and words as generously as I desire to trust all my readers with mine. It is little matter who does the work, so that it be done; but I owe to one author, in particular, something like an explanation.

A few days before the third of these lectures was delivered in Boston (that is, before Jan. 23, 1861), a gentleman from Paris brought me from Madame d'Héricourt a book called "La Femme Affranchie," an answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, and Comte, which its author kindly desired I should translate for the American market. Unable to comply with her request, some weeks elapsed before I opened the book. I was struck with the energy, self-possession, and rapidity with which she seized the various points of the subject, with the thoroughness of her assault, and the temper of her argument. I did not sympathize in all her methods or conclusions; but I was interested to observe, that, in what I had then written and publicly spoken of the relations between suffrage and humanity, I had, in several instances, used her very words, or she had used mine. I did not alter my manuscript; but, with better times, we may hope for a translation of her spirited volumes, and the public will then do justice to her precedence.

I have been anxious to have positive proof of my conjecture in regard to the authorship of the "Lawe's Resolution of the Rights of Women;" but persevering endeavors in England, in several directions, have only left the matter as it stands in the text. It would be very interesting to know something of the private history of the man who wrote that book.

In the first of the following lectures, I have ventured a rhetorical allusion to the blue-laws of Connecticut. Since it went to press, I have seen it stated, on high authority, that any American writer who should "profess to believe in the existence of the blue-laws of New Haven would simply proclaim himself a dunce;" and the "Saturday Review" has been handled without gloves for taking this existence for granted.

I never supposed that the term "blue" applied to the color of the paper on which such laws were printed, any more than I supposed "blue Presbyterianism" referred to the color of the presbyters' gowns. I supposed it was the outgrowth of a popular sarcasm, descriptive, not of a "veritable code," nor of a "practical code unpublished," but of such portions of the general code as were repugnant to common sense, and the genial nature of man. This I still think will be found to be the case; and it is certainly to Connecticut divines and Connecticut newspapers that we owe the popular impression.

It was in the forty-sixth year of the independence of the United States that S. Andrus & Co., of Hartford, published a volume purporting to be a compendium of early judicial proceedings in Connecticut, and especially of that portion of the proceedings of the Colony of New Haven commonly called the "blue-laws." Charles A. Ingersoll, Esq., testified to the correctness of these copies of the ancient record.

As I quote this title wholly from memory, I am unable to say whether the colony ever fined a bishop for kissing his own wife on Sunday; but I have read more than once of such fines; and, if no laws remain unrepealed on the Connecticut statute-book quite as absurd in their spirit and general tendency, there are many on those of Massachusetts and New Hampshire: so I shall let my rhetorical flourish stand.

To my English friends, to Mr. Herndon of Illinois, Mr. Higginson, and Samuel F. Haven, Esq., of Worcester, I owe my usual acknowledgments for books lent, and service proffered, with a generosity and graceful readiness cheering to remember.

Nor will I omit, in what may be a last opportunity, to bear faithful testimony to the assistance rendered, in all my studies of this sort, by my friend, Mr. John Patton, of Montreal. No single person has helped me so much, so wisely, or so well.

In order to secure technical accuracy, my manuscript and proofs have been subjected to the revision of my friend, the Hon. Samuel E. Sewall. The principal alteration which Mr. Sewall has made, has been the substitution of the word "suffrage" for that of "franchise;" which latter I used in the Continental fashion. I prefer it to "suffrage," because it seems to have a broader signification; but I yield it to his suggestion.

I would gladly have dedicated this volume to the memory of the late John W. Browne, whose pure purpose and eminent gifts made me rejoice, while he was living, to call him friend. As, however, he never read the whole of the manuscript, I have given it a dedication "to the friends of forsaken women," which no one, who knew him well, will fail to perceive includes him.

Boston, Sept. 1, 1861.

Caroline H. Dall

70, Warren Avenue,
Boston, January, 1867.

CONTENTS.

THE COLLEGE.

I.
THE CHRISTIAN DEMAND AND THE PUBLIC OPINION.

II.
HOW PUBLIC OPINION IS MADE.