What, indeed! A lady from Belfast gives
similar evidence, and Mr. Mundella, the
member for Sheffield, who is a large
manufacturer in Nottingham, follows on the same
side. Mr. Mundella employs about two thousand
women, and, as fully forty per cent of
this number are married, it is not surprising
that he has plenty of instances of the
injustice of the present law to adduce. Here
is Mr. Mundella's answer to the request
that he would favour the committee with
his experience on this subject:

"I will give the committee two instances
which I know at this moment. One is
that of a woman who married a widower
having one child; she took that child, and
has been very kind to it, and brought it up.
She had a good home of her own when
she married this man, and yet this man has
persecuted her and neglected her, and his
drunken conduct has been so bad that she
was obliged to take her furniture and go
away with his child. That man has taken
her articles of furniture out of her house
while she has been at work, and would
repeatedly have sold the whole, but for the
neighbours interposing some obstacles to
prevent him from making off with all her
property. I know another case of an
excellent woman, whose husband has really
driven her away; acting on the principle of
"killing no murder," he has just stopped
short of that in his cruel and abominable
treatment of her. She went away from
him, and got a little home together of her
own. Five years ago she had a legacy left
her, I think it was about fifty pounds, and
the trustees will not pay it to her without
her husband's signature, and she dare not
tell him, because he would go and draw it,
and spend the whole of it. It would be a
great comfort to that woman if she could
have that money; it would help to set her
up in a little way of business, and do her
a deal of good. I have a number of cases
of this kind come before me of women
who marry early, and when they marry
they can earn often as much as the man;
the men get sometimes into dissipated
habits, and the women have to keep the
family, and on Saturday, when they take
their earnings home, the men will take the
earnings, which ought to keep the family,
away from them, and spend them in drink.
I have known many cases of that kind.
It is very lamentable to see to what an
extent the earnings of women are often
dissipated by bad husbands, and they have
no protection."

Evidence such as this conclusively shows
the existence of a state of things that cries
aloud for reformation off the face of the
earth, and Mr. Russell Gurney's bill, which
was favourably reported on by the
committee, and has since passed the House of
Commons, will do the business pretty
effectually. This act places married women
on the same footing, as regards the holding
of property, as their husbands, and, while it
gives them all rights to their property and
secures them in its peaceful enjoyment,
imposes on them, very properly, all the
responsibilities which attach to other citizens.
Thus, while a married woman will, for the
future, retain by law possession of all the
property of which she may have been
possessed at the time of her marriage, and of
all that may afterwards come to her, she
will be liable for her own debts. She will
be liable to the parish for the maintenance
of her husband if she have money and he
have none, and she will be liable, equally
with her husband, for the maintenance of
her children. She will, in a word, be
subject to the duties, as well as enjoy all the
rights, of an independent holder of property.
Provision is made for the summary settlement
of all questions as to the ownership
of property which may arise between
husband and wife. In the event of a wife
dying intestate, the case is to be governed
by the same rules that obtain in the event
of a husband's dying intestate. All
contingencies appear to have been carefully
provided for, but it would have been well,
we think, to have added a clause, expressly
stating that a husband making away with
any portion of his wife's property or earnings
against her will, should be liable to
the same punishment as falls upon any
other thief. The people who will chiefly
benefit by the bill belong, as a rule, to the
most ignorant class of the community, and
are slow to understand anything not stated
very directly and plainly. It is a pity that
this most important result of the act is only
implied, and not clearly laid down as law.

The only arguments of any significance
urged against the adoption of Mr. Gurney's
bill have been: firstly, the danger of
causing dissension in families, and weakening
the proper authority of husbands; and,
secondly, the danger of affording to
fraudulent couples dangerous facilities for the
cheating of creditors. But, as to both
these points, we have perfectly satisfactory
evidence from New York, Massachusetts,
and Vermont, in which states, as well as
in Upper Canada, the law giving married
women the right to hold property. It is
possible that individual cases of family
troubles and of successful swindling will