All men know that by English law wives have no
right of property over their own money, or of guardianship over their own children ; but few are, we suspect, aware that widows have no rights over their children either. Even the constructive wish of the dead father over-rides their rights. Mr. T. Hawksworth, a Catholic, married a Protestant, thereby proving that he did not care very much about the difference between the creeds. He died, and the widow brought up his daughter till she was eight and a half as a Protestant, educating her, says the Vice-Chancellor, carefully and well. The relatives demanded that the little girl should be brought up a Catholic, and the Vice-Chancellor of the County of Lancashire was compelled to decide that she must be so educated, although such education would build up a barrier between mother and child, and though he evidently consi- ders his own order grossly unjust. On appeal Lord Justice James affirmed the decision, so that by English law a girl of eight belongs not to her living mother, but to her dead father, and his possible wishes, though entirely opposed to his actual practice, must overrule her deliberate judgment. No more extraordinary instance of the English denial of common justice to wives ever came before the public.
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