I cannot put the case too strongly before the fathers and mothers who may read this book; for, after all, they must be their own State, and do their own legislating. They must not have enormous families that they cannot feed, clothe, or educate respectably; and they must so manage their affairs that the girls can rely on the 100_l._ a year, which is all I ask for--all that is absolutely necessary to keep a single woman in comfort, but not luxury; the luxuries must be earned or gone without. They must do this, I say, unless they wish to look down from whence they may go after death, and have their hearts lacerated and torn by the sight of the women they have left to starve and to curse those who have entailed so much misery on them. There surely would be some insurance company who would undertake to do for all what the Edinburgh Life Assurance Company, 11 King William Street, E.C., does for schoolmistresses who like to pay in a certain amount yearly--viz. pay them a pension at a certain age, or else a sum of money, whichever they prefer; and the parents could, as soon as they added another daughter to the household, begin providing for her. If they cannot do this, I maintain they are absolutely wicked in adding that little life to the overwhelming population already here. There is no misery to be compared to the misery of a woman who, never having imagined her future can be aught but a sheltered one, finds herself at middle age absolutely destitute and at the mercy of her relations. She has no claim on anyone but her parents, and she knows this, and suffers infinitely. Therefore those parents must contemplate this: must understand that marriage does not come to the lot of everyone, and that, even if it does, the woman should not go penniless to her husband, but should have some small allowance to enable her to feel independent, and to add to her house, or her children’s pleasures, out of her own resources. Here, again, I mention the 100_l._ a year. Each girl in an upper middle-class family--the professional man’s family--cannot possibly cost any amount less than that; in the case, of course, of some, 50_l._ would be amply sufficient, and this sum should be allowed yearly as long as the father lived; after which, insurance money should be forthcoming that would insure something at all events, if not quite as much as they have been having.