilege entrusted to a selected few. The ex elusion of women at that time might have been either expedient or inexpedient, just or unjust, but it was not in anomaly, it was not absurd. Certain classes of persons were selected for this privilege, and to them it was confided in trust, as it were, for the rest of the community. The women who were excluded were not selected for a special disability of sex, but were associated in their exclusion with large bodies of their countrymen, to whom no exception on the ground of character and capacity could be taken. Now, however, the basis of the Constitution has been changed. The franchise is no longer a privilege granted to the selected few on the grounds of personal fitness, or, at any rate. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.