Women are still, for another year, to be sentenced, on
marriage, to confiscation of all they possess. The Peers have referred their Bill to a Select Committee, with orders, as we underatand them, to make it into a Bill for securing poor women's earnings. They hold it immoral to plunder the poor, but right to plunder the rich,—quite a new doctrine to be professed by the Upper House. The Bill, it must be observed, does not interfere with settlements, but the Law Lords are afraid that, if it is passed, settlements will be disused, and then rich wives who run away with their lovers will carry their property with them. Well, suppose Lord Penzance introduces a clause punishing adultery with confis- cation of property—in both sexes. Will the Lords pass that, and if not, why inflict the penalty on one ?
