"I am very glad, ladies and gentlemen, that I have provoked you to laughter-very glad, as this behaviour on your part convinces me more than ever of the value of my theory! All great ideas have been first laughed at ever since the world began. The notion of steam as a motive power was laughed at; the Atlantic cable-wire was laughed at; and naturally the proposition of men's clothing for women must, like all other reforming propositions, be at the outset laughed to scorn also. But nevertheless it will take root-it is taking root—and it will win its way in spite of all opposition. Certain objections have been raised to my views on behalf of trade; the question as to what would become of a large portion of trade if women dressed like men has often been represented to me as a very serious obstruction. But I say that the freedom, health, and comfort of women are more to be considered than any trade! Let trade take care of its own concerns as best it may! Injured in one branch it will balance itself in another, and we are not bound to take it at all into our calculations. The liberty-the perfect liberty-of Woman is what we have to strive for; and part of this grand object will be attained when we have secured for her the untrammelled physical condition boasted of and enjoyed by her wouldbe oppressor, Man!"

"Say, would you nurse the babies in jacket and trousers?" asked some one at the back of the hall, in a

A

high nasal tone which was distinctly Transatlantic. ripple of laughter again ran through the audience, and Honoria looked about her defiantly.

"It is not my province to reply to the queries of mere vulgar impertinence," she snapped out; - (cries of "Oh, Oh!"). "There seems to be some inebriated individual present. Let us hope he may be persuaded to retire!"

Then ensued a vast deal of officious scrambling on the part of the gentleman with the yellow teeth, and a general confused murmur, which ended in the "inebriated individual" openly standing up and showing himself to be a tall, rather fine-looking fellow, with that sort of ease and good-humour about him which often characterizes the Western American settler.

"I'm not 'inebriated,' my gel," he observed cheerfully; "but I'll leave this hall at once with a good deal more pleasure than I came into it. Why, it riles me all the wrong way to hear you going on like this about equality in clothes and such-like nonsense! Go home, my gel, go home, and get into a pretty gown and fallals; take two or three hours to fix yourself before your looking-glass if you like, and when you've rigged yourself up as sweet and pretty as you can be, see if you don't make more way with the ruling of man than you ever will prancing on a platform! That's all I want to

say. I'm off home, and apologise for interrupting the performance! Good-night!"

And amid the smiles and encouraging glances of the whole audience, the long-limbed "inebriate" departed amiably; and as he went I saw him "tip" the gentleman with the yellow teeth, who became crookbacked with servility in consequence. With his departure, Honoria took up the thread of her discourse, but she was now very angry and evidently very impatient. Her Transatlantic visitor had put her into an extremely bad humour. She made short work of the "Cheapness, quality, and durability of men's clothing," but when she reached the "Advantages of Social Uniformity" she became positively tempestuous. Regardless of coherence ́or sequence, she raged against the "contemptibility of the system of marriage as now practised;" of the "drudgery" and "degradation" inflicted on women who thus fulfilled their "miserable" (but still natural) destiny; of the "crushing" methods employed deliberately by the male sex to break the spirit and render insupportable the position of the feminine; and touching on the subject of "love" she seemed to grow inflamed inwardly and outwardly with scorn.

"Love!" she exclaimed derisively. "We all know what it is nowadays-a silly and always condescending consent to 'spoon' on the part of the man, and an equally silly but disgracefully ready willingness to be

'spooned' on the part of the girl who is not yet awake to the responsibilities of her position! Nothing more than this! It is ridiculous! What can be more utterly absurd than to see a free and independent woman allowing her hand to be kissed-or her lips, for that matter--by a so-called 'lover,' who is after all accepted merely as a business-partner in life, and who pays her these grotesque attentions only as a sort of immense favour, out of his offensive benevolence for her supposed weakly-clinging and helpless nature? Oh, it is time we should rebel against such complacent affabilities! It is time, I say, that women who are resolved to walk in the full light of liberty, should cast off the trammels of old barbaric custom and prejudice, and adopt every right, every privilege, which the other sex wish to debar her from enjoying! Let ultra-foolish feminine minds cling, if they will do so, to the delusion that man's love will protect and defend them; that it is their chief glory of life to be loved; and that their chief aim is to render themselves worthy of love; these are the wretched dupes of their own imaginations, and their intellects will never expand! True progress is barred to them; the door of wisdom is slammed in their faces! Those who wilfully choose this chimera called Love, must sacrifice everything else; it is a binding, narrowing influence in which one life depends almost entirely upon the other, that other often proving too feeble and insufficient to sup

port even itself! Be free, women-be free! Freedom never palls, Independence never satiates, Progress never tires! Be ashamed to allow men one iota of that 'superiority' they wrongfully claim to possess! Dispute with them for every inch of the ground in every profession that you are desirous of entering; and beware-beware of yielding one single point of your hardly-gained independence! They will flatter you; they will tell the plainest of you that she is a Venus, to gain their own private ends; they will make big eyes at you, and will sigh audibly when they find themselves next to you at a concert or theatre; but these tricks are practised for a purpose-to inveigle and dupe you into becoming their slaves! Resist them-resist them with your utmost might! You will find the task easier when you have thrown aside all useless frippery and adornment, and adopted their garments, and with their garments their liberty! They will accept you then as equals, as comrades, as friends"-("No, they won't!" shouted the person in the balcony)-"they will leave off their foolish, unbecoming endearments"-("By Jove, that they certainly will!" cried the voice again)—“and you will occupy that distinct equality of position which will entitle you, if intellectually gifted, to rank with all the male geniuses of the century! Freedom!-that should be woman's watch-word. Freedom!-entire and absolute! Fight for it, women! Work for it-die for it, if need