This matter is, however, now attended to, for Mr. Gladstone's Probation Act (1908) empowers magistrates to compel all dishonest persons that are dealt with under the Act to make restitution of stolen property or money up to the value of £10. I have long advocated this course, which is both just and merciful--just to the person who has been robbed and just to the robber; merciful because it compels the wrong-doer in some degree to undo the wrong, and enables him to break the chains of his deadly habit. It will also prove to him that the law is not so tolerant of dishonesty as he believed. Common-sense, too, says that the pardoned rogue ought not to profit from his roguery, while the person he has robbed has to suffer, not only the loss of goods or money, but also the trouble and expense of prosecution. Most respectfully, then, would I like to point out to all magistrates that they may now order dishonest persons dealt with under this Act to make restitution up to £10. It is to be hoped that our magistrates will freely avail themselves of this permissive power, and make young rogues "pay, pay, pay." It matters not how small the instalments nor how long a time the payments may be continued, for I feel assured that nothing will stem the onward sweep of dishonesty, and that nothing will bring home to young offenders the serious character of dishonesty so much as the knowledge that great inconvenience, but no pecuniary benefit, can come to those who indulge in it. The Married Women's Protection Act came at last. It was inevitable. There was a horrible satire contained in the suggestion that in England, with its humanity and civilization, after a thousand years of Christianity an Act to protect women against their legal husbands should be necessary; but it was. This Act came in the very fulness of time. Everybody was tired and altogether dissatisfied with the old and ineffectual plan of sending brutal husbands to prison. This feeling arose not from sympathy with brutal husbands, but from pity to ill-treated wives, for it was recognized that sending brutal husbands to prison only made matters worse. Briefly, the Act empowered married women who had persistently cruel husbands to leave them, and having left them, to apply to the magistrates for a separation and maintenance order, which magistrates were empowered to grant when persistent cruelty was proved. Police-courts then became practically divorce-courts for the poor, for thousands of women have claimed and obtained these separation orders. It seems just, and I have no hesitation in saying it is right, whatever may be the consequences, that decent suffering women whose agony has been long drawn out should be protected from and delivered out of the power of human brutes. But in a community like ours we are bound to have an eye to the consequences.