"If we
adopt the Bloomers," she said, "we shall never get our rights,
while the world stands. Where it is necessary to influence men, we
must be wholly and truly WOMEN, not semi-sexed nondescripts; we
must employ every charm Nature gives us and Fashion adds, not hide
them under a forked extinguisher!" I give her very words to show
you her way of looking at things. Well, now imagine this elegant
woman, looking not a day over forty, though she was--but no, I have
no right to tell it,--imagine her, I say, with only her scanty
natural hair hanging over her ears, her mouth dreadfully fallen in,
her skirt torn off, all in open day, before the eyes of a hundred
and fifty members (and I am told they laughed immensely, in spite
of the scandal that it was), and, if you are human beings, you will
feel that she must have been wounded to the very heart.
There was a motion made to expel Nelly Kirkpatrick, and perhaps it
might have succeeded--but the railroad hands, all over the State,
made a heroine of her, and her party was afraid of losing five
or six thousand votes; so only a mild censure was pronounced.
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