But the carriage is only the beginning of the polite attentions that will
soon appear. When we see the transformation undergone by every ferryboat
and every railway station, so soon as it comes to be frequented by women,
who can doubt that voting-places will experience the same change? They will
soon have--at least in the "ladies' department"--elegance instead of
discomfort, beauty for ashes, plenty of rocking-chairs, and no need of
spittoons. Very possibly they may have all the modern conveniences and
inconveniences,--furnace registers, teakettles, Washington pies, and a
young lady to give checks for bundles. Who knows what elaborate comforts,
what queenly luxuries, may be offered to women at voting-places, when the
time has finally arrived to sue for their votes?
The common impression has always been quite different from this. People
look at the coarseness and dirt now visible at so many voting-places, and
say, "Would you expose women to all that?" But these places are not dirtier
than a railway smoking-car; and there is no more coarseness than in any
ferryboat which is, for whatever reason, used by men only. You do not look
into those places, and say with indignation, "Never, if I can help it,
shall my wife or my beloved great-grandmother travel by steamboat or by
rail!" You know that with these exemplary relatives will enter order and
quiet, carpets and curtains, brooms and dusters.
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