Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/182

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170

only, let It rest. Think, if the smallest right be infringed for men,—if the rent of a paddock remain unpaid, or a few angry words of libel be spoken, how instantly the whole machinery of the law is set in motion to crush out compensation; and think what it must be, to spend all one's youth, as I have spent mine, in a series of vain struggles to obtain any legal justice! Or, do not think at all about me; forget by whose story this appeal was illustrated (I can bring you others, from your own English law books); and let my part in this, be only as a voice borne by the wind—a cry coming over the waves from a shipwreck, to where you stand safe on the shore—and which you turn and listen to, not for the sake of those who call—you do not know them,—but because it is a cry for help.




I add, in an appendix, a portion of the examination of John Fluke, principal witness against Lord Melbourne, in the trial of 1836: indeed, the only witness who ventured to depose to anything criminal in our relations. And I repeat that I leave to the unbiassed judgement of those who read, the amount of value to be set upon such testimony.