There are many indications that courtesy lessens in proportion as women come forward to compete with men in public life and in business. In the latter case it may be an incidental result of a necessity; but when women appear in politics, and chivalry disappears, it will be the natural consequence of an unnatural condition.

That women, however much excited, do not conduct themselves more reprehensibly than men, and that in public there is no more disorder in their assemblies or elsewhere than sometimes is scen even in clerical assemblies, is a melancholy fact; but such men disgrace themselves, and weaken the influence of their profession. Nevertheless it furnishes all the more reason for women to maintain the standard of decency and courtesy which they seldom fall below, unless when suffering from wounded feelings in excited contests or the epidemic of disorder which publicity and crowds engender.

There is now in England a revelation of the depth to which previously respectable women will descend when under excitement almost equal to monomania. The suffragettes have left decency behind. Their deeds as yet do not equal the atrocity of those women whose actions gave additional terror to the first French Revolution, but their spirit is much the same, and their methods so exaggerate the least admirable traits of women that they become an army of termagants,

throwing stones and slates, breaking windows, screaming in public meetings, violating every law of courtesy, and slapping the police (one woman striking the premier three times), in hope of being struck in return, so as to be crowned martyrs or imprisoned, and appeal to the chivalric to denounce a government that will "strike a woman."

The more leniently they are treated the more reckless and intolerable they become. When sentenced to hard labour, in the hope of raising such a protest that the authorities would be compelled to release them they refused to eat. When fed with the stomach pump a great cry arose; but they have convinced many that chivalry and rowdyism are not congenial.

Another revelation of character is made by certain women in influential circles who in public hold up their hands in horror at such excesses, but in private rejoice at their work, and expect to profit by it.

XXI

VITAL OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE (Continued)

IT will place a new and terrible strain upon the family

relation.

The ratio of marriages relatively to the number of the population is diminishing, and the augmenting number of divorces has long been a cause of alarm to lovers of their country. The invasion of political disputes and party work into family life will develop and increase incompatibility, the most prolific cause of separations, infidelity to the marriage contract and divorce. To this it has been responded:

"There has always been more contention over relig. ion than over politics, yet often the wife is a member of one church, and the husband of another or of none; and yet the family is not disrupted, and it is evident from the seeming concord of the household that the two have agreed to disagree."

This proposition needs modification. That as yet there has been more contention over religion than over politics arises from the fact that women do not vote; but the proposition that families are not disrupted and that the general situation is that the

"two have agreed to disagree" is an exaggeration. A devout Christian cannot refrain from exhibiting his or her principles and spirit. The Roman Catholic Church advises and by every means enforces upon its people marriage only with members of that communion. It is consistent with its principles. The marriage of Catholics with Protestants, and the reverse, sometimes proves happy, but more frequently, especially when children appear, unhappy. A devout Christian may live in peace and in hope of a change of faith with an unbeliever, but more frequently dif ficulties arise. A difference of religion accentuated by a positive character, clinging with tenacity to doctrine and habit especially if the household be without the spirit of Christianity, has been the predisposing cause of many divorces and separations.

That the family relation can bear existing strains does not prove that it could endure all it has, plus another divisive element.

There is a radical difference between political excitement and any other.

A political difference between husband and wife means that the most intense feelings will be excited and kept at fever heat for weeks or months, with the liability to culminate in a direct active opposition. The husband and wife may be going to the polls to work and vote against each other. The wife may work and vote against her husband's most intimato

business or personal friends and try to secure the passage of laws especially obnoxious to him. On the other hand he may feel himself obliged to bring all his influence to bear against her party and her plans, and herself.

Where there are children, in cases of disagreement, each parent would endeavour to surpass the other in capturing recruits, at the table and the fireside. At the end the defeated parent would be left without the sympathy of the other; and not only without sympathy, but in many cases would have to endure the taunt and sneer of the victors.

These possibilities should not be considered merely, or chiefly, with respect to established families "united by the reciprocal ties of friendly intercourse" through many years. The strain will be most severe whenever and wherever the tie is weakest, whether the cause be the inexperience and impulsiveness of early married life or the accumulated incompatibilities which test self-control in the course of a long married career.

To meet this assumption some superficial thinkers glibly say: "Women will generally vote as their husbands do." But this is practically to renounce most of the considerations advanced in favour of the movement.

There is another aspect of importance to the family. When women become active in political campaigns