NOT to the planet Mars did my dream take me this time, but on board a sailing vessel just entering New York bay. Very foggy it had been for days; but the clouds having just lifted, to my delightful eyes were revealed the shores of Staten Island and the other components of the brilliant tout ensemble greeting the voyager as he approached the metropolitan cities which bounded the distance.
My husband and I had for years been in some remote corner of the earth, where we had never received any news either of home, friends or country; but where that out-of-the-way place could have been situated, impenetrable not only to telegraph and post, but beyond the reach even of “our own correspondent,” I could not remember. In vain I tried to recall its name and locality, or even the least incident which had befallen us in our long exile – the years we had spent there were all a blank. However, I did know that our home was in New York city, and that very soon we should be there. In vain did I interrogate my husband as to where we had been; he only looked wonderingly in my face, laughed heartily several times, and said: “I really cannot remember. All I know is that we have been gone from the United States ten years, and that shortly we shall be again in New York city. Yonder is a tug boat,” he continued, pointing to one evidently making for us; “I am very anxious to hear the news. Oh, to get the sight of a New York paper once more!”
How vividly do I remember this part of my dream! – how recall every moment of time, and every feature of the beautiful scene before us. Land, land once more, bringing thoughts of home, joyous expectations of meeting dear friends from whom we had been long separated, and all the palpitating expectancy that seemed to make my whole being throb with delight.
By and by the tug-boat reached us, and my husband realized his millennium by feasting his eyes on a New York paper, in his haste to obtain which he came very near falling overboard. A newspaper man to his very bones, his existing for so many years without access to that seeming necessary of life had been to me a mystery almost as great as would have been a fish living a like period without water.
“Der teufel! sacre tonnerre! was ist? place aux dames?” exclaimed he facetiously, as his eye scanned the contents; “what changes ten years have brought about! A lady president three months in office, and yet the world goes around as usual! I rather expect to see, when we get to the city, that the people are walking on their heads; the world must be turned upside down!”
“You mean that ten years has turned the world ‘right side up,’ with care?”
“Just as you like,” he replied, with a good-natured smile; “but I was never more astonished in my life.”
“There must be Congresswomen, then,” I said, as a feeling of wholesome pride was born into my soul; women were something after all. How distinctly I remember the feeling of importance that leaped into existence within me, and that remains with me at this moment, though I now know that it was only a dream.
Then my husband handed me the paper. “Read for yourself,” he said; “nearly one half of the United States Senate, and fully one half of the House, are women.” Then he laughed, rubbed his hands, stood on his feet, lifted his hat and said to me, as he bowed profoundly, “I salute you, dear madame, in deference to the glorious achievement of woman. May she never descend from the height to which she has attained!”
“I thank you,” I replied, “in the name of every woman. Oh, I no more want to be a man, but rejoice that I am a woman.”
“Hurrah for our side of the house,” replied my merry husband. Then he looked around, saying, “How I wish that tug boat would hurry up; no more ten years spent in – confound it! what IS the name of that place? Strange that I can’t recollect, when I was always so ready with names and locations. Is my brain softening, or what can be the trouble? Well, no matter what it is, we will live henceforth in the United States, and die there too, when it comes to that. ‘Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.’ We reach here just in time to enjoy the woman government and observe its constituent parts.”
All in my dream was very consistent until we landed on the wharf, and then, like the crazyness of dreams, no surprise was expressed or felt on finding it suddenly midnight and myself and husband just afterward walking up Broadway as leisurely as if it had been a pleasant afternoon in October.
By and by we looked up and saw a number of men approaching; they filled the sidewalk, so we stepped aside under a lamp and saw them pass. All were evidently in charge of policemen; several were handcuffed and acting like madmen. More, and yet more, passed us, so that we could hardly walk a block without being compelled to step aside, which we always did near a lamp post.
“What does this mean?” I asked my husband.
“It means, I suppose, woman’s government.”
