intentions,
exposing the hollow conventionalisms of all established social usages,
especially in the matrimonial department.

When he had ceased there was a universal and unanimous silence, due to
uncontrollable female bashfulness, for the duration of several minutes,
until the chairwoman exhorted someone to have the courage of her
opinions. And the ice being once fractured, one Amurath succeeded
another in disjointed commentaries, plucking crows in the teeth of the
assertions of the Hon'ble Opener and of their precursors, and resumed
their seats with abrupt precipitancy, stating that they had no further
remarks to make.

Then ensued another interim of golden "Silence and slow Time," as Poet
KEATS says, which was as if to become Sempiternity, had not I, rushing
in where the angels were in fear of slipping up, caught the Speaker in
the eye, and tipped the wink of my _cacoethes loquendi_.

To prevent disappointment, I shall report my harangue with verbose
accuracy.

_Myself_ (_assuming a perpendicular attitude, inserting one hand among
my vest buttons, and waving the other with a graceful affability_).
"HON'BLE MISS CHAIRWOMAN, MADAMS, MISSES, AND HON'BLE MISTER OPENER, the
humble individual now palpitating on his limbs before you is a denizen
from a land whose benighted, ignorant inhabitants are accustomed to
treat the females of their species as small fry and fiddle faddle. Yes,
Madams and Misses, in India the woman is forbidden to eat except in the
severest solitude, and after her lord and master has surfeited his pangs
of hunger; she may not make the briefest outdoor excursion without
permission, and then solely in a covered _palkee_, or the hermetically
sealed interior of a blinded carriage. (_Cries of 'Shame.'_) In the
Zenana, she is restricted to the occupation of puerile gossipings, or
listening to apocryphal fairy tales of so scandalising an impropriety
that I shrink to pollute my ears by the repetition even of the tit-bits.
(_Subdued groans._)

"Such being the case, you can imagine the astonishment and gratification
I have experienced here this evening at the intelligence and forwardness
manifested by so many effeminate intellects. (_A flattered rustle and
prolonged simpering._)

"The late respectable Dr BEN JOHNSON, gifted author of _Boswell's
Biography_ (_applause_), once rather humorously remarked, on witnessing
a nautch performed by canine quadrupeds, that--although their
choreographical abilities we