jeweler's shop, and stolen therefrom a watch. The theft was proved, and
the culprit sent to the penitentiary for three years. _Query_: Which was
the greater crime, killing a woman or stealing a watch?

The law professes to punish seduction and rape; but when either or both
are proved, what are the sentences? In nine cases out of ten, scarcely
so severe as for damaging an animal belonging to a neighbor.
Occasionally, when the cases have been atrociously aggravating, a man
has been hung for poisoning his wife, or one has been sent to the
penitentiary for rape; but the instances are more frequent in which the
criminal escapes punishment. It is contended that, usually, the women
who are murdered, or otherwise maltreated, are ill-tempered, drunken
creatures, and therefore not worthy the protection of the law. Would
these same parties contend that because a man was ill-tempered,
drunken, or dissolute, therefore his wife was scarcely to be punished
for foully murdering him? Not at all. The universal testimony would be
that she was a shockingly wicked wretch.

Women, as well as men, have to contend with infirmities of temper; and
they quite as well succeed in controlling or keeping them in check.
There are both men and women, unfortunately, who let their evil passions
run riot till they are torments to all who have any thing to do with
them. Some women, naturally gentle and kind, have been so ill-treated,
so shamefully tyrannized over, that in process of time the "milk of
human kindness in their breasts has turned to gall;" and the gall is
then bitter enough. Would not men, in similar circumstances, be just as
bitter?

There is a certain class of women, however, who as a rule are likely to
become fretful and ill-tempered as they grow in years: girls who are