III.    THE ANTI-MAN CRUSADE   .        .        .        .      51

PREFACE TO REISSUE

THE following essay was published at the end of
1913 and is now reissued as originally written.
Since the year before the World War the situation
of woman has, of course, changed.  Feminism in this
 and in some other countries has won well-nigh [near]
all its formal demands.  Mr Asquith, who before
the war declared he would have nothing to do
with a House of Commons elected by a female
vote, during the war, for no assignable reason,
suddenly made a volte-face [about-face] and became
a strong advocate of female franchise.  The acquisition
of the suffrage has as its result carried with it the
right to all occupations and offices, as decreed by
the "Sex-Disability Repeal Act," and so the pitch-
forking of women into administrative posts proceeds
galore.  But the main contentions of The Fraud of
Feminism have not been affected by the change in
question.  Though women have been conceded
all the rights of men, their privileges as females
have remained untouched, while the sentimental
"pull" they have over men, and the favouritism
shown them in the courts, civil and criminal,
often in flagrant violation of elementary justice,
continues as before.  The result of their position                                               ix

on juries, as evinced in certain trials, has rather
confirmed the remarks made in Chapter II. anent [concerning]
hysteria than otherwise.  The sex-bias of men in
favour of women and the love of the advanced
woman towards her sex-self show no sign of
abatement.  Proposals to the effect that in the
event of infanticide by a mother the putative
father should be placed in the dock merely because
he is a man are received with applause.  The other
day, at a court held in a fashionable town of the
south coast, on a prostitute being brought up
charged with soliciting, a female "justice," recently
appointed, declaimed against the wickedness
of punishing prostitutes for soliciting while men
were never brought up charged with the offence.
(Needless to say, there was the usual male fool to
be found in the body of the court, who shouted:
"Hear ! Hear !")  Now is it conceivable, I ask, that
anybody can be so infatuated with Feminism as not
to see that a prostitute who solicits nightly in the
exercise of her trade-- i.e . for the purpose of
money-making--is in a different position from a man
who, once in a way, may, urged by natural passion,
make advances to a woman?  Such a person must
be unable to see distinctions in anything, one would
think.  Besides, it is not true that men, if charged
with the annoyance or molestation of women, cannot
be, and have not been, prosecuted for the offence.
The lady "justice" in question would probably                                                   x

like to see a man paired with a prostitute in the
dock every time the latter gave occasion for police
action.  Such is the Feminist notion of justice.
    There are a vast number of men who cultivate
the pretence of having a contempt for, or a preju-
dice against, their own sex.  The idea seems to be
to pander to the sex-vanity of the "New Woman."
Every popular writer caters for this prejudice.  No
one can have failed to notice the persistent journal-
istic and literary "stunt" by which the man is por-
trayed in the light of a miserable and abject living
creature as a foil [frustration] to the "noble animal"
woman.  There is scarcely a play, short story or
novel the plot of which in any way admits of it
where this now stale device is not dragged in in
some form or shape.  Even Shaw, with all his some-
what ostentatious flouting of convention, cannot
resist the temptation of yielding to it in one or two
of his plays--e.g. Catherine the Great.  This sort of
thing is not without its influence on the course of
justice, as the daily papers still continue to show us.
Times have not changed in this respect.  The war,
which has altered the face of things otherwise and
in the matter of the social and political aspect of
sex-relations, has been the occasion of revolutionary
transformation in the shape of political sex-equality,
has left female privilege, civil and criminal, as it
was in 1913.  There is no indication that the
general public has a dawning sense that, to adapt                                             xi

the common metaphor, "What is sauce for the goose
is sauce for the gander."  Everywhere we hear the                               
same old bogus grievances of the female sex trotted
out as crying for remedy, but never the injustice
of a man being compelled, whatever his economic
position, to keep his wife, while a woman is under no
corresponding obligation to keep her husband.  No
urgency is suggested for removing the anomaly that
a husband is amenable for his wife's libels and
slanders; none that a boy of fourteen is punish-
able for a sexual offence to which he has been
incited by a girl of sixteen, who gets off scot-free;
none that the obligation of a husband, whose wife
wishes to bring an action for divorce against him,
to furnish her with the money to fight him, should
be abolished.  On the other hand, every law, every
judicial decision, every case in the courts, civil and
criminal, that on the most superficial view can be
exploited by the conventional Feminist claptrap to
prove the wickedness of "man-made law" to
woman, is gripped by the beak of the Feminist
harpy to help build up her nest of lying sex-
prejudice, whence she and her confraternity may
sally forth and by their raids on male sentiment not
merely help to buttress up existing female privi-
lege, but wherever possible to increase the already
one-sided injustice of the law and its administration
towards men in the interest of the other sex.

August, 1921                                                                                                    xii



                                PREFACE

    The present volume aims at furnishing a succinct ex-
posure of the pretensions of the Modern Feminist Move-
ment.  It aims at presenting the case against it with an
especial view to tracking down and gibbetting the in-
famous falsehoods, the conventional statements, which are
not merely perversions of the truth, but which are directly
and categorically contrary to the truth, but which pass
muster by sheer force of uncontradicted repetition.  It is
by this kind of bluff that the claims of Feminism are
sustained.  The following is a fair example of the state-
ments of Feminist writers:-- "As for accusing the world
at large of fatuous indulgence for womanhood in general,
the idea is too preposterous for words.  The true ' legends
of the Old Bailey [ Central Criminal Court]' tell, not of women
absurdly acquitted, but of miserable girls sent to the gallows for
murders committed in half delirious dread of the ruthless-
ness of hypocritical Society."  Now it is this sort of legend
that it is one of the chief objects of the following pages
to explode.  Of course the "fatuous indulgence" for
"womanhood in general," practised by the "world at
large," is precisely one of the most conspicuous features                             1

of our time, and the person who denies it, if he is not
deliberately prevaricating, must be a veritable Rip van
Winkle awakening out of a sleep lasting at least two
generations.  Similarly the story of the "miserable girls
sent to the gallows," etc., is, as far as living memory
is concerned, a pure legend.  It is well known that in
the cases referred to of the murder of their new-born
children by girls, at the very outside a year or two's
tight imprisonment is the only penalty actually inflicted.
The acquittal of women on the most serious charges,
especially where the victims are men, in the teeth of
the strongest evidence, is, on the other hand, an every-
day occurrence.  Now it is statements like the above on
which, as already said, the Feminist Movement thrives;
its most powerful argumentative weapon with the man
in the street is the legend that woman is oppressed by
man.  It is rarely that anyone takes the trouble to refute
the legend in general, or any specific case adduced as an
illustration of it.  When, however, the bluff is exposed,
when the real facts of the case are laid bare to public
notice, and woman is shown, not only as not oppressed
but as privileged, up to the top of her bent, then the
apostles of feminism, male and female, being unable to
make even a plausible case out in reply, with one consent
resort to the boycott, and by ignoring what they cannot
answer, seek to stop the spread of the unpleasant truth so                          2

dangerous to their cause. The pressure put upon publishers
and editors by the influential Feminist sisterhood is well
known.
    For the rest, it must not be supposed that this little book
makes any claim to exhaust the subject or to be a scientific
treatise.  It is, and is meant to be, a popular refutation of
the current arguments in favour of Feminism, and a brief
statement of the case against Feminism.  Sir Almroth
Wright's short treatise, "The Unexpurgated Case against
Woman's Suffrage," which deals with the question from
a somewhat different standpoint, may be consulted with
advantage by the reader.
    An acknowledgment should be made to the editor of
The New Age for the plucky stand made by that journal
in the attempt to dam the onrush of sentimental slush set
free by the self-constituted champions of womanhood.  I
have also to thank two eminent medical authorities for
reading the proofs of my second chapter.                                                     3



