ater, and
human beings more liable to casual and involuntary motions, the Laws
concerning Women are naturally much more stringent. But a general view
of the Code may be obtained from the following summary:--

1. Every house shall have one entrance on the Eastern side, for the
use of Females only; by which all females shall enter "in a becoming
and respectful manner" (footnote 1) and not by the Men's or Western
door.

2. No Female shall walk in any public place without continually
keeping up her Peace-cry, under penalty of death.

3. Any Female, duly certified to be suffering from St. Vitus's Dance,
fits, chronic cold accompanied by violent sneezing, or any disease
necessitating involuntary motions, shall be instantly destroyed.

In some of the States there is an additional Law forbidding Females,
under penalty of death, from walking or standing in any public place
without moving their backs constantly from right to left so as to
indicate their presence to those behind them; other oblige a Woman,
when travelling, to be followed by one of her sons, or servants, or by
her husband; others confine Women altogether in their houses except
during the religious festivals. But it has been found by the wisest of
our Circles or Statesmen that the multiplication of restrictions on
Females tends not only to the debilitation and diminution of the race,
but also to the increase of domestic murders to such an extent that a
State loses more than it gains by a too prohibitive Code.

For whenever the temper of the Women is thus exasperated by confinement
at home or hampering regulations abroad, they are apt to vent their
spleen upon their husbands and children; and in the less temperate
climates the whole male population of a village has been sometimes
destroyed in one or two hours of a simultaneous female outbreak. Hence
the Three Laws, mentioned above, suffice for the better regulated
States, and may be accepted as a rough exemplification of our Female
Code.

After all, our principal safeguard is found, not in Legislature, but in
the interests of the Women themselves. For, although they can inflict
instantaneous death by a retrograde movement, yet unless they can at
once disengage their stinging extremity from the struggling body of
their victim, their own frail bodies are liable to be shattered.

The power of Fashion is also on our side. I pointed out that in some
less civilized States no female is suffered to stand in a