advantage of seeing any detailed or methodical statement of the objections to altering the law. Neither have I now; and I may fairly assume in so contentious a matter, that arguments asked for but not yet adduced do not exist; and that those which have been adduced for the change, and have not been answered, are unanswerable. I wish now to address myself solely to the suggestions, that the necessities of the case will be met by extending the remedies of wives under the Divorce Act, and that it would be for their advantage to tie up their property for themselves and their children.

At the present time, if a wife is deserted by her husband she may apply to a magistrate, who may grant her an order of protection, the effect of which, to use popular language, is to place her as regards ownership of property in the position of a single woman. It is suggested that these powers of magistrates might be largely extended, so largely in fact as to give to wives all the protection they need. I have never seen any statement of the mode in which it is proposed to do this, and I shall be surprised if any can be put into definite words and not forthwith break down by its own weakness. But the proposal is so faulty in principle, that on principle it ought to be decided, and we ought never to arrive at the stage of discussing specific provisions for this purpose. In the first place I would ask, for what reason is a change desirable at all, and then would ask whether that reason is satisfied by facilitating protection orders?

It must be remembered that I am addressing myself to those who are convinced that, for some reason or other, probably one or more of those contained in the Birmingham paper, a change is necessary. Is it on account of the abstract justice of the case? Then what justice is there in providing that a husband's property shall be secured to him by the simple operation of the law without any misconduct on the wife's part, but that a wife's shall be taken away from her unless her husband ill-treats her and she has the courage to embark in a litigation and the luck to emerge successfully from it?

Is it because good laws ought to harmonise with the arrangements which people make for themselves when they have knowledge and power enough to act for themselves? Then follow those arrangements, so far as they are applicable to the subject matter you are handling, and make the property of wives theirs by direct right, and not merely on condition that a magistrate thinks they have suffered ill-treatment enough to claim it back from their husbands.

Is it because there ought not to be two contradictory laws-one for the rich and one for the poor? Why, such a measure would make the contradiction more sharply defined, more glaring than ever. I would ask any advocate of such a measure, Would you be content to mete it out to your own daughter? If she marries, will you consent to abstain from securing to her any property of her own,

in consideration of her getting more favourable opportunities of appearing in a police office?

Is it on account of the lessons afforded by Transatlantic experience? Then that experience teaches us to make married women owners of property, not to give them greater facilities of prosecuting quarrels with their husbands.

Is it because you are convinced that giving one consort's property to the other is no proper part of the contract of marriage-is only the remnant of an old barbarous law and is not necessary to preserve harmony or due subordination in families? Then such a gift should not be made by the law at all, and its existence should not depend on the chance of the parties remaining in more or less friendly relations with one another.

Or is it simply because you are struck with remorse at hearing evidence of the shocking cruelties which spring from the present law? Then look at the evidence again, and you will find that many even of the evils brought to light are such as it is most difficult to remedy through a court of justice. And depend upon it that where, in a delicate and painful matter, so much comes to light, much more remains in darkness, and that for one case that could be reached by the action of a magistrate, scores, or even hundreds, would be reached by a simple change of the principle of law. Those who contend that the principle of the law is not bad are bound to give some satisfactory explanation of the phænomena, to tell us why sufferings are so frequent among those who remain subject to it, and why all who can escape from it, do so. No such explanation has ever been attempted. The principle then is bad. The particular cases that appear are only the symptoms. But it is childish to treat the symptoms separately while the cause remains untouched. It is about as wise as to let your child go on with an unwholesome diet, but to make it very easy for him to see the doctor as each fit of sickness occurs.

I now pass to the other suggestion-viz., to protect wives by taking away their property from them, and putting it into settlement. This is a much more serious affair. To reduce the measure to a system of protection orders would probably be nothing worse than to reduce it to a nullity. Indeed, in that shape it might do a small quantity of good. But if turned into a system of settlements, it would indeed be a serious aggravation of existing mischief. Here again I do not understand (for it has never been explained), what machinery is contemplated, nor whether it is proposed to make a universal settlement by Act of Parliament, or only to seize and settle property in those cases in which a protection order has been obtained. The only difference between the two cases would be that in the latter the Act would have little scope, and therefore would do comparatively little harm.

The plan, doubtless, is suggested by the course usually taken in marriage settlements, and would naturally be one of the first things to occur to lawyers more familiar with such arrangements than with the short and simple annals of the poor. I will not here discuss the policy of the ordinary marriage settlement for the rich. I do not admire it, but it is not necessary for the argument to take so wide a range. It is sufficient to say, that for one rich person affected by the measure there will be a thousand poor; that it is, in fact, a measure for the poorer classes of society; that it will leave the power of settlement by private contract unaffected for those who choose it; that the poorer classes do not choose it; and that to force it on them would be a great hardship.

How are such settlements to work? In what custody is the fund to be placed? Is the settlement to embrace earnings? And if not earnings, then savings from earnings? Are the children to have a right of calling their mother to account to show what she has laid by, or what she has received by gift from others, or by succession? Whom will you get to act as trustees ?