                       INTRODUCTION

IN the following pages it is not intended to furnish
a treatise on the evolution of woman generally or
of her place in society, but simply to offer a
criticism on the theory and practice of what is
known as Modern Feminism.
    By Modern Feminism I understand a certain
attitude of mind towards the female sex.  This
attitude of mind is often self-contradictory and
illogical.  While on the one hand it will claim, on
the ground of the intellectual and moral equality
of women with men, the concession of female
suffrage, and commonly, in addition thereto, the
admission of women to all professions, offices and
functions of public life; on the other it will strenu-
ously champion the preservation and intensification
of the  privileges  and  immunities  before  the
law, criminal and civil, in favour of women, which
have grown up in the course of the nineteenth
century.
    The above attitude, with all its inconsistencies,
has  at its back a strong  sex-conscious party,                                                  5

or sex union, as we may term it, among women,
and a floating mass of inconsequent, slushy
sentiment among men.  There is more than one
popular prejudice which obscures the meaning and
significance of Modern Feminism with many people.
There is a common theory, for instance, based upon
what really obtained to some extent before the
prevalence of Modern Feminism, that in any case
of antagonism between the two sexes, women
always take the man's side against the woman.
Now this theory, if it ever represented the true
state of the case, has long ceased to do so.
    The powerful female sex union spoken of, in the
present day, exercises such a strong pressure in
the formation of public opinion among women, that
it is rapidly becoming next to impossible, even in
the most flagrant cases, where man is the victim,
to get any woman to acknowledge that another
woman has committed a wrong.  On the other
hand it may be noted, that the entire absence of
any consciousness of sex antagonism in the attitude
of men towards women, combined with an intensi-
fication of the old-world chivalry prescribed by
tradition towards the so-called weaker sex, exer-
cises, if anything, an increasing sway over male
public opinion.  Hence the terrific force Feminism has
obtained in the world of the early twentieth century.
    It is again often supposed, and this is also a
mistake, that in individual cases of dispute between                                           6

the sexes, the verdict, let us say of a jury of men, in
favour of the female prisoner or the female litigant
is solely or even  mainly determined by the fact  of
the latter's good looks.  This may indeed play
a part; but it is easy to show from records of
cases that it is a subordinate one--that, whatever
her looks or her age may be, the verdict is given
her not so much because she is a pretty woman as
because she is a woman.  Here again the question
of attractiveness may have played a more potent
part in determining  male verdicts in the days
before Feminist sentiment and Feminist views had
reached their present dominance.  But now the
question of sex alone, of being a woman, is
sufficient to determine judgment in her favour.
    There is a trick with which votaries of Feminism
seek to prejudice the public mind against its critics,
and that is the "fake" that any man who ventures
to criticise the pretensions of Feminism, is actuated
by motives of personal rancour against the female
sex, owing to real or imaginary wrongs suffered by
him at the hands of some member or members of
the sex.  I suppose it may be possible that there are
persons, not precisely microcephalous [abnormally
small headed] idiots, who could be made to believe
such stuff as this in disparagement of him who ventures
an independent judgment on these questions; otherwise
the conduct of Feminists in adopting this line of
argument would be incomprehensible.  But we                                                 7

would fain [gladly] believe that the number of these
feebleminded persons, who believe there is any
connection between a man having independent judg-
ment enough to refuse to bend the knee to Modern
Feminist dogma, and his having quarrelled with any
or all of his female friends or relations, cannot be
very numerous.  As a matter of fact there is not
one single prominent exponent of views hostile to
the pretensions of what is called the "Woman's
Movement" of the present day, respecting whom
there is a tittle of evidence of his not having lived
all his life on the best of terms with his woman-
kind.  There is only one case known of indirectly
by the present writer, and that not of a prominent
writer or speaker on the subject, that would afford
any plausible excuse whatever for alleging anti-
Feminist views to have been influenced by personal
motives of this kind.  I am aware, of course, that
Feminists, with their usual mendacity, have made
lying statements to this effect respecting well-nigh
every prominent writer on the anti-Feminist side,
in the hope of influencing the aforesaid feeble-
minded members of the public against their
opponents.  But a very little investigation suffices
to show in every case the impudent baselessness
of their allegations.  The contemptible silliness of
this method of controversy should render it un-
worthy of serious remark, and my only excuse for
alluding to it is the significant sidelight it casts                                                    8

upon the intellectual calibre of those who resort
to it, and of the confidence or want of confidence
they have in the inherent justice of their cause and
the logical strength of their case.                                                                       9



                    CHAPTER I

                          HISTORICAL

THE position of women in social life was for a
long time a matter of course.  It did not arise as
a question, because it was taken for granted.  The
dominance of men seemed to derive so obviously
from natural causes, from the possession of faculties
physical, moral and  intellectual,  in men, which
were wanting in women, that no one thought of
questioning the situation.  At the same time, the
inferiority of woman was never conceived as so
great as to diminish seriously, much less to eliminate
altogether, her responsibility for crimes she might
commit.  There were cases, of course, such as that
of offences committed by women under coverture
[legal "covering" by the husband], in which a diminution
of responsibility was recognised and was given effect to
in condonation of the offence and in mitigation of the
punishment.  But there was no sentiment in general in
favour of a female more than of a male criminal.  It
entered into the head of no one to weep tears of pity
over the murderess of a lover or husband rather than
over the murderer of a sweetheart or wife.  Simi-                                           11

larly, minor offenders, a female blackmailer, a female
thief, a female perpetrator of an assault, was not
deemed less guilty or worthy of more lenient
treatment than a male offender in like cases.  The
law, it was assumed, and the assumption was acted
upon, was the same for both sexes.  The sexes
were equal before the law.  The laws were
harsher in some respects than now, although not
perhaps in all.  But there was no special line of
demarcation as regards the punishment of offences
as between  men  and women.  The penalty
ordained by the law for crime or misdemeanour
was the same for both and in general applied
equally to both.  Likewise in civil suits, pro-
ceedings were not specially weighted against the
man and in favour of the woman.  There was, as
a general rule, no very noticeable sex partiality
in the administration of the law.
    This state of affairs continued in England till
well into the nineteenth century.  Thenceforward
a change began to take place.  Modern Feminism
rose slowly above the horizon.  Modern Feminism
has two distinct sides to it:  (1) an articulate
political and economic side embracing demands for
so-called rights; and (2) a sentimental side which
insists  in  an accentuation of the privileges and
immunities which have grown up, not articulately
or as the result of definite demands, but as the
consequence of sentimental pleading in particular                                            12

cases.  In this way, however, a public opinion became
established, finding expression in a sex favouritism
in the law and even still more in its administration,
in favour of women as against men.
    These two sides of Modern Feminism are not
necessarily combined in the same person.  One may,
for example, find opponents of female suffrage
who are strong advocates of sentimental favourit-
ism towards women in matters of law and its
administration.  On the other hand you may find,
though this is more rare, strong advocates of political
and other rights for the female sex, who sincerely
deprecate the present inequality of the law in
favour of women.  As a rule, however, the two
sides go together, the vast bulk of the advocates
of  "Women's Rights" being equally keen on the
retention and extension of women's privileges.
Indeed, it would seem as though the main object
of the bulk of the advocates of the "Woman's
Movement" was to convert the female sex into the
position of a dominant sexe noblesse [sex nobility]. 
The two sides of Feminism have advanced hand in
hand for the last two generations, though it was the
purely sentimental side that first appeared as a
factor in public opinion.
    The attempt to paint women in a different light
to the traditional one of physical, intellectual and
moral inferiority to men, probably received its
first literary expression in a treatise published in                                              13

