Yet another instance. Once when staying in seaside lodgings, I had the misfortune to break a homely vessel of thick blue glass which had evidently begun life as a fancy jam jar, but had been relegated, for some reason obscure to me, to the proud position of mantel ‘ornament,’ if that be the term. To my surprise the worthy landlady wept bitterly over the pieces, and when I spoke of gorgeous objects wherewith to replace her treasure, explained snappishly: ‘Nothing won’t make it good to me! Why, that there blue vorse was the beginning of the ’ome!’ I must ask pardon for this digression and return to the subject in hand. The most depressing aspect of the question is that even if every man over twenty-five were married there would be still an enormous number of women left husbandless. This is really very serious, and is a condition that gives rise to many evils. To make up for it as far as possible, every man of sound health and in receipt of sufficient income ought to marry. If it is merely ‘not good’ for man to be alone, then it is very bad indeed for women! Every woman should have a man companion, a man to live with--if only to take the tickets, carry the bags and get up in the night to see what that noise is. Since society as at present constituted does not countenance men and women living together for companionship, then clearly every woman ought to have a husband! Mr Bernard Shaw has written: ‘Give women the vote and in five years there will be a crushing tax on bachelors.’ So there should be, subject to certain qualifications of age and income; this is one of the many matters in which we should take a lesson from the Japanese where all bachelors over a certain age are taxed; in France too, a bill, to this effect, is being discussed. At the time of writing, women are full of anticipation of being speedily enfranchised, and there is a good deal of talk about what use they will make of the vote. I regret to say that although there have been some utterly idiotic threats to abolish that boon to wives--the man’s club--yet so far, with one exception, nothing has appeared in print as to the advisability of taxing bachelors. The exception is a very interesting anonymous novel called _Star of the Morning_, which strongly advocates such a tax, among several other thoughtful suggestions for political reform. It is obviously only just that the man who is doing nothing for the State in the way of rearing a family should be taxed to relieve the man who is. We hear so much about the falling birth-rate, and the duty of every married couple to have a family, yet everything is done to discourage those who do. The professional man slaving to earn, say, £1000 a year, and bring up three or four children for the State, is taxed exactly as much as the bachelor in receipt of the same income who does nothing at all for the State, and can even avoid the other taxes by being a lodger, if he choose.