"Every time a meeting is convened at the Wauxhall to consider how the amount of female starvation or misery may be reduced, the philosopher throws his window open again, and grins while he caricatures, or rather distorts and exaggerates to positive untruth. M. Gill gets fresh food. The _chroniqueurs_ invent a series of absurdities, which didn't happen yesterday, as they allege. I am out of patience when I see all this mischievous misrepresentation, because I see that it is doing harm to a very just and proper cause. We are arguing for more work for our poor sisters who have neither father, husband, brother, nor fortune to depend upon; and these French comic scribblers describe us as unsexed brawlers, who want top-boots. I want no manly rights for women. I am content with the old position, that her head should just reach the height of a man's heart; but I do see where she is not well used--where she is left to genteel dependence, and a life in the darkest corner of the drawing-room, upon the chair with the unsafe leg, over the plate that is cracked, in the bedroom where the visitor died of scarlet fever. [Illustration: FRENCH RECOLLECTION OF MEESS TAKING HER BATH. _The faithful Bouledogue gazes with admiration at the performance of his Mistress._] [Illustration: THE BRAVE MEESS AMONG THE BILLOWS HOLDING ON BY THE TAIL OF HER NEWFOUNDLAND.] "She is not unsexed wearing her poor heart out against these bars; but she would be a free, bright, instructed creature, helping her rich sister, or a trusty counsellor when the children are ill. She would be unsexed issuing railway tickets or managing a light business; but she is truly womanly while she is helpless and a burden to others. "Foolish women! Yes, very stupid very often, but hardly in hoping that the defenceless among us may be permitted to become, by fair womanly exertion, independent. I am directed to observe how amusing the _Figaro_ has been recently at our expense, hoping to obtain the suffrages of the really thoughtless of our sex thereby. We are our own worst enemies and well do you men know it. The frivolous are an immense host, and these have reason to laugh at serious women who want to get a little justice and teaching for their dependent sisters--not manly avocations, nor masculine amusements. I go to the Wauxhall, my dear Emmy, not to help my sex to unsex itself, but, I must repeat, to aid my poor sisters who want to work, that, if left without the support of male kindred, they may lead honourable, independent lives; to this end they must have certain rights, and these, and no more, I advocate. [Illustration: VARIETIES OF THE ENGLISH STOCK. _The Parent Flower and two lovely Buds._] [Illustration: COMPATRIOTS MEETING IN THE FRENCH EXHIBITION. _Bar-maids in the English Department recognising a fellow-countryman._]