1532 by Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim entitled
De Nobilitate et Praecellentia Feminei Sexus and
dedicated to Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands,
whose favour Agrippa was at that time desirous of
courting.  The ancient world has nothing to offer
in the shape of literary forerunners of Modern
Feminism, although that industrious collector of
historical odds and ends, Valerius Maximus, re-
lates the story of one Afrania who, with some of her
friends, created disturbances in the Law Courts of
ancient Rome in her attempt to make women's
voices heard before the tribunals.  As regards
more recent ages, after Agrippa, we have to wait
till the early years of the eighteenth century for
another instance of Feminism before its time, in an
essay on the subject of woman by Daniel Defoe.
But it was not till the closing years of the
eighteenth century that any considerable ex-
pression of opinion in favour of changing the
relative positions of the sexes, by upsetting the
view of their respective values, founded on the
general experience of mankind, made itself notice-
able.
    The names of Mary Wollstonecraft in English
literature and of Condorcet in French, will hardly fail
to occur to the reader in this connection.  During
the French Revolution the crazy Olympe de
Gouges achieved ephemeral notoriety by her claim
for the intellectual equality of women with men.                                               14

    Up to this time (the close of the eighteenth
century) no advance whatever had been made
by legislation in recognising the modern theory
of sex quality.  The claims of women and their
apologists for entering upon the functions of men,
political, social or otherwise, although put forward
from time to time by isolated individuals, received
little countenance from public opinion, and still
less from the law.  What I have called, how-
ever, the sentimental aspect of Modern Feminism
undoubtedly did make some headway in public
opinion by the end of the eighteenth century, and
grew in volume during the early years of the
nineteenth century.  It effectuated in the Act
passed in 1820 by the English Parliament abolish-
ing the punishment of flogging for female criminals.
This was the first beginning of the differentiation of
the sexes in the matter of the criminal law.  The
parliamentary debate on the Bill in question shows
clearly enough the power that Sentimental ¹ Femi-

¹ I should explain that I attach a distinct meaning to the
word sentimental ; as used by me it does not signify, as it does
with most people, an excess of sentiment over and above what
I feel myself, but a sentiment unequally distributed.  As used
in this sense, the repulsion to the flogging of women while no
repulsion is felt to the flogging of men is  sentimentalism pure
and simple.  On the other hand the objection to flogging
altogether as punishment for men or women could not be de-
scribed as sentimentalism, whatever else it might be.  In the
same way the anti-vivisectionist's aversion to "physiological"
experiments on animals, if confined to household pets and not                                  15

extended to other animals, might be justly described as senti-
mentalism; but one who objected to such experiments on all
animals, no matter whether one agreed with his point of view
or not, could not be justly charged with sentimentalism (or at
least, not unless, while objecting to vivisection, he or she were
prepared to condone other acts involving an equal amount of
cruelty to animals).

nism had acquired in public opinion in the course
of a generation, for no proposal was made at the
same time to abolish the punishment of flogging
so far as men were concerned.  Up to this time
the criminal law of England, as of other countries,
made no distinction whatever between the sexes
in the matter of crime and punishment, or at least
no distinction based on the principle or sentiment
of sex privilege.  (A slight exception might be
made, perhaps, in the crime of "petty treason,"
which distinguished the murder of a husband by
his wife from other cases of homicide.)  But from
this time forward, legislation and administration
have diverged farther and farther from the principle
of sex equality in this connection in favour of
female immunity, the result being that at the
present day, assuming the punishment meted out
to the woman for a given crime to represent a
normal penalty, the man receives an additional
increment over and above that accorded to the
crime, for the offence of having been born a
man and not a woman.
    The Original Divorce Law of 1857 in its                                                     16

provisions respecting costs and alimony, constitutes
another landmark in the matter of female privilege
before the law.  Other measures of unilateral
sex legislation followed in the years ensuing until
the present state of things, by which the whole
power of the State is practically at the disposal of
woman to coerce and oppress men.  But this side
of the question we propose to deal with later on.
    The present actual movement of Feminism
in political and social life may be deemed to
have begun in the early sixties, in the agitation
which preceded the motion of John Stuart Mill in
1867, on the question of conferring the parliament-
ary franchise upon women.  This was coincident
with an agitation for the opening of various careers
to women, notably the medical faculty.  We are
speaking, of course, here of Great Britain, which
was first in the field in Europe, alike in the theory
and practice of Modern Feminism.  But the publica-
tion by the great protagonist of the movement,
John Stuart Mill, of his book, "The Subjection of
Women," in 1868, endowed the cause with a
literary gospel which was soon translated into the
chief languages of the Continent, and corresponding
movements started in other countries.  Strangely
enough, it made considerable headway in Russia,
the awakening of Russia to Western ideas hav-
ing, recently begun to make itself felt at the
time of which we are speaking.  The movement                                              17

henceforth took its place as a permanent factor
in the political and social life of this and other
countries.  Bills for female suffrage were intro-
duced every year into the British House of
Commons with, on the whole, yearly diminishing
majorities against these measures, till a few years
back the scale turned on the other side, and the
Women's Enfranchisement Bill passed every year its
second reading until 1912, when for the first time
for many years it was rejected by a small majority.
Meanwhile both sides of the Feminist movement,
apart from the question of the franchise, had been
gaining in influence.  Municipal franchise "on the
same terms as for men" had been conceded.  Women
have voted for and sat on School Boards, Boards
of Guardians, and other public bodies.  Their
claim to exercise the medical profession has been
not merely admitted in law but recognised in
public opinion for long past.  All the advantages
of an academic career have been opened to them,
with the solitary exception of the actual confer-
ment of degrees at Oxford and Cambridge.  Such
has been the growth of the articulate and political
side of the theory of Modern Feminism.
    The sentimental side of Feminism, with its
practical result of the overweighting of justice in
the interests of women in the courts, civil as well
as criminal, and their practical immunity from the
operation of the criminal law when in the dock
[place in court where the accused stands],                                                      18

has advanced correspondingly; while at the same
time the sword of that same criminal law is
sharpened to a razor edge against the man even
accused, let alone convicted, of any offence against
the sacrosanct majesty of "Womanhood."  Such
is the present position of the Woman question
in this country, which we take as typical, in the
sense that in Great Britain, to which we may
also add the United States of America and the
British Colonies, where--if possible, the movement
is stronger than in the mother country itself--we
see the logical outcome of Feminist theory and
sentiment.  It remains to consider the existing
facts more in detail, and the psychological bearings
of that large number of persons who have been
in the recent past, and are being at the present
time, influenced to accept the dogmas of Modern
Feminism and the statements of alleged facts made
by its votaries.  Before doing so it behoves us
to examine the credibility of the dogmas them-
selves, and the nature of the arguments used to
support them and also the accuracy of the alleged
facts employed by the Feminists to stimulate
the indignation of the popular mind against the
pretended wrongs of women.                                                                         19



                        CHAPTER II

THE MAIN DOGMA OF MODERN FEMINISM

WE have pointed out in the last chapter that
Modern Feminism has two sides, the positive,
definite, and articulate side, which ostensibly claims
equality between the sexes, the chief concern of
which is the conferring of all the rights and duties
of men upon women, and the opening up of all
careers to them.  The justification of these demands
is based upon the dogma, that, notwithstanding
appearances to the contrary, women are endowed
by nature with the same capacity intellectually
and morally as men.  We have further pointed
out that there is another side in Modern Feminism
which in a vague way claims for women immunity
from criminal law and special privileges on the
ground of sex in civil law.  The basis of this
side of Feminism is a sentimentalism-- i.e. an un-
equally distributed sentiment in favour of women,
traditional and acquired.  It is seldom even at-
tempted to base this sentimental claim for women
on argument at all.  The utmost attempts in this
direction amount to vague references to physical                                             20

weakness, and to the claim for special considera-
tion deriving from the old theory of the mental
and moral weakness of the female sex, so strenu-
ously combated as out of date, when the first
side of  Modern Feminism is being contended
for.  The more or less inchoate assumptions of
the second or sentimental side of the modern
"Woman's Movement" amounts practically, as
already stated, to a claim for women to be allowed
to commit crimes without incurring the penalties
imposed by the law for similar crimes when
committed by men.  It should be noted that in
practice the most strenuous advocates of  the
positive and articulate side of Feminism are also
the sincerest upholders of the unsubstantial and
inarticulate assumptions of the sentimental side of
the same creed.  This is noticeable whenever a
woman is found guilty of a particularly atrocious
crime.  It is somewhat rare for women to be
convicted of such crimes at all, since the influence
of sentimental Feminism with judges and juries is
sufficient to procure an acquittal, no matter how
conclusive the evidence to the contrary.  Even if
women are found guilty it is usual for a virtually
nominal sentence to be passed.  Should, however,
a woman by any chance be convicted of a heinous
crime, such as murder or maiming, under speci-
ally aggravated circumstances, and a sentence be
passed such as would be unanimously sanctioned by                                      21

