men deemed very unjust to their sex to be carried by female votes, would the men execute the enactment against themselves? A lady in the United States proposed the other day that all outrages committed by men upon women should be punished like murder with death, forgetting, as was justly remarked at the time, that, apart from the question as to the comparative gravity of the crime, in cases of murder there was a dead body, whereas in cases of outrage there was, generally speaking, no proof but the woman's own statement, which experience did not warrant us in assuming to be invariably true. Supposing that under the exciting influence of some recent and aggravated case, the women were to carry such an enactment as this, and supposing a female jury to convict a prisoner contrary to the male sense of justice, would the men put him to death? Supposing the women by their votes to bring on a war of which the men did not approve, would the men obediently shoulder their muskets and march to their death at the bidding of the women? If not, the supremacy of law would surely be in peril, and the supremacy of law, essential as it is to the welfare of both sexes, is pre-eminently essential to the welfare of the weaker. Public law has in great measure relieved women since the primitive and feudal times from the necessity of individual protection, and a corresponding amount of individual emancipation has followed or is following; but the sex, collectively, still requires the protection of male force upholding public law. Whether this will always be so, is a speculative question: it certainly is so now. As the question is not about the abstract capacity of women for politics, but about their capacity under their existing circumstances, and the possibility of their taking part in politics consistently with the unity and happiness of their families, it is needless to examine the lists of queens and female regents which are presented as proofs of the fitness of women to reign. These lists are selections made under the influence of strong prepossession, not exhaustive enumerations on which an induction can be based. In English history, the female wielders of political power are Matilda, the mother, and Eleanor, the wife of Henry II.; Isabella, wife of Edward II.; Margaret of Anjou, Mary, Elizabeth, Henrietta Maria and Anne.* The personal characters of these ladies and the personal interest attaching to them are not in question. Mary was, no doubt, a good woman, led fatally astray as a ruler by her weak and bigoted submission to her priests. To the tempers of Margaret of Anjou and of Henrietta Maria, the country was indebted in no small degree for two civil wars. Anne dismissed the greatest of English ministers, and brought dishonour on the country under the influence partly of a favourite waiting-woman, partly of the fanatical clergy, and it is highly probable that had she lived much longer her weakness would have led to the return of the Stuarts and to another period of confusion. The reputation of Elizabeth once stood high; but since the recent inquiries and revelations, she has been abandoned by her former worshippers; and it is difficult to say whether the infirmities of the woman were more prejudicial to the policy of the ruler or the crimes and cruelties of the ruler to the character of the woman. The public service. was starved even in the extremity of national peril and the best public servants were left unrewarded, while largesses and honour were heaped on Elizabeth's worthless lovers; we have a lady personally desiring that conspirators may be put to a death of protracted torture. On the other hand, it is probable that Eleanor the Queen of Edward I., the lady to whose memory the well-known crosses were erected by her husband, did much good in a feminine way; and it is certain that * Mary, wife of William III., though legally regent, never wielded power. great services were rendered to the public by Caroline, Queen of George II., who quietly guided her husband in his choice of ministers, without herself ever overstepping the domestic sphere. The name of Queen Victoria has been cited as that of a great female ruler, but those who cite it must surely be aware that the government of England is now constitutional, and that Queen Victoria's virtues have been those of a wife, a mother and a head of society.* But all these are cases of rulers under the hereditary system, placed in power without any process injurious to the female character, and surrounded by councillors who would supply any lack of wisdom in the queen. The question that we now have to consider is what the character of a woman would be when she had forced her way through the processes of popular election into a representative assembly, and was there struggling with men for the prizes of political ambition? By what kind of women is it likely that such an ordeal would be triumphantly encountered-by the grave matrons and spinsters whom philosophy imagines welcomed and honoured as representatives by philosophic constituencies, or by dashing adventuresses whose ascendancy neither philosophy nor the grave matrons and spinsters would contemplate with satisfaction? The tone of politics under the system of party Government is low, and is always becoming lower; faction, virulence and corruptiou prevail and increase; therefore, it is said, let us send the women into the political arena; they are free from political vices, and they will redeem the men. But it is because women have not hitherto gone into the political arena that they are free from We are assured on somewhat partial authority, that among the native rulers in British India, the females are better than the males. In British India very likely because there British power protects : the native ruler against the revolutions which are the only corrections of his vices. A woman brought up in a Zenana cannot possibly be a good ruler, but she may be better than a hog or a tiger. political vices. We have no good reason for assuming that, subjected to the same evil influences as men, who mix in politics, women could not contract the same bad habits. Such experience as we have had points decidedly the other way. Both in the Reign of Terror and in the rising of the Commune, the frenzy and atrocities of the women rivalled, if they did not surpass, those of the men. The female agitation against the Contagious Diseases Act in England