_The Alarmist View_:--If the surplus female population with which we are overrun increases much more, we shall be eaten up with women. What used to be our better half will soon become our worse nine-tenths; a numerical majority which it will be vain to contend with, and which will reduce our free and glorious constitution to that most degrading of all despotisms, a petticoat government. _Our Own View_:--It is lamentable that thousands of poor girls should starve here upon slops, working for slopsellers, and only not dying old maids because dying young, when stalwart mates and solid meals might be found for all in Australia. Doubtless they would fly as fast as the Swedish hen-chaffinches--if only they had the means of flying. It remains with the Government and the country to find them wings. [Sidenote: _The Worm Turns_] _Punch's_ chivalry to women is beyond question, but it was not untempered by a certain condescension. Throughout these years--with rare exceptions--he remains faithful to the old assumption that no woman could have a sense of humour. Grown-up sisters are frequently represented as being unmercifully chaffed by small brothers without apparently having the slightest power of effectual rejoinder. And this defect is shown in the pictures, where the women are exceedingly pleasant to look at, but nearly always quite expressionless. Yet in moments of generous expansion _Punch_ was capable of crediting them with extremely damaging criticism of their lords and masters. The high-water mark of his sympathy with female emancipation in these years is to be found in the homely remonstrances of "Mrs. Mouser" in "A Bit of my Mind":--