"The plan of action proposed by this Committee was to visit the women in a friendly, Christ-like spirit, inaugurate a series of meetings among them, organize efforts in the direction of saving their money, so that they might be able to take an independent position, with only such moral support as should be necessary to enable them to face the opposition of the world, and to direct their lavish free-heartedness into channels of benevolence toward the old and worn-out of their number. Pure and healthful pleasures would also be provided for them, good music, the reading of fine poems and interesting stories, and so a beginning made toward introducing principles of steadiness and sobriety into their now totally abandoned and desperate lives." [16] This expression, used in all such places to denote the food, tea, coffee, or gin, used by the overstrained girls, is terribly significant. [17] I do not know that any person has ever practically carried out Legouvé's estimate of labor as a moral help, but Marie de Lamourous, the foundress of the House of Mercy at Bourdeaux. This was a refuge for ruined women, whom she trained to self-support. Some one offered her a sum sufficient to insure her family a comfortable living; but she wisely refused it. "No false pretences," she said: "if we are not compelled to labor, we shall not labor. An idle mind makes its own temptations. I can do nothing without work." [18] When woman's power to work is called in question, men almost always remark, that she has shown no _inventive_ genius whatever. Should a proper history of the arts ever be written, this will be found to be an entire mistake. Patentees are not always inventors; and many of these, after hopeless labor carried on for years, have owed a final success to some woman's power of adaptation. We need not, however, take refuge in general statement, nor in the traditional fact that she invented spindle, distaff, needle, and scissors. Any new-born barbarian, pressed by necessity, might accomplish so much. The most delicate and beautiful obstetrical instruments were invented by Madame Boivin. Madame Ducoudray invented the manikin; Madame Breton, the system of artificial nourishment for babes; Morandi and Bihéron adapted wax to the purposes of medical illustration; and it was to the observations of Mademoiselle Bihéron, recorded in wax, that Dr. Hunter owed the illustrations of his best work. He was her generous friend; but she preceded him seven years in this direction, and may possibly have given him the right to use her observations as his own. Madame Rondet has, in the present century, invented a tube to be used in cases of restoration from asphyxia. It is easy to quote these cases from the history of medicine, because an honest French physician has taken pains to preserve them; but the following instances of inventive and mechanical power may be less known:--