has exhibited fullblown all the violence, narrowness and persecuting rancour of the worst male faction fight. When the Crusaders took a number of women with them to the siege of Acre, it might have been supposed that female gentleness would mitigate the ferocity of the war : the result was, that a number of Turks having been captured, the women begged that the prisoners might be delivered to them, not for the purpose of alleviating their lot, but for the purpose of cutting off their heads with knives. Grant that the moral nature of women is finer than that of men-though these vague comparisons are utterly worthlessstill, if it is equally excitable, or more so, it may be liable to equal or more violent perturbations. The saying may be fulfilled, that the corruption of the best is the worst corruption. Men who have always stood aloof from politics are just as free from political vices as women. In highly educated communities a most powerful and salutary influence is at present exercised by women and by the society in which women reign upon the character of politicians as well as upon that of other men; and in those untainted circles an independent standard of honour and courtesy is maintained, which even the leaders of fighting factions cannot wholly disregard. We may be told that if party government makes politics unfit for women, party government ought to cease. Perhaps it ought, and not on that account only. But at present there is no prospect of its ceasing; and in the meantime it would hardly be wise to fling woman and the family, all that remains undisturbed and uncontaminated, into the gulf opened in our forum, unless we have good reason for believing that the gulf will be thereby closed. Political influence may be really exercised without a vote, even in countries under the elective system; and has in fact been frequently exercised by writers and by leaders of society, who have hardly ever been seen at the polls. And in a broader sense who can doubt that female influence has been felt in all legislation relative to female interests for some time past-in fact, ever since women began to bestir themselves or to express any strong feelings on the subject? We have listened in the United States to the greatest orator of the Woman's Rights party. He protested in general terms that women in the present state of the laws were suffering the most monstrous injustice, which only female suffrage could remove. But when he came to specific facts, all that he had to say was, that in a particular case, for the details of which we were to take his authority, a lady had been improperly incarcerated in a lunatic asylum by a cruel husband. We afterwards identified the case, and satisfied ourselves that the speaker's account of it was rhetoric, and not history; but supposing that it had been history, this only proved that the the community in which it occurred might, with advantage, adopt the system of inspection which has been instituted with results perfectly satisfactory by male legislatures elsewhere. That the administration of the law is at present unfavourable to women-that a female suitor is less likely to gain her suit or a female prisoner more likely do be convicted than a male, will hardly be asserted. Female prisoners, perhaps, are more likely to escape, especially in capital cases. There was much truth in the remark that if the Cali fornian murderess was hanged she would be the first victim to Woman's Rights. That there are public functions connected rather with the Church than with the State, with the spiritual than the political community, suitable to women, but from which they are at present excluded in Protestant countries at least, and the denial of which produces a craving for political action, is a growing opinion which has much reason and experience on its side; though it has hitherto not taken the form of any very practical suggestion. It was necessary in touching on the chief points of this great subject to be succinct, and in being succinct it is difficult to avoid being dry, which, however, may not be the the most mischievous defect when a question involving the dearest interests of humanity is being pressed to an irrevocable solution under the influence of sentiment and rhetoric. Sentiment has been avoided. All sensible women will desire, in the interest of their sex, that it shall be avoided, and that the voice of reason alone shall be heard. The question is not as to the value and dignity of woman in her present sphere, but whether she can with advantage, or without ruinous results to herself and humanity, exchange her present sphere for another. In conclusion, we have only to remind those specially interested that they cannot have the advantages at once of their present position and one entirely different. The relation between the sexes at present is one not of equality but of mutual privilege. That woman has her privileges will hardly be denied: in the United States, where everything is exaggerated, they are carried so far, and their enforcement is said to be so often accompanied by a repudiation of the corresponding duties, that some of the male supporters of the present movement may be suspected of having mainly in view the emancipation of their own sex. But if equality is established, privilege cannot be retained. Woman may be man's helpmate, or she may be his competitor: both she cannot be. Nor is it possible that man should preserve his present chivalrous senti ments towards woman when he finds himself women have to decide; and they have reason to be careful how they allow a few members of their sex, under the influence of abnormal circumstances or inclinations, to compromise, as compromise they will, the position of the whole. TRANSLATIONS AND SELECTIONS. D THREE SUMMER STORIES.