14 JANUARY 1882, Page 25

Handbook for Women Engaged in Social and Political Work. Edited

by Helen Blackburn. (Arrowsmith, Bristol.)—Miss Black- burn gives here a brief account of the laws, enabling and disabling, which affect the condition of women. It is a useful summary ; but we cannot quite make out, from the opinions expressed from time to time, what it is that Miss Blackburn and her friends want. It looks like an impossible combination of freedom and protection. If "free- 'dons of contract " is to be the aim of legislation—and Miss Black- burn resents the interference of the Factory Act, and, we presume, Clough she does not say so, of the Coal Mines Regulation Act, with it—mach that she does value must be sacrificed for it.