I
shall do all I can, as the presiding officer, to keep things pleasant
at the meetings, but it will be difficult. You've never been in
public life and can't understand it, but you see there are women
among the delegates who've suffered the tyranny of man so long that
they will cook anything their husbands demand; women who believe in
eating any kind of food, and hold that the principal trouble lies in
bad cooking; women who will give up meat, but still indulge in all
sorts of cakes, pastries, and kickshaws; and women who are strong on
temperance in drink, but who see no need of temperance in food. The
whole question of diet reform is in an awful state, and a Congress is
the only way to settle it.'
'How do men stand on the diet question?' asked Mary, with a twinkle
in her eye.
'They don't stand at all,' answered Mrs. Grubb promptly. 'They sit
right still, and some of them lie down flat, you might say, whenever
it's mentioned. They'll do even more for temperance than they will
for reformed diet, though goodness knows they're fond enough of
drinking. The Edenites number about sixty-seven in this city, and
nine is the largest number of gentlemen that we've been able to
interest. Those nine are the husbands and sons of the lady members,
and at the next meeting two of them are going to be expelled for
backsliding.
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