lute hand. A fearful invention, called the Red Girl—a bronze girl in red garments, with the joints moving as in a living human being—administered the lash to offenders in that direction, with a tremendous but impartial severity such as no arm of flesh could use. But, fortunately, the terror of the machine proved, as a rule, a sufficient warning; and society was spared having to inflict a penalty which, in days when the development of feminine influence was promoting general kindness and forbearance, went very much against the grain.
We may now turn from that disagreeable topic to the most important among the minor effects at home of the British Revolution of 189—. Already, under universal manhood and womanhood suffrage, a goodly sprinkling of the foremost women had gained seats in the legislature, where they threw their weight solidly into every measure tending directly to the emancipation of their sex. A pressing, practical question had arisen,—what should be done with the funds created by the lapse of several bishoprics and other benefices of the late Establishment. The new law, hereafter to be referred to again, which gave the widows the refusal of their deceased husbands’ ministration and emoluments, delayed the wholesale lapse; but even now there was a sufficient accumulation to start some national undertaking in consonance with modern views. After much debate, it was resolved to create a new and special national debt, to be paid off by the lapse of the church endowments. From ten to twelve millions sterling were to be devoted to founding a great university for women, where every profession and every trade could be thoroughly learnt at a moderate cost—in the case of girls on the foundation, free of cost. A commission was appointed to select and purchase a site, and eventually the midland town of Ousebridge, already much resorted to for educational purposes, was fixed upon
