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And tremulous with passionate despair-
Half-parted lips that, in their tender curves,
Droop mournfully, and heavy lashes wet
With unshed tears.-

Before her sweeps

The crystal glory rounding from the rock
And melting into sunbeams as it falls.
A thousand changing tints of flashing dew,
Strewn like a garland at Niagara's feet,
Weave ever higher their mystic blossomings,
And higher still in showers of starry bloom,
Till one wild leap flings to the top-most crag
Its vivid splendour, and across the foam
There glows a rainbow wreath of victory.
But not for her the beauty or the power;
She hears the grand, deep music in her soul,
And vainly pictures the Unseen. Oh! Fate,
Too cruel in thy gifts-the self-same world
Holds blindness and Niagara !

And yet

We all are standing helpless on the brink

Where Science totters and where Reason falls-
We feel the solid earth beneath our feet

And know that we are masters of its lore.

From darkest caves of thought we pluck the pearl
Of knowledge, and the magic of its gleam

Guides us through æons of uncounted years

Back to the great First Cause,

—a step-and then

We falter on the verge of the Unknown:
The deep gulf yawns before us-we are blind.
But ever and anon across the gloom
We hear the waters of Eternity

Sounding mysterious music through the night,
And though we cannot see their endless sweep
We know a rainbow rests upon their foam-
The wondrous radiance of the smile of God.

BROCKVILLE.

ANOTHER WORD OR TWO.

BY A WOMAN OF NEWFANGLE.

I

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HAVE called you together again, my dears, to make a few remarks upon what has been said by 'NonResident.' I shall be as brief as I can. It is satisfactory to find that 'Non-Resident' is conscious of the 'odium attaching to the foolish and extreme opinions of some of its (The Woman Question's) most indiscreet supporters,' and of the 'indiscretion' of some 'female speaker who had the misfortune to say, possibly under a momentary excitement, that men were "the lower and coarser half of humanity.' An article of some ten or twelve pages can hardly be imagined to have been composed under 'momentary excitement.' However, all this is very well indeed, but would have been much better if a similar apology had been made for the 'foolish and extreme opinion,' the 'indiscretion' and 'misfortune' of saying that the moment that the principle of self-interest' (the basis of all commercial transactions) 'comes into play, the average man (that is, almost every man) 'is more ready to grind down, to overwork, to underpay, to cheat outright a woman than a man, just because he thinks he can do it with more impunity.' But we have no such apology. So, far from it, 'Non-Resident' comes up again to the charge and pours in another volley of the same accusation. To be sure, the tone is very much lowered. All we are told now is that where men will cheat men, they will be more ready to cheat women, as more helpless,' and that this is simply human nature.' This is a very different matter. Still it is prefaced with an

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array of dishonesties, which is evidently meant to convey the impression that such men are very numerous. A 'statement of simple facts' is made in supposed proof of it. It is quoted that 'during the last year the Working Women's Protection Union of New York, one of whose objects it is to provide gratuitous legal services for women defrauded' (sic) by their employers, has recovered no less an amount than $21,000 for 6,500 women, and that without any expense to the claimants, who range from the servant to the teacher. How much suffering the lack of this $21,000 might have caused we may best realize by remembering that few, indeed, of the women who work have not helpless relatives depending upon them.' Now, my dears, $21,000 is a large sum here, but in a city like New York it is a mere drop of water in the sea. Then 6,500 women is a large number, but it represents only one in about. sixty of what I understand to be the adult female population of New York and its suburbs or outlying cities; $21,000 yields an average of $3.26 in each case. These women, we are told, 'range from the servant to the teacher; their average earnings, as wages and payments go there (servant girls get twelve dollars a month), cannot certainly be set down at less than $200 a year. That, I believe, is a low estimate. Of that sum $3.26 amounts to about one dollar in sixty-one, or one cent in sixty-one, and 'the lack of this' very small proportion could hardly be supposed to cause much suffering to helpless relatives. No doubt some of the claims would be larger, but then

