The society women of New York want to vote. Having reached this determination, they have set about accomplishing their desire in the energetic manner characteristic of them on all occasions. Without any particular display of flags or brass bands, they organized themselves for action, and the Constitutional Convention, when it meets May 8 at Albany, will be confronted with the results in no uncertain manner.

In starting out, the society women have taken steps to have it quietly made known that they have no official connection with the professional "woman's rights" agitators who have been demanding the right to vote for twenty-five years. The society women's desire for the franchise is something new, born of the proposed holding of the Constitutional Convention at Albany. They keep aloof as much as possible from the "woman's rights" workers, as exhibited in the New York City Woman's Suffrage League, of which Lillie Devereux Blake is President, and they have established an independent headquarters at Sherry's.

In the dainty white-and-gold atmosphere which prevails at Sherry's, the society women meet to compare notes, submit reports, and encourage one another with brave words. Yesterday the scene was not very lively at headquarters, where a big placard, "Please Sign the Petition," fastened just outside the entrance, makes a dumb appeal to the outsider to enter.

The disagreeable weather kept most of the active workers indoors during the day. But one or more of the ladies interested in the work were constantly on hand to distribute literature, to receive callers, and to secure signatures to the petition which asks the Constitutional Convention to amend the Constitution by striking out the word "male" as a qualification for voters.

This petition has been kept miles away from the reach of reporters.

"You see, we are not like the Woman Suffrage League," said one of the fair advocates of equal rights, in explanation of her refusal to let a reporter for The New York Times copy the list of signatures to the petition. "We do not want advertising. We shun it. We do not want our names made public. We want to keep out of the newspapers. We want enfranchisement, not notoriety."

This was several days ago. Yesterday the pretty young woman who presided in the cozy headquarters consented, after some hesitation, to give out the names of the men who had signed the petition.

"But you must not even look at the names of the ladies," she added, and she carried this determination so far as to refuse to give even her own name, though she did it with a courtesy that made the refusal seem equal in graciousness to the usual acquiescence. No man who called at the headquarters could possibly have declined to sign the petition, if she spoke to him in the same manner, and the wonder is that the list of signatures of New-York's male population is not much larger under the circumstances. It includes:

Albert G. Weed, Jr., and Frederick A. Burrall, 48 West Seventeenth Street; J. Kempton Hoag, 8 East Forty-third Street; A. G. Paine, Jr., 18 West Forty-ninth Street; Francis leary Manning, 134 West Thirty-fourth Street; Thaddeus Constantine, 341 West Thirty-fourth Street; James H. Barrow, 165 West Fifty-eighth Street; M. P. Wood, 139 West Forty-third Street; Frank Peabody Rice, 123 Greenwich Street; Justin L. Barnes, 3 East Forty-first Street; Henry C. Valentine, 13 East Thirty-sixth Street; Joseph E. Walsh, 18 Gay Street.

E.C.C. Rejannier, 3 East One Hundred and Fifth Street; Carroll Anthon, 217 West Forty-third Street; William H. Weeks, 789 Madison Avenue; William Forbes, 497 Sixth Avenue; J.C. Pumpelly, Union League Club; Charles H. Strong, 791 Madison Avenue; the Rev. Charles H. Eaton, 35 West Forty-eighth Street; Charles de Medici, 60 West Twenty-second Street; S. Marcus Harris, 88 East Fifty-sixth Street; Ray Davis, 660 Lexington Avenue; William W. Ellmuth, Boulevard and Sixty-ninth Street; John W. Grayson, 26 West Fifty-sixth Street.

These names do not, of course, represent anything like the real strength of the Sherry workers. Only a few names, comparatively, are enrolled at headquarters. The main reliance of the ladies are the "house lists," which can be found in nearly every fashionable drawing room in town.

One of these lists, it is said, contains the name of no less eminent a citizen than Bishop Potter, and on others are the names of Frederic R. Courdert, John D. Rockefeller, the Rev. Arthur Brooks, Dr. Robert Abbe, Walter Damrosch, Dr. William H. Draper, Dr. George Fox, William Dean Howells, ex-Judge Henry E. Howland, Alfred M. Hoyt, J. Frederick Kernochan, the Rev. Dr. R.S. MacArthur, S.M. Minturn, William J. Schieffelin, the Rev. Dr. W.S. Rainsford, Russell Sage, Dr. Henry M. Sanders, Dunham Wheeler, William Wood, and any number of others.

