Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/194

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therefore, adopted a course of action emanating entirely from his own brilliant brain. Starting for a cruise on board his yacht, in company with the bewildering chorus girl, he left orders with his solicitor to have the whole of his house dismantled of its furniture and "cleared." This was promptly done, the wife and children being left without so much as a bed to lie upon, or a chair to sit upon. The unfortunate lady told her story to a court, and applied for "maintenance." This, of course, the recalcitrant husband was forced to pay, but the sum was cut down to the smallest possible amount, under the supervision of the blandly approving court, with the result that this man's wife, accustomed from her girlhood to every home comfort and care, now lives with her children in a condition of genteel penury more degrading than absolute poverty. There is no remedy for these things. One welcomes heartily the idea of women lawyers, in the hope that when their keen, quick brains learn to grasp the huge, unwieldy, and complex machinery of the muddle called Legal Justice, they may, perhaps, be able to effect some reforms on behalf of their own sex. As matters at present stand, the unbridled and extravagant licentiousness of men, and the consequent degradation of women, are protected by law. Even a fraudulent financial concern is so guarded by "legal" advice that it would take the lifetime's earning of an honest man to bring about any exposure. We want women-lawyers—Portias, with quick brains, to see the way out of a difficulty into which men plunge only to flounder more hopelessly. "Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?"