others would become insignificant, so that one balances the other. Looked at in this way, the statement is found to be sensational, got up for a purpose, as all such statements always are. But, that you may understand it better, let us reduce it to our Newfangle standard, and then we can bring our own experience to bear upon it. Following a precise proportion between the two populations, as nearly as I can come to it at the moment, we shall have six and a half women sueing for twenty-one dollars. But, as we cannot divide a woman by two-though there are some of whom half would be a sufficient allowancelet us throw in the fraction and say seven, with an average claim for three dollars. Now, in the whole township and spread over twelve months, that does not strike one as a very heinous amount of iniquity. But yet from that large deductions must be made. 'Non-Resident' tells us that this sum is not to be wholly set down to masculine injustice, for women are too often shamefully thoughtless and unjust in their dealings with their own sex. We may safely accept this upon so good an authority, and may, therefore, fairly suppose that in at least two of the seven cases the defendant men would be acting, or rather suffering, on behalf of their wives. Then, as in Newfangle, we by no means take it for granted that a suit for money necessarily implies an attempt to defraud, and as we should, indeed, set it down as a gross calumny to say so, we may strike off two more on that ground.

There is yet another point to consider, as to which I will follow 'NonResident's' frequent example and quote from other authorities. I will read the following to you from a late London paper::--

'If there is one member of the judicial bench from whose lips it might be confidently asserted that nothing derogatory to the dignity of womanhood would fall, that member is cer

tainly Mr. Baron Huddleston (a Baron of the High Court of Exchequer, my dears). Some surprise and disconcertment have, therefore, naturally been caused at a few observations which this most knightly-hearted and accomplished judge recently made at the Exeter Assizes. While a certain case in court was proceeding, one of the counsel committed himself to the rash statement that "a woman would swear anything," an abominable heresy which his lordship might have been expected sternly and promptly to condemn. As a matter of fact, Mr. Baron Huddleston did rebuke the assertion, but only in the mildest manner, and, indeed, his qualification of the charge seems something very like a confirmation of it. While protesting that "his experience of women was not sufficient to enable him to go quite so far as this," he declared as an undoubted fact that a woman told a lie with very much better effect than did a man; and he proceeded to place on record his testimony to the circumstance that "women lie more logically' (score a point here for "Non-Resident") "than men," as well as his own incapacity to " "gauge the veracity of a female witness "-an intellectual compliment to the sex involving a grave ethical opprobrium.'

I will leave it to yourselves, my dears, to determine whether we should be in excess by striking off one more case from the list on this ground. You hesitate? The question before you is this: If you are asked to believe that men will cheat women out of some vast sum, of which we are told, as you will hear presently, $21,000 represents but a very small fraction, do you find it hard to believe that women might cheat men out of a seventh part of $21,000? If you cannot bring yourselves to believe the latter, with what sort of conscience can you credit the former? It is much to be lamented that such a question should have been brought before the public in this way, and more still before you,

but we have it and we must deal with it. Men who owe money say that they do not; women to whom money is not due say that it is. As the case is put by 'Non-Resident,' and on the testimony-and stronger could not be --before you, shall we or shall we not strike off one case on this ground? You assent now? All of you? Very well. Speaking generally, whatever may be the fact in New York, here such a Protective Union would undoubtedly have the effect of bringing every trumpery and slippery case into court, and of making the most of it when there. There would be no direct cost to the claimant, at the worst she could lose nothing, and there would be a pleasurable excitement and notoriety about it. These various considerations would all be unquestionably in full force in Newfangle (and, if human nature be the same in both places, in New York also), and would reduce our seven cases

to two.

It may be very sad that we should have even two rogues capable of cheating poor women of three dollars apiece, but, as it seems that there must be some roguery everywhere, and there are some two thousand of us here to share it, we need not break our hearts about it, nor get up sensational statements of the amount of cruel cheating inflicted by men upon women, 'helpless' women. Nay; it is not impossible that we may have two or three women able and willing to impose upon our men to that extent, if they have a whole year given them to do it in.

Now, my dears, you have only to judge of the $21,000 and the 6,500 cases of imputed fraud at New York by the same tests that we have applied here-tests derived partly from 'NonResident's' own admission, partly from the commonest charity towards our fellow-creatures, and partly from the testimony of the judgment seatand the delinquency of those dreadful men dwindles down to very small proportions; indeed, I must say to little better, after such strenuous denunciations, than a ridiculous anti-climax.

The 6,500 cheating men become 1,856, which gives us one in about 215 of the adult male population of New York.