-(Continued.) (Translated for THE CANADIAN MONTHLY from the German of Theodor Storm.) BY TINE HUTCHISON. II. MARTHA AND HER CLOCK. URING the last few years of my school life I lodged in a small, old-fashioned house, kept by an elderly unmarried woman : the only one remaining of what had once been a large family. Father, mother, and her two brothers were dead; her sisters had followed their husbands to distant parts, excepting the youngest, who was married to a doctor in the same town. So Martha was left alone in the old house, and managed to eke out a scanty income by letting some of the now unoccupied rooms. Yet she considered it no hardship that she could only afford herself a dinner on Sundays, for her wants were few, owing to the habits of strict economy to which her father had trained all his children, on principle, as well as in consideration of his narrow means. matically, although she was a great reader, and that chiefly of biographical and poetical works, on which she could generally give a correct and independent judgment; and, what is even more rare, could always distinguish between what was really good and what was worthless. To her, all the poet's creations were living, thinking beings, whose actions were not dependent on the fancy of the writer; and sometimes she would ponder for hours, scheming by what means so many beloved persons might have been rescued from a cruel fate. Martha never found life a burden in her solitude, though at times a sense of the aimlessness of her outer existence would sadden her; she felt the want of some one for whom she might have worked and cared. In the absence of all nearer friends, her lodgers had the benefit of this praiseworthy impulse. I, among others, was the recipient of many little kindnesses and attentions at her hands. Flowers were her greatest delight, and it seemed to me symbolical of her contented and resigned mind, that white ones, and of those again the commoner kinds, were her chief favourites. It was to her always the first festival in the year when her sister's children brought her the first snowdrops Although in youth she had had but little schooling, yet the reflections of many solitary hours, joined to a quick understanding and the naturally serious tone of her character, combined to render her, at the time I made her acquaintance, a woman of much greater culture than is at all common in her class. I must allow she did not always speak quite gram- and crocuses out of their garden; then a little china basket was taken down from the cupboard, and, under her tender care, the flowers decorated the little chamber for weeks. Now, as Martha had very few acquaintances, and spent nearly all the long winter evenings alone, she had, by force of her peculiarly lively imagination, endowed all her surroundings with a sort of life or personality. The old pieces of furniture in her room became thus, as it were, a part of herself, and had the faculty of holding converse with her; certainly the intercourse was, for the most part, a silent one, but on this account none the less real and free from risk of misunderstandings. Her spinning-wheel, her carved oak arm-chair, were strange things that often took the oddest whims; but far surpassing all in this respect, was an ancient clock which Martha's father had bought fifty years before at an Amsterdam fair, and even then as an old curiosity. It certainly looked extraordinary enough: two mermaids, carved in lead and painted, leaned their faces on either side against the tarnished dial-plate, their scaly fish bodies, still bearing traces of gilding, surrounded the lower part of it and united beneath; its hands seemed to be in the form of scorpions' tails. Probably the works were worn out by long use; for the stroke of the pendulum was harsh and irregular, and the weights would sometimes slip down several inches at a time. This clock was the liveliest of all Martha's companions; she had not a thought in which it did not mix itself up. Sometimes when she fell a brooding over her loneliness, the pendulum would begin, tick, tack, tick, tack: growing louder and louder, and gave her no peace, ever interrupting the train of her thoughts. At last she was forced to rouse herself and look up-and lo! the sunbeams shone warm through the window-panes; the carnations on the little flower-stand smelt so sweet; and without the swallows shot twittering beneath the blue heavens. She could not but be cheerful again, the world around her was all so bright. But the clock had a strong will of its own; it was old and did not pay much attention to the modern time, therefore it often struck six when it should have been twelve; and, again, to make up for it, it would go on striking till Martha was obliged to take the weight off the chain. The strangest thing was that sometimes it was not able to strike at all, however hard it might try; then the machinery creaked and creaked, but the hammer would not fall. This happened generally during the night, and always awoke Martha; and however bitter the cold, and however dark the winter night might be, she never failed to get up, and did not rest till she had helped the poor old clock out of its difficulties. Then, when she was in bed again, she lay and wondered why the clock had roused her, and asked herself if she had neglected any part of the day's work, and whether she had closed it with good thoughts. It was near Christmas. A heavy snowstorm having prevented my journey homewards, I was invited to spend Christmas Eve at the house of an intimate friend. The Christmas tree had been lit up, the children had rushed in a joyous troop into the long-closed room; afterwards we had supped on carp and drunk punch according to custom-none of the old usages had been omitted. The following morning I entered Martha's room, to take her, as usual, my good wishes for the season. She sat with her arm resting on the table, her work lay apparently long forgotten. "Well, how did you spend your Christmas Eve yesterday?" I asked. 66 She looked down on the floor, and answered, At home." "At home? And not with your sister's family?" "Ah," she said, "since my mother died in that bed, ten years ago yesterday, I have never spent a Christmas Eve out of the house. Although my sister sent for me yesterday, too, and when it began to grow dark I did once think of going to them; but-the old clock went on in such a strange way again; it seemed to me to keep on repeating :-Don't go, don't go; what do you want there? Your Christmas | Eve has nothing to do with them!"" And so she had stayed at home, in the small chamber, where she had played as a child, and where, in later years, she had closed the eyes of her parents, and the old clock ticked on the same as ever. Now that it had got its own way, however, and Martha had laid past her best gown in her wardrobe again, it ticked so softly, quite softly, until at length it was scarcely audible. Martha could give herself up undisturbed to the memories of all the Christmas Eves in her life. Her father sat once more in |