the law will assist her, guard her property
by settlement. But this device is, unfortunately,
not understood as a rule by persons
out of the higher ranks of society, and is,
besides, not to be adopted without legal
formalities of an expensive nature. And,
again, in cases of very small property, or in
cases of wives of the wage-earning class,
the security resulting from a settlement is
not obtainable. The wife of what is
generally known as a working man, although he
is in many cases merely an idle, drunken
rascal, is defenceless, unless, indeed, her
husband is good enough to desert her
altogether. In this case she reaps a double
advantage. She gets rid of a ruffian, who
as often as not beats as well as robs her,
and a protection order, from a magistrate
will secure her earnings to her own use.
But the worthless vagabond who does no
work himself, and is content to live in idle
dissipation on his wife's poor earnings, is,
as a rule, quite alive to the peculiarities of
the situation. He knows, no man better,
that as long as he lives with his wife, and
does not beat her with more than average
ferocity, the law is on his side. His wife's
earnings are his, not hers. Even, indeed,
if he live in a state of semi-desertion, so to
speak, he has only to re-appear at brief
intervals to keep his miserable rights alive.
For a protection-order is only issued in
proof of utter unmistakable desertion.
Again, in many of these wretched cases the
protection-order comes too late. The little
fund the wife may have brought to the
common stock at her marriage has been
squandered in drink and debauchery; the
savings which she may have accumulated
by painful industry and care during her
married life have been swept off to assist
the flight of the worthless scamp, to whom
the law gives the property in them. And
even if the system of protection-orders were
extended—even if a woman could obtain
from a magistrate protection for her earnings
even in cases where the husband still
afflicts her with his presence—it may be
doubted whether much good would be done.
There is often, although some persons
appear to doubt it, actually a spirit of delicacy
in hard working women, and the
parade of domestic grievances in a public
court, is an ordeal from which all women,
of however humble a station, naturally and
instinctively shrink. There is but one
thing to be done. Married women must
be given absolute control over their
property and earnings.

As this is one of those changes, important
indeed in themselves, but offering none of
those opportunities of making political
capital, which elevate matters of far less
real public importance into interesting
"questions," it is not surprising that while
some people have languidly admitted the
existence of injustice for years, no reform
has been effected. Nor can we wonder
that the excellent measure by which Mr.
Russell Gurney, the Recorder of London,
seeks to redress the wrongs of married
women's property, has been hampered and
impeded in its progress for some time.
When Mr. Gurney's bill was first introduced,
the obstructives clamoured loudly,
and not without temporary success. Our
old friends, the "floodgates," and the
"framework of society," were on active
service on the occasion. All the old
bugbears were rubbed up and paraded before
a not inattentive House of Commons.
Dire were the pictures of wives living in
luxury on acquired property, while the
husband, who had had reverses, had to get
on as best he might, with which the
opponents of reform illustrated their objections.
Instead of that delightful mutual confidence
which should exist between husband and
wife, said these gentlemen, consider what
result will follow the passing of this bill.
Mutual jealousy, continual squabbles about
money, endless litigation, uncertainty as
to who should defray the most necessary
household expenses, would be among the
inevitable consequences. Married life would
henceforth become a mere matter of
continual bargaining, haggling, and, possibly,
cheating. Furthermore, some of these
imaginative gentlemen roundly declared their
disbelief in the existence of any hardship
at all, and argued with the greatest coolness
that there was no reason for any
change in this best of all possible systems,
and that the bill, far from doing good,
would only do harm. Under these
circumstances the bill was referred to a Select
Committee of the House, which, after
taking evidence, reported, as was to be
expected, in favour of the measure.

Every witness examined before this
Committee had personal knowledge of
hardships occurring under the existing
law, and although there is a certain
unavoidable similarity about most of the cases
cited, it may be well for us to refer to
them as illustrative of the existence of a
state of things of which persons who have
not studied the question have possibly a
very inadequate idea.

One curious case is of a widow who had
been left by her deceased husband with a
sufficient property of some hundreds a