A TALE ABOUT FEMALE SUFFRAGE.* 11,1Err have often put the
question, Why do women want votes? Unfortunately, instead of waiting for that authoritative reply which would come from the leaders of what the title-page of the book before us calls "The Women's Suffrage Movement," these querists have answered the question for themselves, in a manner showing at once their ignorance and want of sincerity. Some of them have said that women do not want votes. Others have said that the women who want votes are those who can't get husbands. We have heard from one opponent of the movement a neat phrase about "social failures trying to become political successes." The utter fallacy both of these arguments and these sneers is exposed by the present story. Here we have under the guise of fiction an exact picture of the present condition of women, and that of itself gives us the true reason for their demanding the suffrage. A slight sketch of the plot will show how well the writer has succeeded in bringing out the grievances of her sex. She introduces us at the beginning of the story to three sisters, who are reduced to poverty by the injustice of the law. Their father had been a wealthy man, but he left no sons, and by the law of entail, which, "being made by men, was, of course, like all other laws, made with a view to their own benefit," his estates passed at his death to a very distant relation. What money the daughters had was invested in railway stock, but it is the policy of the law to keep women ignorant of the fluctuations of the Money Market, and therefore they never heard any report affecting the solvency of the railway company in which they were interested until the crash came. Then they wanted to find some means of supporting themselves, but again the law stood in their way. They found that the only occupation allowed to a woman is that of governess, for which none of them were fitted. They could not get places either as lawyers' clerks, clerks in banks, or book-keepers. Even when one of them induced a printer to give her a trial, she was driven out by a combiration of the men in the office, who refused to work with an inferior being, one who had no vote. It appears that Trade Unions are especially favoured by the law, because they are combinations of men for the purpose of keeping down women.
• Mildrearr Career; a Tale of the ITomen't Suffrage Morement. By Miss Ramsay. London : C. J. Skeet. 1874. The three sisters found it hopeless to struggle against these diffi- culties. They had to realise the truth of the saying which is put in the month of another character in this book, that in England "a woman, because she is born a lady, is driven to choose between a loveless marriage and life-long poverty." And all this is owing to the law which refuses women the suffrage.
The three sisters are not the only victims mentioned in the story. A friend of theirs tries the experiment of marriage. Her husband is, of course, unworthy of her, but the law makes him her master. He associates with a fast and eccentric authoress, yet the wife, who feels that such an acquaintance is an insult to her, cannot get a divorce. So monstrous is the injustice of the law, that it will not release a woman from the marriage tie, even if her husband goes to dine on Sunday with a person to whom she objects. Nay, more, if she prefers living apart from her husband to receiving such a person, the law will not allow her to deprive him of their children, as well as of her own society. "A mother's rights in the eye of the law are simply nil," observes the writer of this story. Yet it is not till after the separation in the particular ease mentioned that the full atrocity of the law is disclosed. Of course, it is hard that a wife cannot choose her husband's associates. It is hard that a wife who thinks herself aggrieved should not be allowed to turn her husband out of the house, or to take away the children of the marriage. If women had votes, these hardships would naturally be redressed, although, if men were to retain votes, that would not be done without some discussion. But what do our readers say to the criminal law as it affects mothers ? We are assured that after husband and wife have separated for some cause which does not come within the Divorce Act, a child may, "in the name of the law," be "handed over to a vicious father, to be educated under a woman who is scouted from respectable society," and that the only means by which a mother can regain possession of her child are such as render her guilty of felony. Such is Miss Ramsay's reading of the law. We feel that it has been very good of her to study such a repulsive subject so deeply. She has done it purely from a sense of duty. She knows that if once her sex is brought to understand its legal position, the demand for votes as the only possible remedy will become irresistible. "Women," she says, "hare continued up to the present time apathetic as regards the injustice and inequality of the laws, chiefly because those who do not practically suffer have a very imperfect idea of what their own legal status really is. There are thousands of educated (?) women at this day in England who have no intelligent comprehension of the law of husband and wife, the laws that relate to married women's pro- perty, to divorce, or to a mother's legal relations towards her children." These thousands, whose education Miss Ramsay ques, tions by her inserted note of interrogation, will no doubt be much enlightened on all these points by the present story. They will learn, in addition to what has been cited already, that a woman who is deserted by her husband for any period short of two full years cannot get a protection- order from a magistrate, and that the husband may make periodical visits, each within two years from the one before, for the purpose of carrying off his wife's earnings. They will also learn that, according to "English legislation," a man may half kill his wife as often as he likes, and will only be imprisoned for three days, but if he once steals a great-coat, he will have seven years for it. Here, again, the light which Miss Ramsay throws on the working of the English law is all the more valuable, from its being new not only to educated women (with or without a note of interrogation), but to educated men and trained lawyers. We have not been able to find the Acts of Parliament which punish the simple stealing of a great-coat with seven years, while they assign three days as the penalty for repeated acts of violence. But Miss Ramsay's revelations show that the very words of the Divorce Act have been twisted for the purpose of denying justice to women. That Act says that a wife deserted by her husband is entitled to a protection-order "at any time after such desertion," while if she is deserted for two full years she can get a judicial separation. However, the Divorce Act was passed by men for their own benefit, and therefore its words are not intended to be taken literally.
