this bloodthirsty, savage propensity—this murdering our fellow creatures in cold blood, as it were, was cured by degrees I presume. What gave the first impulse to such a blessed change?"
"The old Recorder states that it was brought about by the influence of women; it was they who gave the first impulse. As soon as they themselves were considered as of equal importance with their husbands—as soon as they were on an equality in money matters, for after all, people are respected in proportion to their wealth, that moment all the barbarisms of the age disappeared. Why, in your day, a strange perverted system had taken deep root; then, it was the man that was struck by another who was disgraced in public opinion, and not the one who struck him. It was that system which fermented and promoted bloodthirstiness, and it was encouraged and fostered by men and by women both.
"But as soon as women had more power in their hands, their energies were directed another way; they became more enlightened as they rose higher in the scale, and instead of encroaching on our privileges, of which we stood in such fear, women shrunk farther and farther from all approach to men's pursuits and occupations. Instead of congregating, as they did in your time, to beg for alms to establish and sustain a charity, that they might have some independent power of their own—for this craving after distinction was almost always blended with their desire to do good—they united for the purpose of exterminating that war seedabove mentioned—that system which fastened the disgrace of a blow on the one who received it. This was their first effort; they then taught their children likewise, that to kill a man in battle, or men in battle, when mere national honour was the war cry, or when we had been robbed of our mo-
