beings in fact. It was only when Roman institutions had the supremacy, that the contrary opinion came into force, and was carried to the utmost extremes, it being found convenient to ascribe inferior brain-power to those who were to be reduced to subjection. I wonder if it never struck any of the wiseacres who propounded this ludicrous theory, that as the propagation of the human race can only be carried on by the co-operation of the female portion, it must, if the latter be in reality so wofully inferior, necessarily in course of time deteriorate altogether! Surely, if they were not blinded by their own vanity, each one of these superior beings must be aware that his first youthful health and physical vigour, together probably with much of the mental and moral force on which he prides himself, were in the first instance derived from one of the sex he so looks down upon, and imbibed with his mother’s milk! What is strangest of all is that women should so long have put up with being treated in this manner. Was it that they did not think it worth their while to protest, that for all these centuries they have smilingly seen through the unwarrantable pretensions of their husbands, brothers and sons, calm and confident in their own quiet strength, which must, if they but chose to put it forth, prevail against irrational blustering? To me, in any case, it would appear rather a confession of weakness on the part of some of my sisters, when I hear them clamouring for their so-called rights. Which of the old Roman legislators was it, who in helping to frame the laws which press so hardly on our sex, gave it as his reason, that unless women were firmly kept down, they would soon get the upper-hand altogether, being, as he had the courage and honesty to confess--“so much stronger and cleverer than men!”