These "house lists" are brought out at "parlor meetings," a regular series of which are being held every afternoon and evening. At these meetings the society women try to get as large an attendance of prominent men as possible, and then under the influence of the aesthetic surroundings of the drawing room they bring out their house lists, and prepare for an argument which convinces the most hardened among the male visitors that it is only justice that the ladies ask when they request equal suffrage.

One of these meetings is to be held at the home of Mrs. Dr. Guernsey, 528 Fifth Avenue, April 17. Another has been arranged to be held at the residence of Mrs. Russell Sage next Saturday. Last week at a meeting held at the house of Mrs. Cleeve Van Kroh, in West Seventy-ninth Street, quite a list of prominent names was secured, including those of Oscar Bruno and Elisha Dyer, Jr. Theodore Sutro, who, with Mrs. Sutro, is an active advocate of equal suffrage, made a strong address at the meeting, which probably helped very materially in gaining converts to the cause. Mrs. Sutro, who has taken a leading place in New York society, is one of the most active workers in the new movement. Seated yesterday in the parlor of her house, at 20 Fifth Avenue, she discussed the question in a most interesting vein.

"It certainly give us something to talk about nowadays," she said. "All you have to do at a dinner or a luncheon or a tea, if conversation lags for a moment, is to bring up the subject of woman suffrage, and every one is interested and excited in a moment.

"Of course, I don't need the privilege of voting, for myself. I have everything I want, but I think the working girls in the shops and factories need it."

"And would you be willing to serve on a jury and do all those things that are required of those who enjoy the privileges of the ballot?" asked the reporter. "Certainly I would," said Mrs. Sutro, with an air of decision.

Now, as Mrs. Sutro is a very lovely young woman, with all the delightfully feminine charms and accomplishments heretofore considered particularly antagonistic to all thoughts of woman's rights, this answer was almost startling.

"All the women don't agree with me," Mrs. Sutro went on. "I was at a parlor meeting the other day, a regular reception you know. The hostess, who is very much interested in political equality, was securing quite a number of signatures to the petition, when the spell was broken by just one little fact.

"Ladies", said one of the company, 'do you know what it means when you put your names on that paper? It means that you want to serve on juries."

"And not another one would sign after that, and I don't believe the hostess herself has had the petition out since. She didn't realize it meant so much.

"I never go into a house where the subject isn't started, and people cannot understand why I am interested in it. A relative of mine says she would like to tell these suffrage women just what she thinks of them. She is a very good housekeeper and she says it is not possible for a woman to attend to her house and her children and devote herself to outside things.

"I tell her of Mrs. Lozier, the ex-President of Sorosis, and so many other women who do all those things, but it is hard to convince her. I think it is only the unselfish women who think a great deal about others who are anxious for the franchise. The others say they have all the rights they want. If we are successful I am sure a great many women will show their interest who are afraid now they would join a losing cause. I know Mrs. Paran Stevens never likes to be connected with anything that is a failure, and I am sure it is so with a great many others."

Mrs. Robert Abbe, who is Chairman of the Committee on Parlor Meetings, is preparing a comprehensive list of meetings to be held afternoon and evening at the houses of well-known society women. Several of these meetings will be held in the home of Mrs. Abbe, at 11 West Fiftieth Street. At these meetings Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, Mrs. Henry M. Sanders, Mrs. Arthur Brooks, Mrs. Rockefeller, Miss Margaret L. Chanler, Mrs. William Hl. Draper, Mrs. George H. Fox, Mrs. Robert B. Minturn, Mrs. Rainsford, Mrs. Jane Potter Russell, and other society leaders will be in attendance. Mrs. Sanders, particularly, will attend as many as possible. She is convinced that the movement is the most praiseworthy thing ever undertaken.

"It is the Lord's work," Mrs. Abbe said yesterday. "We will get over 1,000 signatures of prominent men through social influences alone."