MISS L. Justice and chivalry!! (_she steadies her voice and hurries on_)--they both remind me of what those of you who read the police-court news--(I have begun only lately to do that)--but you've seen the accounts of the girl who's been tried in Manchester lately for the murder of her child. Not pleasant reading. Even if we'd noticed it, we wouldn't speak of it in my world. A few months ago I should have turned away my eyes and forgotten even the headline as quickly as I could. But since that morning in the police-court, I read these things. This, as you'll remember, was about a little working girl--an orphan of eighteen--who crawled with the dead body of her new-born child to her master's back-door, and left the baby there. She dragged herself a little way off and fainted. A few days later she found herself in court, being tried for the murder of her child. Her master--a married man--had of course reported the "find" at his back-door to the police, and he had been summoned to give evidence. The girl cried out to him in the open court, "You are the father!" He couldn't deny it. The Coroner at the jury's request censured the man, and regretted that the law didn't make him responsible. But he went scot-free. And that girl is now serving her sentence in Strangeways Gaol. (_Murmuring and scraps of indistinguishable comment in the crowd, through which only_ JEAN'S _voice is clear._) JEAN (_who has wormed her way to_ STONOR'S _side_). Why do you dislike her so? STONOR. I? Why should you think---- JEAN (_with a vaguely frightened air_). I never saw you look as you did--as you do. CHAIRMAN. Order, please--give the lady a fair---- MISS L. (_signing to him "It's all right"_). Men make boast that an English citizen is tried by his peers. What woman is tried by hers? (_A sombre passion strengthens her voice and hurries her on._) A woman is arrested by a man, brought before a man judge, tried by a jury of men, condemned by men, taken to prison by a man, and by a man she's hanged! Where in all this were _her_ "peers"? Why did men so long ago insist on trial by "a jury of their peers"? So that justice shouldn't miscarry--wasn't it? A man's peers would best understand his circumstances, his temptation, the degree of his guilt. Yet there's no such unlikeness between different classes of men as exists between man and woman. What man has the knowledge that makes him a fit judge of woman's deeds at that time of anguish--that hour--(_lowers her voice and bends over the crowd_)--that hour that some woman struggled through to put each man here into the world. I noticed when a previous speaker quoted the Labour Party you applauded. Some of you here--I gather--call yourselves Labour men. Every woman who has borne a child is a Labour woman. No man among you can judge what she goes through in her hour of darkness---- JEAN (_with frightened eyes on her lover's set, white face, whispers_). Geoffrey----