Foremost amongst _Punch's_ heroines in the 'forties and 'fifties were Jenny Lind, the Swedish, and Florence, the English Nightingale, but of these mention is made elsewhere. In general, the personalities of notable or notorious women were not unfairly exploited in the pages of _Punch_. The conspicuous isolation of Miss, afterwards Baroness, Burdett Coutts, in virtue of her great wealth, suggests in 1846 the problem, Whom will she marry? which was not settled until 1881. Less restraint is shown in dealing with the arrival in England, after practically ruling Bavaria for more than a year, of the meteoric adventuress, Lola Montez,[26] and with her marriage with a young Cornet in the Life Guards in July, 1849. Another visitor, of a very different sort, was the famous Mrs. Beecher-Stowe,[27] author of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, whose sojourn in England in 1853 brought the question of slavery in America into social prominence and led to the presentation of the "Stafford House Address," initiated by the Duchess of Sutherland, to the women of America. The appeal was not well received, being answered by the "Address of many thousands of the women of the United States," who pointed out the degraded conditions in which the poor in England lived. Two wrongs do not make a right, but there was excuse for the retort. The Southern planters were not all Legrees. Let it be added that, in his indignation at the inadequate sentences passed on wife-beaters, _Punch_ did not fail to pillory cruel mothers who tortured or neglected their children. In the autumn of 1856 he contrasts the sentence of four years on a woman who had tortured her daughter to death with that of fifteen years on a man for mutilating a sheep. Already the problem of the numerical disparity of the sexes and the hard case of the "superfluous woman" had begun to attract attention, and emigration was preached as a panacea. To what has been written elsewhere on the remedy and _Punch's_ belief in it, we may add his remarks on "Our female supernumeraries":-- _The Cynical View_:--Wherever there is mischief, women are sure to be at the bottom of it. The state of the country bears out this old saying. All our difficulties arise from a superabundance of females. The only remedy for this evil is to pack up bag and baggage, and start them away. [Footnote 26: The stage name of Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, daughter of an English officer, born at Limerick in 1818, the favourite of the old King Ludwig of Bavaria; dancer, actress, author, lecturer, who died in New York "sincerely penitent" in 1861.] [Footnote 27: See the _Examiner_ and _Punch_. The following advertisement in the _Examiner_ will be read with interest:--"The arrival of Mrs. Beecher-Stowe has given an impetus to the demand for all Stephen Glover's compositions connected with _Uncle Tom_: 'The Sea of Glass,' Eliza's song 'Sleep, our child,' 'Eva's Parting Words,' and Topsy's song 'I'm but a little nigger girl.'"]