The women in charge of the political equality petition book at Sherry's are delighted with the increased interest and enthusiasm manifested in their work. A number of new signatures were added yesterday, and several visitors secured petitions for circulation.

The immediate reason for the apparently sudden interest taken in suffrage for their sex by the society women of the city is attributed to different causes.

A young woman, an intimate friend of one of the leaders in the movement, told a reporter for the New York Times that it was started in a class of political economy, in which a number of society women were interested, last Winter.

In the course of their researches they took up the study of the laws in the various States. They found many laws which made them indignant, because they bear hard upon women. Realizing that the Constitutional Convention was to be held this year, they determined to make an effort to have a voice in the government of the country, and through their efforts the enthusiasm of their friends was aroused.

Mrs. Sarah N. Gardner, one of the signers of the invitation issued to the public by the society women, expressed the opinion that it was because women had not been allowed to vote for School Commissioners.

"A law was passed giving women that privilege," she said, "but when they tried to exercise it they were not allowed to do so. I think that when women saw they were being restricted in rights that were already theirs, they felt it was time for them to take a stand. This being the year of the Constitutional Convention, they began to work immediately."

Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi made a somewhat similar statement at the political equality meeting at the home of Mrs. Gordon Wendell, 126 East Thirty-fifth Street, last evening. A large number of guests were present, and both sides of the suffrage question were represented. Dr. William R. Huntington of Grace Church, who spoke at another parlor meeting recently, was quoted as favoring suffrage for women. He spoke on the other side of the question.

"The question at issue," Dr. Jacobi said, "is not one of taste, as many women seem to consider it, or of utility, as it is looked upon by men. It is a question of the greatest majesty I know that of sovereignty.

"The position of woman in this country is an anomaly," she said. "Nowhere else are the higher and most cultivated women so much subject to man. In Europe the people are divided into classes, and the women of the nobility are not subject to the power of the peasant.

"In the South the difference has been stronger than here. If, when they enfranchised the negro, they had enfranchised the white women to equalize the ignorant vote, they would have found a simple way of settling an important question. The Government does not rest upon physical force, but moral power."

Monroe Smith spoke in opposition to Dr. Jacobi. He thought she made the question too much of a personal matter. "Women do compose a class," he said. "A Class is a body made up of persons whose interests are opposed to those of another body."

Men, he said, do not like to go to primary meetings and subject themselves to the odors of cheap cigars and pipes, and he did not think the better class of women would like to do so either. he did not believe many women would be strong enough to attend to the work of the home and the Government. He knew men were not.

There were also remarks by Mr. Peabody, Mr. Russell and others.

An interesting meeting was held at the home of Mrs. Phillips, 19 West Thirty-eighth Street. Addresses were made by Mrs. Helen Gardener, the Rev. Charles Treat, Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake, and Dr. Beck of Corona, L.I.

Two Meetings were held in Brooklyn. One was at the house of Mrs. C.H. Cary, 33 Pierpont Street, where Mrs. Chapman read a paper upon "How Can Women Be Good Citizens Without Being Voters?" Another meeting was held at the house of the Rev. Dr. Nash, 57 Lefferts Place.