All these questions must be answered before the proposal can float. The only answer I have heard to any of them is a suggestion by some gentleman that municipal corporations might act as trusteesa suggestion which can do little more than provoke a smile. Yet without machinery the plan must break down.

Supposing, however, it could be carried into effect—every little gift, legacy, or windfall, would have somehow to be put into settlement, unless we place a limit of value below which nothing should be settled. Such a limit would hardly be placed above say £200, even that would exclude the vast majority of cases. But who has watched the course of settlements of even much larger sums, say £2,000, without observing the enormous proportion which the expense bears to the sum settled, and the continual efforts that are made now to get a little more interest, and now to encroach on the capital? Those efforts represent the uneasiness of the parties affected by the settlements. The sum falling under such an Act as this would in few cases exceed £300 or £400. And sums of that or of much larger amount are far more beneficially applied when left free to be used for the exigencies of the family, than when tied up, and made available only by way of income. Rich people may afford to put by a sum of money, and say that there it shall lie for a term of years. The poor cannot; the possession of a little capital often makes to them the whole difference between getting a start in life and losing it, between moderate success and total failure; they have no margin, and no friends to fall back on for the critical occasions when money is necessary.

Resides and beyond the crippling effect of tying up money comes

the demoralising effect of expectations. They are peculiarly noxious to the poor and ignorant, who always exaggerate them, often relax their exertions on account of them, and not seldom discount them. When Eutrapelus wished to ruin a man he gave him fine clothes. If I wished to throw sore temptation in the way of a humble family, I would put a couple of hundred pounds in strict settlement for them.

But if settlements are such good things why not extend them to men?

When women ask that marriage may not operate as a forfeiture of their property, they are to be told that it must be kept for their children. It is difficult to see why the same principle should not be applied to men when they marry. If the arrangement is based on the good of the children, it must be the same to them from whichever parent the money comes. If based on the good of the wife, is it not rather wiser to let her be the judge, whether it is for her good or not? The argument must come ultimately to this-that women when they marry are such poor weak creatures that they cannot be trusted to deal with their own money; they cannot judge whether to keep it or spend it; whether to bestow it on their husbands or themselves, or their children, or elsewhere; therefore, the law shall step in, assume in every case that a woman ought to settle self and her children, and make that arrangement for her.

money on

her

To this I answer-First, the weakness is assumed without proof, or without better proof than some coarse dictum of Lord Thurlow's. Women know how to hold their own where they are accustomed to act. Give them legal rights, and wait to see whether or no they will use them. Secondly, that the circumstances and needs of people vary infinitely, and to apply one Procrustean rule of law to all will produce, first misery, and then revolt against the law. Thirdly, that the proposed legal assumption of what it is right for a woman to do with a small sum of money is so unwise that the weakest woman commanded by the most tyrannical husband could not do worse with it. Fourthly, that it is somewhat hard measure for those who come complaining of their unprotected state to be told that they are quite right, but that they want a great deal more protection than they ask for, and shall for the future bé protected not only against their husbands, but against themselves.

I will only now add that for myself I would sooner see no measure at all carried than one establishing a system of settlements; and I believe the gentlemen who have given years of labour to the ripening of opinion for the reception of Mr. Russell Gurney's Bill are of the same opinion.

ARTHUR HOBHOUSE.

JANE AUSTEN.

WE are often told at the present day that our grandfathers and grandmothers in their youth had a less uniform and monotonous existence than their degenerate posterity; that life was more full of both character and incident than it is at present; that idiosyncracies of all kinds, personal, professional, or provincial, were more strongly marked; and that among our progenitors, consequently, though much less laborious than ourselves, we find no complaints of that insipidity and sameness which are, rightly or wrongly, imputed to contemporary society. No doubt the life of England eighty years ago was rougher than it is now; and in some respects, therefore, more exciting. Doubtless, also, to us looking back upon it, mellowed and moss-grown with the lapse of time, it seems more picturesque than the present. And so far it may be a more proper period than our own in which to lay the scene of a romance. But it may be doubted, after all, whether the real actors in the life of that generation were as conscious of their own advantages as the complaint against our own times assumes them to have been. All that part of life which was rougher and more stirring than our own, lay outside of their ordinary daily experience; and it was all external and outdoor life. Posting, coaching, or riding were, let us grant, more interesting modes of travelling than our own, though any one of them could be tedious enough under circumstances of no rare occurrence; but they did not affect the ordinary routine of domestic life. The very same circumstances which lent all its charms to the "road," kept down the number of those who were able to enjoy them. People then remained at home to an extent that would now be unendurable. So that, on the whole, we cannot avoid a shrewd suspicion that life in those days, if less insipid than in these for the higher aristocracy, was more dull for the rest of the community; that long stretches of unbroken monotony, days of worsted work and nights of satin stitch, were more common, and that if a young lady of 1870 were to find herself transferred to a country personage of 1790, she would consider herself to be buried alive.

This conjecture, which is à priori not improbable, is strengthened by the perusal of Miss Austen's novels; and it is part of her genius that, without ever travelling out of the same dull circles of society, she has been able to construct for us tales of such enduring interest. It is still further strengthened by the contents of her biography, which presents us with a life not only entirely devoid of all the exciting incidents that might happen at the present day, but passed in