I was in Berlin in the autumn of 1872, when there was a meeting there of the emperors of Germany, Russia and Austria. Every preparation had been made for this august convocation, among others that of banishing from the streets all unpleasant sights. Yet on that occasion, when Unter den Linden was crowded with carriages and horsemen and well-dressed people, when Russia and Austria were dashing about in open barouches, with outriders before and guardsmen behind, and the eye encountered on all sides the bravery of military uniforms and arms and waving pennants, I saw in a side-street a woman drawing a hand-cart laden with some heavy substance that was piled up to the height of four or five feet above the rails of the cart. Beside this poor slave, who withal carried an infant upon her back which could not have been more than a few weeks old, struggled a dog, with whom she was harnessed to the cart. Poor wretch! I thought, and the husband recently dead, too! I could not think of her as a _widow_, for, in truth, she did not look human enough. She was not over thirty years of age, but a coarser-looking hag I never saw the picture of. Presently a man in crossing the street indulged in some pleasantry at her expense, when she threatened to call her husband to chastise him. Husband? Yes, sure enough, there he was, walking leisurely _behind_ the cart, with his hands in his pockets, smoking his pipe and gazing at the sights along the route. If we would know the origin of this brutality to women wherever it is practiced, we must look for it in the history of slavery, for there we shall always find it. It was not the peasant-man who first brutalized his wife and daughter, but the lord. If the ancient rights of the peasantry had not been molested, and an oppressive system of feudal exactions forced upon men who once were free and owners of the soil they tilled, the slavery of women could hardly have occurred. It is now nearly seventy years since the first decree that eventually resulted in the abolition of serfdom in Prussia was promulgated, and time is rapidly effacing many of the social evils which that institution entailed. But this is not the case with Russia, where emancipation was only declared ten years ago, and is not completed even yet. The causes that superinduce the degradation and debasement of women can therefore still be seen at work in that country, and are thus depicted by an eye-witness. He is speaking of the condition of the peasantry of Russia subsequent to the decree of emancipation, and so far as my own observation in that country goes, I can corroborate all that he says: "Their food begins to get scantier and scantier, and toward spring they get more and more famished. The officer of government (who since the act of emancipation replaces the officer of the lord of the manor) comes and energetically demands the payment of arrears. Driven to desperation, the peasant acknowledges to the mayor of the village the cause of his want