When it was proposed (either facetiously or otherwise) that women should be members of parliament, an Englishman objected to it, on the ground that a lady, who sat with committees of gentlemen, might sometimes meet with a species of impoliteness that would be embarrassing. If _this_ be a reason why women should not transact public business, it is a fact exceedingly disgraceful to civilized men. Female captives taken by Indians, though treated with the most diabolical cruelty, according to their savage mode of warfare, have travelled with powerful warriors days and weeks, through the loneliest paths of the forest, and never been subjected to the slightest personal insult. Notwithstanding the habitual taciturnity of Indians, and their pride of concealing all emotion, the potent passion of love sometimes gets the mastery of them, as well as of other men. One of their strongest excitements to bravery, is the hopes of gaining favor in the bright eyes of some beautiful maiden; and it is often a matter of peculiar pride with them to obtain the handsomest furs to decorate a wife, and to furnish an abundant supply of venison for her comfortable subsistence. An Indian woman is always proud of having a good hunter for a husband; and a lover is often told that he must signalize himself by more daring exploits, before he can hope to be received into favor. Mr. Heckewelder, in his interesting account of the American Indians, relates the following anecdote: “In the year 1762, I was witness to a remarkable instance of the disposition of Indians to indulge their wives. There was a famine in the land, and a sick Indian woman expressed a great desire for a mess of Indian corn. Her husband, having heard that a trader at Lower Sandusky had a little, set off on horseback for that place, one hundred miles distant, and returned with as much corn as filled the crown of his hat, for which he gave his horse in exchange, and came home on foot, bringing his saddle back with him.