And surely so much the better from every possible point of view. Human nature is faulty enough without being blackened beyond its deserts. When an apparent, it cannot surely be a real, attempt is made to establish an antagonism between men and women, and to make young creatures like yourselves, my dears, believe that you are going out into a world where you will be the victims and prey, if not of your own fathers and brothers, husbands and sons, of the fathers and brothers, and husbands and sons of other women, of men who will cheat you out of your honest earnings, the sooner you are disabused of any such idea the better.

It is almost a waste of time to notice the stories that we are told, in order to proye a preposterous system of sexprotection the protection of the stronger against the weaker' (!). A 'lady' is paid $900 a year for certain services. That is about their marketable value, about what a correspond. ing clerk, with similar qualifications, is paid in a mercantile house in London or Liverpool, and I should suppose, therefore, in New York. As for the 'man' who gets $1,800 for what are said to be inferior services, no decision could be come to without knowing more about the case. Again, publishers, as a rule, very justifiably trade upon established reputations and would decline any 'illustrations' by an unknown artist, be it man or woman, unless accompanied by special testimonials, and most likely even then. The 'gentleman friend' performed a miracle, unless he came with such adequate testimonials in his hand. Such want of appreciation as that shown in the instance of the cabinet has happened in hundreds of cases to men. As a rule, the greater the excellence of the work, the more it is over the heads of ordinary people, and the less understood. At a famous picture-sale two works were bought, the one for

twenty-one times the price paid to the artist, the other for thirty-two times. The painters were both still living, both were, and had been, in affluent circumstances, and had been under no necessity to dispose of their productions beneath their value. So much had even themselves been mistaken in their judgment of their own performances! One of them was Copley Fielding, President of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, the other was David Roberts, R.A. It need not be said that neither of them was a

woman.

If he had been, or both, say, what a capital sensational story! In short, to tell such tales with the expectation that they will not be seen through and through by everybody of any discernment, is mere child's play.

Well, my dears, you have now seen how, by bringing to bear upon any subject some of that fierce light which is said to beat upon a throne, it will come out in its real form and colour, and will out-blazen all prejudice and misrepresentation-far be it from me, in this case, to say wilful misrepresentation.

'Non-Resident' says that the said $21,000 in New York alone must represent a very small fraction of such uncollected debts,' that is, debts for the recovery of which the weak are obliged to band themselves together to resist the oppression of the strong.' We hear nothing about the suits instituted for the recovery of money by men, possibly from women, or by women from women, in the course of a year, in New York; if we did, it would doubtless give a very different complexion to the case. But not to dwell upon that, of what sum may $21,000 be properly said to constitute a very small fraction? Of $100,000, $200,000, $500,000? It is hard to assign a limit. Where is the proof? 'Non-Resident' does not seem quite clearly to understand that when any person undertakes to prove a case by 'facts,' as 'Non-Resident' has done, all mere assertion outside of those facts

falls to the ground. We are compelled to say the same of the number of flagrant instances of this kind from my own personal knowledge.' In a case of such grave importance as that now under consideration, no vague charges like this can be admitted. The instances' might be looked at through the wrong end of the glass. There might be great difference of opinion as to what constitutes 'flagrant instances.'

Then, my dears, I do not see very well why these women are called 'weak' and 'helpless' in this matter. They have power to combine against their employers, they can put the engine of the law in force, the Courts are open to them, they can recover $21,000. Why not all the vast sum of which this is said to be a very small fraction?' And, mind you, the judge is a man, the counsel are men, the statutes have been enacted by men; yet, strange to say, women recover $21,000—a queer commentary on the oppression of the weak by the strong.' I should add, the jury are men, too. Stay though, can we make quite sure that they are not women personating their husbands, with the marital trousers on? It could be done. In the name of the majesty of the law, this should be looked to.

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I will now, my dears, if it shall not tire you, notice, as shortly as I can, such farther points in 'Non-Resident's' article as seem to require it. The 'Movement for the Higher Education of Women' was not stigmatised' by me, nor anything of the kind. an excellent thing as far as it goes, but I pointed out what it may reasonably be hoped to do, and what it never can do.

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When you have done laughing at a woman's doing 'a good day's ploughing,' and at a man's not being able to make as much fire as will boil a little water in a kettle-how about camping out?—I will proceed. You Newfangle girls know better than that, at any rate.

If you could take in such stuff as that, you would have to give up all claim to the 'quick wits,' which 'Non

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