We have been so much absorbed in Miss Ramsay's account of the legal position of her sex, that we have shamefully neglected the heroine of the story, the youngest of the three sisters mentioned at the beginning of this article. We must now trace her career. She starts in life with a definite purpose. While her two elder sisters, who do not want votes, are contented, the one to live in a boarding-house, and be cheated by an adventuress, the other to
become a governess and teach what she does not know, Mildred Randall manages to get a clerkship in a merchant's house, joins the Women's Suffrage Movement, has a large sum of money left her by a miser, builds a college for women, enters into a business partnership with the former head clerk of the house, and makes her fortune. We see from this narrative what brilliant prospects open before female politicians. If a woman whose great object in life is to get a vote has such a splendid career, what could not be done by a woman who had a vote already ? Nothing in the world would be out of her reach. She might be the whole Government at once. Misers would be dying all round her, and leaving her their money. It may be thought that we are exaggerating the effect of a vote, but we can assure our readers that we are only working out logically Miss Ramsay's conception. The best proof of this is to be found in the sudden change of circumstances experienced by Mildred Randallie elder sisters. We have seen that at first they were opposed to female suffrage, and therefore were the most helpless of beings, unable to do anything for themselves, oppressed and cheated. In the depth of their distress, however, one of them utters a wish that "in any time of difficulty I may always have to do with suffrage ladies,"—and this prayer, like Pippa's song, works wonders. The two sisters at once set up as milliners, show a surprising talent, and also begin to make a fortune. It may be difficult to see the exact connection between millinery and voting, or to understand why people who are left to their own resources should not occupy themselves profitably merely because they cannot take part in an election. But the- subtlety of Miss Ramsay's mind enables her to see much that is hidden from ordinary mortals. Those who (like some of our mis- guided colleagues in this paper) would throw open many new spheres of usefulness to women, and would protect them in every possible way against outrage and brutality, but do not recognise their claim to the suffrage, might take to heart the teachings of this story.
The only part of the book with which we were at first dissatis- fied was the end. We thought Miss Ramsay would have been superior to the weakness of marrying her heroine. But since read- ing the book, we have been informed by very high authority that there is nothing in the "women's suffrage movement" which militates against marriage. Besides, there is much in the story itself to console us. Even if Mildred Randall has to go through the marriage service, she manages, no doubt, to soften down its obnoxious features. "Of course," she says, when dis- cussing the matter, " shall not promise to obey Frank, or if I am forced to say 'I will,' it will be with mental reservation ; I shall mean that I will obey him in the same way as I expect him to obey me ; each, that is, to show the utmost consideration for the This, however, is said at a time when " Frank " is "not sound on the woman question." He is converted before the mar- riage, and probably therefore understands what "suffrage ladies " really mean by obedience. As the first-fruits of his conversion are that he becomes a Member of Parliament, in the place of one who, being opposed to female suffrage, quarrels with his wife, has his child stolen from him, and is unseated by a committee of ladies who get up an agitation against him, Mildred's husband can thoroughly appreciate the advantage of such a change of opinion. Both in his own person and in that of his opponent he has proved the existence of true poetical justice. We may conclude that if he is in the present House, he is a faithful follower of Mr. Forsyth, looking forward to the time when women will have restored to them the franchise that they exercised "in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and her predecessors," before the passing of any of those harsh laws which were made by the Puritans, and which deny women the right of property and inheritance, equality in trades and professions, protection in the married state, and the of their children. This historical view of the question is quite worthy of being placed by the side of the legal view, to which we devoted some space, and which so warmly excited our sympathies. Perhaps it would have been well if the information given us about Queen Elizabeth and the Puritans bad been rather more full, and had come directly from Miss Ramsay, instead of being conveyed incidentally in the form of a quotation from a lecture. But if too great a flood of light were poured upon us all at once, we should be dazzled. As it is, there are several parts of the book that have proved too much for our weak eyesight. We hope that by the time Miss Ramsay writes next, we Day have risen nearer to her level.
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