“Oh, stop your nonsense,” I replied, laughing; adding, “I believe the inmates of some lunatic asylum are being removed, perhaps to another asylum.”
All this time we were scanning the faces of the gentlemen (for they were all gentlemen) as they passed under the gaslight. Then my husband recognized several whom he had formerly known, one of whom, Mr. — was a senator when we left, ten years previously. I almost gave his name, but that wouldn’t do. There were two reverend gentlemen, but I must be still more circumspect in regard to names, because in case of an action for slander, their congregations could fee so many lawyers that I should certainly get the worst of it; besides which, I should lose the good opinion of the religious press, which to me is very dear! Besides, I might even be suspected of heterodoxy, which would be terrible!!
But, rerenons à nos moutons, even if they are black sheep, with possibly a sprinkling of goats. It was a strange scene, for all classes of men appeared to be represented. Not only the lowest, or those on whose countenances the mark of the beast was distinctly imprinted, but also the respectable, the religious, and even the intellectual and cultivated. Men were there with fine countenances, and with heads that phrenologists would have declared those of statesmen and philosophers. Why were such men accompanied by policemen? Why these wholesale arrests?
All at once I exclaimed, “Oh, dear! there! see! dear, good, elder Stiggins! Oh, dear! see! a policeman has him handcuffed; save, save him, husband!” I did not, however, wait for my husband to do anything, but rushed into the crowd. “There is some mistake,” I exclaimed; “O, dear, dear Elder Stiggins!” taking his hand in my own; but the crowd pushed on, and with difficulty did I make my escape.
Then my dream, without any connecting link, landed me in a comfortable room in a large hotel. On a table near my husband was a large collection of newspapers, evidently a file extending back some years. He was greedily devouring them, scanning one after another, and then throwing them on the floor to make way for their successors. By-and-by he began to laugh – how he did laugh!
“What is the matter?” I asked; “tell me, what is it?”
“Excellent! good! first rate! happy thought!”
“Well, tell me! what is it?” Then he tried to smooth his face and answer:
“Why, it appears that one of the first acts of both Houses of Congress, after the inauguration of President — was to pass a law providing that henceforth, in the District of Columbia, no woman prostitute should be arrested, fined, imprisoned, sent to Magdalen asylums for reformation or otherwise molested, but that all laws punishing prostitution in women should, from and after the passage of the Act, be enforced against their male companions. A similar law was soon afterward passed in the State of New York. The Washington authorities, however, regarded it only as a huge joke intended by Congressmen for electioneering effect among their lady constituents. I have not yet reached any information as to its enforcement in this State.”
Then he again vigorously betook himself to a fresh instalment of newspapers, and having ground up a dozen or so in his mental mill, fastened on another. “They intend the law to go into effect here,” he remarked. “Three large houses for the reformation of prostitute men are being built.” As he said this he handed me the newspaper, and pointed out the heading:
THREE LARGE HOUSES BEING BUILT FOR THE
REFORMATION OF PROSTITUTE MEN!!
MALE MAGDALENS!!!
“We laugh, my dear,” I said, “because it is novel, but there is justice and wisdom in the law.”
“Yes,” he replied, “that is obvious; but why do they not execute the law? I observe that other papers characterize the article in question as purely sensational, and utterly without foundation, in fact.”
“I see it all; I know it all now,” I exclaimed; for, as a flash of lightning, did the whole dawn on my understanding. The law had been put in force that night, and we had seen some of the victims. Instantly my spirit was en rapport with the whole machinery and its operation. The mayor of the city of New York was a lady; the Common Council was largely composed of ladies; the Board of Aldermen was no more, for it was Alderwomen now; and in the city detective service the ability of women to keep secrets as well as to find them out had been extensively tested. This first descent had been planned for some days, but even the press had been kept ignorant of the proposed measure, with the exception above mentioned. Tonight the police had pounced on ............