public opinion in the case of a man, then we find
the whole Feminist world up in arms.  The out-
cry is led by self-styled upholders of equality
between the sexes, the apostles of the positive
side of Feminism, who bien entendu [of course] claim                                          
the eradication of sex boundaries in political and social
life on the ground of women being of equal
capacity with men, but who, when moral responsi-
bility is in question, conveniently fall back on a
sentiment, the only conceivable ground for which
is to be found in the time-honoured theory of the
mental and moral weakness of the female sex.
As illustrations of the truth of the foregoing, the
reader may be referred to the cases of Florence
Doughty in 1906, who shot at and wounded a
solicitor with whom she had relations, together
with his son; to Daisy Lord in 1908, for the
murder of her new-born child; to the case of the
Italian murderess, Napolitano in Canada, convicted
of the cold-blooded butchery of her husband in his
sleep in 1911, for whose reprieve a successful
agitation was got up by the suffrage societies!
    Let us first of all consider the dogma at the basis
of the positive side of Modern Feminism, which
claims rational grounds of fact and reason for
itself, and professes to be able to make good its
case by virtue of such grounds.  This dogma con-
sists in the assertion of equality in intellectual
capacity, in spite of appearances to the contrary, of                                        22

women with men.  I think it will be admitted that
the articulate objects of Modern Feminism, taking
them one with another, rest on this dogma, and on
this dogma alone.  I know it has been argued as
regards the question of suffrage, that the demand
does not rest solely upon the admission of equality
of capacity, since men of a notoriously inferior
mental order are not excluded from voting upon
that ground, but the fallacy of this last argument
is obvious.  In all these matters we have to deal
with averages.  Public opinion has hitherto recog-
nised the average of women as being intellectually
below the voting standard, and the average man as
not.  This, if admitted, is enough to establish the
anti-suffrage thesis.  The latter is not affected by
the fact that it is possible to find certain individual
men of inferior intelligence and therefore less
intrinsically qualified to form a political judgment
than certain specially gifted women.  The pre-
tended absurdity of "George Eliot having no vote,
and of her gardener having one" is really no
absurdity at all.  In the first place, given the
economic advantages which conferred education
upon the novelist, and not upon the gardener,
there is not sufficient evidence available that his
judgment in public affairs might not have been
even superior to that of George Eliot herself.
Moreover, the possession of exceptionally strong
imaginative faculty, expressing itself as literary                                                23

genius or talent in works of fiction, does not
necessarily imply exceptional power of political
judgment.  But, be this as it may, where averages
are in question, exceptions obviously do not count.
The underlying assumption of the suffrage
movement may therefore be taken to be the
average equality of the sexes as regards intellectual
value. ^l
    An initial difficulty exists in proving theoretic-
ally the intellectual inferiority of women to men,
or even their relative unsuitability for fulfilling
functions involving a special order of judgment.
There are such things as matters of fact which
are open to common observation and which none
think of denying or calling in question unless they
have some special reason for doing so.  Now it is
always possible to deny a fact, however evident it
may be to ordinary perception, and it is equally
impossible to prove that the person calling in
question the aforesaid evident fact is either lying
(or shall we say "prevaricating"), or even that
he is a person hopelessly abnormal is his organs of
sense-perception.
    At the time of writing, the normal person who                                            24

¹ I believe there are some Feminist fanatics who pretend to
maintain the superiority of the female mind, but I doubt
whether this thesis is taken seriously even by those who put
it forward.  In any case there are limits to the patent absurdities
which it is worth while to refute by argument.

has no axe to grind in maintaining the contrary,
declares the sun to be shining brightly, but should
it answer the purpose of anyone to deny this
obvious fact, and declare that the day is gloomy
and overcast, there is no power of argument by
which I can prove that I am right and he is wrong.
I may point to the sun, but if he chooses to affirm
that he doesn't see it I can't prove that he does.
This is, of course, an extreme case, scarcely likely
to occur in actual life.  But it is in essence similar
to those cases of persons (and they are not seldom
met with) who, when they find facts hopelessly
destructive of a certain theoretical position
adopted by them, do not hesitate to cut the knot
of controversy in their own favour by boldly
denying the inconvenient facts.  One often has
experience of this trick of controversy in discussing
the question of the notorious characteristics of the
female sex.  The Feminist driven into a corner
endeavours to save his face by flatly denying
matters open to common observation and admitted
as obvious by all who are not Feminists.  Such
facts are the pathological mental condition peculiar
to the female sex, commonly connoted by the term
hysteria; the absence, or at best the extremely
imperfect development of the logical faculty in
most women; the inability of the average woman
in her judgment of things to rise above personal
considerations; and, what is largely a consequence                                         25

of this, the lack of a sense of abstract justice and
fair play among women in general.  The aforesaid
peculiarities of women, as women, are, I contend,
matters of common observation and are only dis-
puted by those persons--to wit Feminists--to
whose theoretical views and practical demands
their admission would be inconvenient if not fatal.
Of course these characterisations refer to averages,
and they do not exclude partial or even occasionally
striking exceptions.  It is  possible, therefore,
although perhaps not very probable, that indi-
vidual experience may in the case of certain
individuals play a part in falsifying their general
outlook; it is  possible--although, as I before
said not perhaps very probable--that any given
man's experience of the other sex has been limited
to a few quite exceptional women and that hence his
particular experience contradicts that of the general
run of mankind.  In this case, of course, his refusal
to admit what to others are self-evident facts
would be perfectly bona fide.  The above highly
improbable contingency is the only refuge for those
who would contend for sincerity in the Feminist's
denials.  In this matter I only deal with the male
Feminist.  The female Feminist is usually too biassed
a witness in this particular question.
    Now let us consider the whole of the differentia-
tions of the mental character between man and
woman in the light of a further generalisation                                                   26

which is sufficiently obvious in itself and which
has been formulated with special clearness by the
late Otto Weininger in his remarkable book,
"Geschlecht und Charakter" (Sex and Character).
I refer to the observations contained in Section II.,
Chaps. 2 and 3.  The point has been, of course, pre-
viously noted, and the present writer, among others,
has on various occasions called special attention to
it.  But its formulation and elaboration by Weininger
is the most complete I know.  The truth in
question consists in the fact, undeniable to all those
not rendered impervious to facts by preconceived
dogma, that, as I have elsewhere put it, while man
has a sex, woman is a sex.  Let us hear Weininger
on this point. "Woman is only sexual, man is also
sexual.  Alike in time and space this difference may
be traced in man, parts of his body susceptible to
sexual excitement are small in number and strictly
localised.  In woman sexuality is diffused over the
whole body, every contact on whatever part excites
her sexually."  Weininger points out that while
the sexual element in man, owing to the physio-
logical character of the sexual organs, may be at
times more violent than that in woman, yet that
it is spasmodic and occurs in crises separated by
intervals of quiescence.  In woman, on the other
hand, while less spasmodic, it is continuous.  The
sexual instinct with man being, as he styles it, "an
appendix" and no more, he can raise himself                                                   27

