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effacing that anomaly in law, by which it assumes power of control over the poor, and for corporeal injury inflicted on their wives, but forbears power of control over the rich, and for injuries of a different nature.
It is astonishing to watch the carelessness and reluctance with which inquiry on this one subject is pursued, and contrast it with our eagerness on other topics. In the Parliamentary debates of this busy opening session (March 1, 1854), no less than twelve closely printed columns of the "Times" newspaper, are filled with eager, credulous, kindly, or bitter, speeches from various members, relative to an inquiry into the treatment of Roman Catholic ladies in the conventual establishments of their religion! Because 2,500 ladies live in a state of religious seclusion or relegation—of which number (though the majority obviously must have adopted that life from free choice), a small minority are believed by us to be enduring mental constraint and bodily penance—the House of Commons votes, with eager cheers, for an inquiry into the whole system; for the purpose of checking injustice and oppression, should it be found to exist. What an impulse to humanity is an adverse creed! How easy to see that oppression in others which we deny to exist among ourselves! Here are the gentlemen of England, mustering three hundred strong, in the senate of their country; and nearly two-thirds of that number vote with enthusiastic acclamation for inquiry—into what? Into the treatment of women not of their own religion, many not even their own country-women—while those very men scout the notion of altering the laws, or of even making serious inquiry into the laws, affecting the interests of their own wives, sisters, and daughters! The beam and the mote of Scripture were visible in that warm debate; and if the heads of Catholic houses should think it worth while to return the compliment paid them, by inquiry into the treatment of women living under secular authority in their own homes in England, I will undertake to supply—not from the vague
