a position so much
worse than widowhood, inasmuch as it exposed her not only to all the
evils of poverty, but to suspicion, calumny, and insult. But he bade
them note how the woman had passed through the fire unharmed; how she
had fought the battle of life bravely and come out victoriously; how
she had labored on in honorable industry for years, until she had
secured a home for herself and little girls. He spoke plainly of the
arrival of the fugitive husband as the coming of the destroyer who had
three times before laid waste her home; he described the terror and
distress his very presence in the city had brought to that little
home; the flight of the mother with her children, and her agony of
anxiety to conceal them; he dwelt upon the cruel position of the woman
whose natural protector has become her natural enemy; he reminded the
court that it had required the mother to take her trembling little
ones from their places of safety and concealment and to bring them
forward; and now that they were here he felt a perfect confidence that
the court would extend the aegis of its authority over these helpless
ones, since that would be the only shield they could have under
heaven. He spoke noble words in behalf not only of his client, but of
woman--woman, loving, feeble, and oppressed from the beginning of
time--woman, hardly dealt with by nature in the first place, and by
the laws, made by her natural lover and protector, man, in the second
place. Perhaps it was because he knew himself to be the son of a woman
only, even as his Master had been before him, that he poured so much
of awakening, convicting, and condemning fire, force, and weight into
this part of his discourse. He uttered thoughts and feelings upon this
subject, original and startling at that time, but which have since
been quoted, both in the Old and New World, and have had power to
modify those cruel laws which at that period made woman, despite her
understanding intellect, an idiot, and despite her loving heart a
chattel--in the law.

It had been the time-honored prerogative and the invariable custom of
the learned judges of this court to go to sleep during the pleadings of
the lawyers; but upon this occasion they did not indulge in an afternoon
nap, I assure you!

He next reviewed the testimony of the witnesses of the plaintiff;
complimented them on the ingenuity they had displayed in making "the
worst appear the better cause," by telling half the truth and i