mentally entirely outside of it.  "He is conscious of
it as of something which he possesses but which
is not inseparate from the rest of his nature.  He
can view it objectively.  With woman this is not
the case; the sex element is part of her whole
nature.  Hence, it is not as with man, clearly recog-
nisable in local manifestations, but subtly affects the
whole life of the organism.  For this reason the man
is conscious of the sexual element within him as
such, whereas the woman is unconscious of it as
such.  It is not for nothing that in common parlance
woman is spoken of as 'the sex.'  In this sexual
differentiation of the whole life-nature of woman
from man, deducible as it is from physiological and
anatomical distinctions, lies the ground of those
differentiations of function which culminate in the
fact that while mankind in its intellectual moral
and technical development is represented in the
main by Man, Woman has continued to find her
chief function in the direct procreation of the race."
A variety of causes, notably modern economic
development, in their effect on family life, also the
illegitimate application of the modern democratic
notion of the equality of classes and races, to
that of sex, has contributed to the modern revolt
against natural sex limitations.
    Assuming the substantial accuracy of the above
statement of fact, the absurdity and cheapness
of the clap-trap of the modern "social purity"                                                  28

monger, as to having one and the same sexual
morality for both sexes will be readily seen.  The
recognition of the necessity of admitting greater
latitude in this respect to men than to women is
based clearly on physiology and common-sense.
With men sexual instinct manifests itself locally,
and at intervals its satisfaction is an urgent and
pressing need.  With woman this is not so.  Hence
the recognised distinction between the sexes in
this respect is, as far as it goes, a thoroughly
sound one.  Not that I am championing the
severity of the restrictions of the current sexual
code as regards women.  On the contrary, I think
it ought to be and will be, in a reasonable society
of the future, considerably relaxed.  I am only
pointing out that the urgency is not so great in
the one case as in the other.  And this fact it is
which has led to the toleration of a stringency,
originally arising mainly from economic causes
(questions of inheritance and the like), in the case
of women, which would not have been tolerated
in that of men, even had similar reasons for its
adoption in their case obtained.  Any successful
attempt of social purity mongers to run counter
to physiology in enforcing either by legislation
or public opinion the same stringency on men in
this respect as on women could but have the most
disastrous consequences to the health and well-
being of the community.                                                                                 29

    It was a saying of the late Dr Henry Maudsley:
"Sex lies deeper than culture. "  By this we may
understand to be meant that sex differences are
organic.  All authorities on the physiological
question are agreed that woman is less well-
organised, less well-developed, than man.  Dr
de Varigny asserts that this fact is traceable
throughout the whole female organism, through-
out all its tissues, and all its functions.  For
instance, the stature of the human female is less
than that of the man in all races.  As regards
weight there is a corresponding difference.  The
adult woman weighs, on the average, rather more
than 11 lbs. less than the man; moreover as a rule
a woman completes her growth some years
earlier than a man.  The bones are lighter in the
woman than in the man; not absolutely but in
proportion to the weight of the body.  They are,
it is stated, not merely thinner but more fragile.
The difference may be traced even to their
chemical composition.  The whole muscular de-
velopment is inferior in woman to that in man
by about one-third.  The heart in woman is
smaller and lighter than in man--being about
101/2 oz. in man as against slightly over
8 oz. in woman.  In the woman the respiratory
organs show less chest and lung capacity.  Again,
the blood contains a considerably less proportion
of red to white corpuscles.  Finally, we come to                                             30

the question of the size and constitution of the
brain.  (It should be observed that all these
distinctions of sex show themselves more or less
from birth onwards.)
    Specialists are agreed that at all ages the
size of the brain of woman is less than that of
man.  The difference in relative size is greater
in proportion according to the degree of civilisation.
This is noteworthy, as it would seem as though
the brain of man grew with the progress of
civilisation, whereas that of woman remains nearly
stationary.  The average proportion as regards size
of skull between the woman and man of to-day
is as 85 to 100.  The weight of brain in woman
varies from 38 1/2 oz. to 45 1/2 oz.; in man, from
42 oz. to 49 oz.  This represents the absolute dif-
ference in weight, but, according to Dr de Varigny,
the relative weight-- i.e. the weight in proportion
to that of the whole body--is even more striking
in its indication of inferiority.  The weight of the
brain in woman is but one-forty-fourth of the
weight of the body, while in man it is one-fortieth.
This difference accentuates itself with age.  It is
only 7 per cent in favour of man between twenty and
thirty years; it is 11 per cent between thirty and
forty years.  As regards the substance of the brain
itself and its convolutions, the enormous majority
of physiologists are practically unanimous in de-
claring that the female brain is simpler and                                                      31

smoother, its convolutions fewer and more super-
ficial than those of the male brain, that the frontal
lobes, generally associated with the intellectual
faculties, are less developed than the occipital lobes,
which are universally connected with the lower
psychological functions.  The grey substance is
poorer and less abundant in woman than in man,
while the blood vessels of the occipital region are
correspondingly fuller than those supplying the
frontal lobes.  In man the case is exactly the
reverse.  It cannot be denied by any sane person
familiar with the barest elements of physiology
that the whole female organism is subservient
to the functions of child-bearing and lactation,
which explains the inferior development of those
organs and faculties which are not specially
connected with this supreme end of Woman.
    It is the fashion of Feminists, ignoring these
fundamental physiological sex differences, to
affirm that the actual inferiority of women, where
they have the honesty to admit such an obvious
fact, is accountable by the centuries of oppression
in which Woman has been held by wicked and
evil-minded Man.  The absurdity of this conten-
tion has been more than once pointed out.  As-
suming its foundation in fact, what does it imply!
Clearly that the girls inherit only through their
mothers and boys only through their fathers, an
hypothesis plainly at variance with the known                                                 32

facts of heredity.  Yet those who maintain that
distinction of intelligence, etc., between the sexes
are traceable to external conditions affecting one
sex only and inherited through that sex alone,
cannot evade the above assumption.  Those,
therefore, who regard it as an article of their
faith that Woman would show herself not in-
ferior in mental power to man, if only she
had the chance of exercising that power, must
find a surer foundation for their opinion than
this theory of the centuries of oppression, under
which, as they allege, the female sex has
laboured.
    We now come to the important question of
morbid and pathological mental conditions to
which the female sex is liable and which are
usually connected with those constitutional dis-
turbances of the nervous system which pass under
the name of   hysteria .  The word is, as everyone
knows, derived from hystera--the womb, and was
uniformly regarded by the ancients as directly
due to disease of the uterus, this view maintaining
itself in modern medicine up till well-nigh the
middle of the nineteenth century.  Thus Dr J.
Mason Good (in his "Study of Medicine," 1822,
vol. iii., p. 528, an important medical text-book
during the earlier half of the nineteenth century)
says: "With a morbid condition of this organ,
hysteria is in many instances very closely con-                                                33

nected, though it is going too far to say that it is
always dependent upon such condition, for we
meet with instances, occasionally, in which no
possible connexion can be traced  between the
disease and the organ," etc.  This is perhaps the
first appearance, certainly in  English  medicine,
of doubts being thrown on the uterine origin of
the various symptoms grouped under the general
term, hysteria .  Towards the latter part of the
nineteenth century the prevalent view tended
more and more to dissociate hysteria from uterine
trouble.  Lately, however, some eminent patho-
logists have  shown a tendency to qualify the
terms of the latter view.  Thus Dr Thomas
Stevenson in 1902 admits that "it [hysteria]
frequently accompanies a morbid  state of the
uterus," especially where inflammation and con-
gestion are present, and it is not an uncommon
thing for surgeons at the present time to remove
the ovaries in obstinate cases of hysteria.  On the
other hand Dr Thomas Buzzard, in an article
on the subject in Quain's Dictionary of Medicine,
1902, states that hysteria is only exceptionally
found in women suffering from diseases of the
genital organs, and its relation to uterine and
ovarian disturbances is probably neither more nor
less than that which pertains to the other affections
of the nervous system which may occur without
any obvious material cause.  Dr Thomas Luff                                                  34

