has personally acquitted herself of her duty and responsibility in
regard to the elevation and rehabilitation of the hitherto socially
enslaved condition of womanhood in her Indian empire; for it is well
known how the philosophic religions of the East have been subtly adapted
for establishing the political and social pre-eminence of certain
classes of a population over its majority, at the same time dooming
womanhood generally to the lowest rank of drudges, perpetual contempt
and ignorance, refusing them education (as had been done in the case of
the Roman slaves)--specially despised if without a husband, and if a
widow, immolated at last upon her husband's funeral pyre.

Step by step, by means of strenuous and disinterested exertions,
employing prestige and encouragements, by legislation and otherwise, a
breach was effected which bids fair to break down that caste-fenced and
chained thraldom, and to raise over a hundred millions of her humble
subject sisters from unnatural degradation to occupy the honourable and
responsible rank assigned by the Creator to woman as man's social help,
meet for him, and to whom honour is due as to the weaker vessel.
Millions of women have already found emancipation and recognition of
their right position, to man's reciprocal joy and to the felicity of
their families. Their sons and daughters in turn now form armies to
complete the mission of liberty so zealously inaugurated by their
beloved Empress, their own peculiar star of India.

Maybe this and similar earnests evinced during that noble Queen's reign,
among which the shelter afforded to the Jewish people, will come into
remembrance in mitigation of visitations deserved by the nation for its
previous complicity in the hideous traffic in African souls of men.

It throws a light upon the credulity and simplicity of the bulk of the