are found every day who avail themselves of its conditions. That all men
are not mean enough to take advantage of such laws, is no excuse for
their existence. It is barbarous that, by laws in the enacting of which
women have had no voice, they are left to the mercy of unscrupulous men,
without the possibility of better men coming to their help, except by
repealing the iniquitous statutes.

It is quite true that all women are not made to feel the full force of
this bitter oppression, because of the kindness of their husbands, or
the prudent forethought of their fathers in providing for unlooked-for
emergencies which might occasion poverty or distress; but the laws, and
the makers of them, deserve little credit for any comfort or degree of
independence enjoyed by women. More sorrowful than it is, infinitely
more sorrowful, would woman's condition be, if true Christianity had not
made many men more just than the laws require them to be. Many of the
slaves had kind masters; but was slavery any the less an iniquitous
outrage upon humanity, a curse upon the land, a blot that could only be
wiped away by a bloody war? The present social condition of women is
merely one system of domestic slavery, which is hourly calling out to
God for redress; and, though he tarry long, yet his afflicted children's
cry is never lifted up in vain.

Society is even yet so constituted, and the minds of those who are
administrators of the law so blinded, by the prejudices which long usage
has established, that even the very few laws which are on record for her
so-called protection, are rendered of little avail.

The sufferings of women and children from the effects of the
liquor-traffic, is perfectly frightful; and what help is there for it?
Lately, in Canada, the wife may, after she is reduced to poverty, forbid