("Text-Book on Forensic Medicine," 1895) shows
that the derangements of the reproductive functions
are undoubtedly the cause of various attacks of
insanity in the female.  Dr Savage, in his book
"On Neuroses," says that acute mania in women
occurs most frequently at the period of adult and
mature life, and may occasionally take place at
either extreme age.  Acute mania sometimes occurs
at the suppression of the menses.  The same is true
of melancholia and other pathological mental
symptoms.  Dr Luff states that acute mania may
replace hysteria; that this happens at periods such
as puberty, change of life and menstruation.
These patients in the intervals of their attacks are
often morbidly irritable or excitable, but as time
goes on their energies become diminished and their
emotions blunted ("Forensic Medicine," ii. 307).
Such patients are often seized with a desire to
commit violence; they are often very mischievous,
tearing up clothes, breaking windows, etc.  In this
mental disorder the patient is driven by a morbid
and uncontrollable impulse to such acts.  It is not
accompanied by delusions, and frequently no
change will have been noticed in the individual
prior to the commission of the act, and conse-
quently, says Dr Luff, "there is much difference
of opinion as to the responsibility of the individual"
(ii. 297).  Among the acts spoken of Dr Luff
mentions a propensity to set fire to furniture,                                                   35

houses, etc.  All this, though written in 1895, might
serve as a commentary on the Suffragette agitation
of recent years.  The renowned French professor,
Dr Paul Janet ("Les Hysteriques," 1894) thus
defined hysteria: "Hysteria is a mental affection
belonging to the large group of diseases due to
cerebral weakness and debility.  Its physical
symptoms are somewhat indefinite, consisting
chiefly in a general diminution of nutrition.  It is
largely characterised by moral symptoms, chief
of which is an impairment of the faculty of
psychological synthesis, an abolition and a con-
traction of the field of consciousness.  This mani-
fests itself in a peculiar manner and by a certain
number of elementary phenomena.  Thus sensations
and images are no longer perceived, and appear
to be blotted out from the individual perception,
a tendency which results in their persistent and
complete separation from the personality in some
cases and in the formation of many independent
groups.  This series of psychological facts alternate
the one with the other or co-exist.  Finally this
synthetic defect favours the formation of certain
independent ideas, which develop complete in
themselves, and unattached from the control of
the consciousness of the personality.  These ideas
show themselves in affections possessing very
various and unique characteristics."  According
to Mr A. S. Millar, F.R.C.S.E. ( Encyclopædia                                             36

Medica, vol. v.), "Hysteria is that ... condition
in which there is imagination, imitation, or ex-
aggeration....  It occurs mostly in females and
persons of nervous temperament, and is due to
some nervous derangement, which may or may
be pathological."  Sir James Paget ("Clinical
Lectures on Mimicry") says also that hysterical
patients are mostly females of nervous tempera-
ment.  "They think of themselves constantly, are
fond of telling everyone of their troubles and thus
court sympathy, for which they have a morbid
craving.  Will power is deficient in one direction,
though some have it very strongly where their
interests are concerned.''  He thinks  the  term
"hysteria" in the sense now employed incorrect,
and would substitute "mimicry."  "The  will                                                   
should be controlled by the intellect," observes
Dr G. F. Still of King's College Hospital, "rather
than by the emotions and the lack of this control
appears to be at the root of some, at least, of the
manifestations of hysteria."
     Dr Thomas Buzzard, above mentioned, thus
summarises the mental symptoms: "The intelli-
gence may be apparently of good quality, the
patient evincing sometimes remarkable quickness
of apprehension; but carefully tested it is found
to be wanting in the essentials of the highest class
of mental power.  The memory may be good, but
the judgment is weak and the ability to concentrate                                         37

the attention for any length of time upon a subject
is absent.  So also regard for accuracy, and the
energy necessary to ensure it in any work that is
undertaken, is deficient.  The emotions are excited
with undue readiness and when aroused are in-
capable of control.  Tears are occasioned not only
by pathetic ideas but by ridiculous subjects and
peals of laughter may incongruously greet some
tragic announcement, or the converse may take
place.  The ordinary signs of emotion may be
absent and replaced by an attack of syncope [fainting],                               
convulsion, pain or paralysis.  Perhaps more con-
stant than any other phenomenon in hysteria is
a pronounced desire for the sympathy and interest
of others.  This is evidently only one of the most
characteristic qualities of femininity, uncontrolled
by the action of the higher nervous centres which
in a healthy state keep it in subjection.  There is
very frequently not only a deficient regard for
truthfulness, but a proneness to active deception
and dishonesty.  So common is this, that the
various phases of hysteria are often assumed to
be simple examples of voluntary simulation and
the title of disease refused to the condition.  But
it seems more reasonable to refer the symptoms to
impairment of the highly complex nervous processes
which form the physiological side of the moral
faculties (Quain's Dictionary of Medicine, 1902).
    "It is not uncommon to find hysteria in females                                            38

accompanied by an utter indifference and insensi-
bility to sexual relations.  Premature cessation of
ovulation is a frequent determining cause.  In cases
where the ovaries are absent[,] the change from girl
to woman, which normally takes place at puberty,
does not occur.  The girl grows but does not
develop, a masculine appearance supervenes, the
voice becomes manly and harsh, sexual passion is
absent, the health remains good.  The most violent
instances of hysteria are in young women of the most
robust and masculine constitution" (John Mason
Good, M.D., "Study of Medicine," 1822).  Other
determining causes are given, as painful impressions,
long fasting, strong emotions, imitation, luxury,
ill-directed education and unhappy surroundings,
celibacy, where not of choice but enforced by cir-
cumstances, unfortunate marriages, long-continued
trouble, fright, worry, overwork, disappointment
and such like nervous perturbations, all which
causes predispose to hysteria.  "It attacks child-
less women more frequently than mothers and
particularly young widows," and, says  Dr  J.
Mason Good, "more especially still those who are
constitutionally inclined to that morbid salacity
which has often been called nymphomania . . .
the surest remedy is a happy marriage" ("Study of
Medicine," 1822, iii. 531).  Hysteria is, in common
with other nervous disorders, essentially a heredi-
tary malady, and. Briquet ("Traité de l'hysterie,"                                              39

1899) gives statistics to show that in nine cases out
of ten hysterical parents have hysterical children.
Dr Paul Sainton of the Faculty of Medicine,
Paris, says: "The  appearance of a symptom
of hysteria generally proves that the malady has
already existed for some time though latent.  The
name of a provocative agent of hysteria is given
to any circumstance which suddenly reveals the
malady but the real cause of the disorder is a
hereditary disposition.  If the real cause is unique,
the provocative agents are numberless.  The moral
emotions, grief, fright, anger and other psychic
disturbances are the most frequent causes of
hysterical affections and in every walk of life
subjects are equally liable to attacks."
    Hysteria may appear at any age.  It is common
with children, especially during the five or six
years preceding puberty.  Of thirty-three cases
under twelve years which came under Dr Still's
notice, twenty-three were in children over eight
years.  Hysteria in women is most frequent between
the ages of fifteen and thirty, and most frequently
of all between fifteen and twenty.  As a rule there
is a tendency to cessation after the "change."  It
frequently happens, however, that the disease is
continued into an advanced period of life.
    "There is a constant change," says Professor
Albert Moll ("Das nervöse Weib," p. 165),
"from a cheerful to a depressed mood.  From                                                 40

being free and merry the woman in a short time
becomes sulky and sad.  While a moment before
she was capable of entertaining a whole company
without pause, talking to each member about that
which interested him, shortly afterwards she does
not speak a word more.  I may mention the well-
worn example of the refusal of a new hat as being
capable of converting the most lively mood into its
opposite.  The weakness of will shows itself here
in that the nervous woman [by "nervous" Dr Moll
means what is commonly termed "hysterical"]
cannot, like the normal one, command the ex-
pression of her emotions.  She can laugh un-
interruptedly over the most indifferent matter until
she falls into veritable laughing fits.  The crying
fits which we sometimes observe belong to the
same category.  When the nervous woman is
excited about anything she exhibits outbreaks of
fury wanting all the characteristics of womanhood,
and she is not able to prevent these emotional out-
bursts.  In the same way just as the emotions
weaken the will and the woman cannot suppress
this or that action, it is noticeable in many nervous
women that quite independently of these emotions
there is a tendency to continuous alterations in
their way of acting.  It has been noticed as
characteristic of many nervous persons that their
only consistency lies in their inconsistency.  But this
must in no way be applied to all nervous persons.                                           41

