Let us begin with the Women. An enormous amount of ingenuity has been expended in devising occupations where female labour might be advantageously employed, and where the more patient industry and more delicate handiwork of women might replace the coarser mechanism of men. Printing, bookbinding, cigar-making, and the working of the telegraph, have been freely opened--and, I believe, very successfully--to female skill; and scores of other callings have been also placed at their disposal: but, strange enough, the more that we do, the more there remains to be done; and never have the professed advocates of woman’s rights been so loud in their demands as since we have shared with them many of what we used to regard as the especial fields of man’s industry. Women have taken to the practice of Medicine, and have threatened to invade the Bar--steps doubtless anticipatory of the time when they shall “rise in the House” or sit on the Treasury benches. Now, I have very little doubt that we used not to be as liberal as we might in sharing our callings with women. We had got into the habit of underrating their capacities, and disparaging their fitness for labour, which was very illiberal; but let us take care that the reaction does not cany us too far on the other side, and that in our zeal to make a reparation we only make a blunder, and that we encourage them to adopt careers and crafts totally unsuited to their tastes and their powers. It is quite clear--in fact, a mere glance at the detail of the preliminary studies will suffice to show it--that medicine and surgery should not be shared with them. For a variety of reasons, they ought not to be encouraged to take holy orders; and, on the whole, it is very doubtful if it would be a wise step to introduce them into the army, much less into the navy. Seeing this, therefore, the question naturally arises, Are women to be the mere drudges--the Helots of our civilisation? Are we only to employ them in such humble callings as exclude all ideas of future distinction? A very serious question this, and one over which I pondered for more than half an hour last night, as I lay under the influence of some very strong tea and a slight menace of gout.