On this disposition, discoverable in the nature of so
many nervous women, rests the craving for change
as manifested in the continual search for new
pleasures, theatres, concerts, parties, tours, and
other things (p. 147).  Things that to the normal
woman are indifferent or to which she has, in a
sense, accustomed  herself, are to the nervous
woman a source of constant worry.  Although she
may perfectly well know that the circumstances of
herself and her husband are the most brilliant and
that it is unnecessary for her to trouble herself in
the least about her material position as regards the
future, nevertheless the idea of financial ruin
constantly troubles her.  Thus if she is a millionaire's
wife she never escapes from constant worry.
Similarly the nervous woman creates troubles out
of things that are unavoidable.  If in the course of
years she gets more wrinkles, and her attraction for
man diminishes, this may easily become a source of
lasting sorrow for the nervous woman."
    We now have to consider a point which is being
continually urged by Feminists in the present day
when confronted with the pathological mental
symptoms so commonly observed in women which
are usually regarded as having their origin in
hysteria.  We often hear it said by Feminists in
answer to arguments based on the above fact:
"Oh, but men can also suffer from hysteria!"
"In England," says Dr Buzzard, "hysteria is                                                      42         
comparatively rarely met with in males, the female
sex being much more prone to the affection."  The
proportion of males to females in hysteria is, ac-
cording to Dr Pitré ("Clinical Essay on Hysteria,"
1891), 1 to 3; according to Bodensheim, 1 to 10;
and according to Briquet, 1 to 20.  The author of the
article on Hysteria in The Encyclopædia Britannica
(11th edition, 1911) also gives 1 to 20 as the
numerical proportion between male and female
cases.  Dr Pitré, in the work above cited, gives
82 per cent of cases of convulsions in women as
against 22 in men.  But in all this, under the con-
cept hysteria are included, and indeed chiefly
referred to, various physical symptoms of a con-
vulsive and epileptic character which are quite
distinct from the mental conditions rightly or
wrongly connected, or even identified, with
hysteria in the popular mind, and by many medical
authorities.  But  even as regards hysteria in the
former sense of the word, a sharp line of distinction
based on a diagnosis of cases was long ago drawn
by medical men between hysteria masculina and hysteria
fœminina, and in the present day eminent authorities                                       
--e.g. Dr Bernard Holländer--would deny that the                                       
symptoms occasionally diagnosed as hysteria in men
are identical with or due to the same causes as
the somewhat similar conditions known in women
under the name.
    After all, this whole question in its broader                                                  43

bearings is more a question of common-sense
observation than one for medical experts.
    What we are here chiefly concerned with as
"hysteria" (in accordance with popular usage of
the term) are certain pathological mental symptoms
in women open to everybody's observation, and
denied by no one unprejudiced by Feminist views.
Every impartial person has only to cast his eye
round his female acquaintance, and to recall the
various women, of all classes, conditions and
nationalities, that he may have come in contact
with in the course of his life, to recognise those
symptoms of mental instability commonly called
hysterical, as obtaining in at least a proportion of
one to every four or five women he has known, in
a marked and unmistakable degree.  The proper-
tion given is, in fact, stated in an official report to
the Prussian Government issued some ten years
back as that noticeable among female clerks, post
office servants and other women employed in the
Prussian Civil Service.  Certainly as regards women
in general, the observation of the present writer,
and others whom he has questioned on the subject,
would seem to indicate that the proportions given
in the Prussian Civil Service report as regards the
number of women afflicted in this way are rather
under than over stated. ^l   There are many medical

¹ The insanities mentioned above are the extremes.  There are
mental disturbances of less severity constantly occurring which                                44

are connected with the regular menstrual period as well as with
disordered menstruation, with pregnancy, with parturition,
with Lactation, and especially with the change of life [menopause].

men who aver that no woman is entirely free from
such symptoms at least immediately before and
during the menstrual period.  The head surgeon at
a well-known London hospital informed a friend
of mine that he could always tell when this period
was on or approaching with his nurses, by the
mental change which came over them.
    Now these pathological symptoms noticeable in
a slight and more or less unimportant degree in the
vast majority, if not indeed in all women, and in a
marked pathological degree in a large proportion
of women, it is scarcely too much to say do not
occur at all in men.  I have indeed known, I think,
two men, and only two, in the course of my life,
exhibiting mental symptoms analogous to those
commonly called "hysterical" in women.  On the
other hand my own experience, and it is not alone,
is that very few women with whom I have come
into more or less frequent contact, socially or
otherwise, have not at times shown the symptoms
referred to in a marked degree.  If, therefore, we
are to admit the bare possibility of men being
afflicted in a similar way it must be conceded that
such cases represent such rarœ aves [rare things]                                    
as to be negligible for practical purposes.
    A curious thing in pronounced examples of this                                           45

mental instability in women is that the symptoms
are often so very similar in women of quite different
birth, surroundings and nationality.  I can recall
at the present moment three cases, each different as
regards birth, class, and in one case nationality,
and yet who are liable to develop the same symptoms
under the influence of quite similar idées fixes [obsessions].
    But it seems hardly necessary to labour the point
in question at greater length.  The whole experi-
ence of mankind since the dawn of written records
confirmed by, as above said, that of every living
person not specially committed to the theories of
Modern Feminism, bears witness alike to the pre-
valence of what we may term the hysterical mind in
woman and to her general mental frailty.  It is not for
nothing that women and children have always been
classed together.  This view, based as it is on the
unanimous experience of mankind and confirmed
by the observation of all independent persons, has,
I repeat, not been challenged before the appear-
ance of the present Feminist Movement and hardly
by anyone outside the ranks of that movement.
    It is not proposed here to dilate at length on the
fact, often before insisted upon, of the absence
throughout history of the signs of genius, and, with
a few exceptions, of conspicuous talent, in the
human female, in art, science, literature, invention
or "affairs."  The fact is incontestable, and if it be                                            46

argued that this absence in women, of genius or
even of a high degree of talent, is no proof of the
inferiority of the average woman to the average
man the answer is obvious.
    Apart from conclusive proof, the fact of the
existence in all periods of civilisation, and even
under the higher barbarism, of exceptionally gifted
men, and never of a correspondingly gifted woman,
does undoubtedly afford an indication of inferiority
of the average woman as regards the average man.
From the height of the mountain peaks we may,
other things equal, undoubtedly conclude the
existence of a tableland beneath them in the same                           
tract of country whence they arise.  I have already,                       
in the present chapter, besides elsewhere, referred
to the fallacy that intellectual or other fundamental
inferiority in woman existing at the present day is
traceable to any alleged repression in the past, since
(Weissmann and his denial of transmission of ac-
quired characteristics apart), assuming for the sake
of the argument such repression to have really
attained the extent alleged, and its effects to have
been transmitted to future generations, it is against
all the laws of heredity that such transmission should
have taken place through the female line alone ,
as is contended by the advocates of this theory.
Referring to this point, Herbert Spencer has
expressed the conviction of most scientific thinkers
on the subject when he declares a difference                                                  47

between the mental powers of men and women to
result from "a physiological necessity, and no
amount of culture can obliterate it."   He further
observes (the passages occur in a letter of his to                               
John Stuart Mill) that "the relative deficiency of
the female mind is in just those most complex
faculties, intellectual and moral, which have political
action for their sphere."
    One of the points as regards the inferiority of
women which Feminists are willing and even
eager to concede, and it is the only point of which
this can be said, is that of physical weakness.
The reason why they should be particularly
anxious to emphasise this deficiency in the sex is
not difficult to discern.  It is the only possible
semblance of an argument which can be plausibly
brought forward to justify female privileges in
certain directions.  It does not really do so, but it
is the sole pretext which they can adduce with
any show of reason at all.  Now it may be observed
(1) that the general frailty of woman would militate
coetaris paribus [all other things equal], against                         
their own dogma of the intellectual equality between the
sexes; (2) that this physical weakness is more particularly
a muscular weakness, since constitutionally the organ-
ism of the human female has enormous power of
resistance and resilience, in general, far greater than
that of man (see below, pp. 125-128).  It is a matter
of common observation that the average woman can                                      48

pass through strains and recover in a way few
men can do.  But as we shall have occasion to
revert to these two points at greater length later
on, we refrain from saying more here.
    How then, after consideration, shall we judge of
the Feminist thesis, affirmed and reaffirmed, insisted
upon by so many as an incontrovertible axiom, that
woman is the equal, intellectually and morally, if not
physically, of man?  Surely that it has all the characteristics
of a true dogma.  Its votaries might well say with Tertullian,
credo quia absurdum [ I believe because it is absurd.]                       
It contradicts the whole experience of mankind in
the past.  It is refuted by all impartial observation
in the present.  The facts which undermine it are
seriously denied by none save those committed to
the dogma in question.  Like all dogmas, it is sup-
ported by "bluff."  In this case the '"bluff" is to the
effect that it is the "part, mark, business, lot" (as                       
the Latin grammars of our youth would have had
it) of the "advanced" man who considers himself
up to date, and not "Early Victorian," to regard it
as unchallengeable.  Theological dogmas are backed
up by the bluff of authority, either of scriptures
or of churches.  This dogma of the Feminist cult is
not vouchsafed by the authority of a Communion
of saints but by that of the Communion of advanced
persons up to date.  Unfortunately dogma does not
sit so well upon the community of advanced persons
up to date--who otherwise profess to, and generally                                       49

do, bring the tenets they hold to the bar of
reason and critical test--as it does on a church
or community of saints who suppose themselves
to be individually or collectively in communication
with wisdom from on high.  Be this as it may, the
"advanced man" who would claim to be "up to
date" has to swallow this dogma and digest it as
best he can.  He may secretly, it is true, spew it out
of his mouth, but in public, at least, he must make
a pretence of accepting it without flinching.                                                     50



                        CHAPTER III

            THE ANTI-MAN CRUSADE

WE have already pointed out that Modern
Feminism has two sides or aspects.  The first
formulates definite political, juridical and economic
demands on the grounds of justice, equity, equality
and so forth, as general principles; the second does
not formulate in so many words definite demands
as general principles, but seems to exploit the
traditional notions of chivalry based on male sex
sentiment, in favour of according women special
privileges on the ground of their sex, in the
law, and still more in the administration of the
law.  For the sake of brevity we call the first
Political Feminism, for, although its demands are
not confined to the political sphere, it is first
and foremost a political movement, and its typical
claim at the present time, the Franchise, is a
purely political one; and the second Sentimental
Feminism, inasmuch as it commonly does not profess
to be based on any general principle whatever,
whether of equity or otherwise, but relies ex-
clusively on the traditional and conventional                                                    51

sex sentiment of Man towards Woman.  It may
be here premised that most Political Feminists,
however much they may refuse to admit it, are
at heart also Sentimental Feminists.  Sentimental
Feminists, on the other hand, are not invariably
Political Feminists, although the majority of them
undoubtedly are so to a greater or lesser extent.
Logically, as we shall have occasion to insist upon
later on, the principles professedly at the root of
Political Feminism are in flagrant contradiction
with any that can justify Sentimental Feminism.
    Now both the orders of Feminism referred to
have been active for more than a generation past
in fomenting a crusade against the male sex--an
Anti-Man Crusade.  Their efforts have been largely
successful owing to a fact to which attention has,
perhaps, not enough been called.  In the case of
other classes, or bodies of persons, having com-
munity of interests this common interest invariably
interprets itself in a sense of class, caste, or race
solidarity.  The class or caste has a certain esprit de
corps in its own interest.  The whole of history
largely turns on the conflict of economic classes
based on a common feeling obtaining between
members of the respective classes; on a small
scale, we see the same thing in the solidarity of a
particular trade or profession.  But it is unnecessary
to do more than call attention here to this funda-
mental sociological law upon which alike the class                                          52

struggles of history, and of modern times, the
patriotism of states from the city-state of the
ancient world to the national state of the modern
world, is based.  Now note the peculiar manner
in which this law manifests itself in the sex question
of the present day.  While Modern Feminism has
succeeded in establishing a powerful sex-solidarity
amongst a large section of women as against
men, there is not only no sex-solidarity of men as
against women, but, on the contrary, the prevalence
of an altogether opposed sentiment.  Men hate their
brother-men in their capacity of male persons.  In any
conflict of interests between a man and a woman,
male public opinion, often in defiance of the most
obvious considerations of equity, sides with the
woman, and glories in doing so.  Here we seem to
have a very flagrant contradiction with, as has
already been said, one of the most fundamental
sociological  laws.  The explanations of the pheno-
mena in question are, of course, ready to hand:--
Tradition of chivalry, feelings, perhaps inherited,
dating possibly back to the prehuman stage of
man's evolution, derived from the competition of
the male with his fellow-male for the possession
of the coveted female, etc.
    These explanations may have a measure of
validity, but I must confess they are to me scarcely
adequate to account for the intense hatred which
the large section of men seem to entertain towards                                          53

their fellow-males in the world of to-day, and
their eagerness to champion the female in the
sex war which the Woman's "sex union," as it
has been termed, has declared of recent years.
Whatever may be the explanation, and I confess
I cannot find one completely satisfactory, the fact
remains.  A Woman's Movement unassisted by
man, still more if opposed energetically by the
public opinion of a solid phalanx of the man-
hood of any country, could not possibly make
any headway.  As it is, we see the legislature,
judges, juries, parsons, specially those of the non-
conformist persuasion, all vie with one another in
denouncing the villainy and baseness of the male
person, and ever devising ways and means to make
his life hard for him.  To these are joined a host of
literary men and journalists of varying degrees of
reputation who contribute their quota to the stream
of anti-manism in the shape of novels, storiettes,
essays, and articles, the design of which is to paint
man as a base, contemptible creature, as at once
a knave and an imbecile, a bird of prey and a
sheep in wolfs clothing, and all as a foil to the
glorious majesty of Womanhood.  There are not
wanting artists who are pressed into this service.
The picture of the Thames Embankment at
night, of the drowned unfortunate with the
angel's face, the lady and gentleman in evening
dress who have just got out of their cab--the lady                                           54

with uplifted hands bending over the dripping
form, and the callous and brutal gentleman turning
aside to light a cigarette--this is a typical
specimen of Feminist didactic art.  By these means,
which have been carried on with increasing ardour
for a couple of generations past, what we may term
the anti-man cultus has been made to flourish and
to bear fruit till we find nowadays all recent legis-
lation affecting the relations between the sexes
carrying its impress, and the whole of the judiciary
and magistracy acting as its priests and ministrants.
    On the subject of Anti-man legislation, I have
already written at length elsewhere,^l but for the
sake of completeness I state the case briefly
here. (1) The marriage laws of England to-day
are a monument of Feminist sex partiality.
If  I may be excused the paradox, the parti-
ality of the marriage laws begins with the
law relating to breach of promise, which, as is
well known, enables a woman to punish a man
vindictively for refusing to marry her after having
once engaged himself to her.  I ought to add, and
this, oftentimes, however good his grounds may be
for doing so.  Should the woman commit perjury,
in these cases, she is never prosecuted for the                               

¹ Cf.  Fortnightly Review , November 1911, "A Creature of
Privilege," also a pamphlet (collaboration) entitled "The
Legal Subjection of Men."  Twentieth Century Press, reprinted
by New Age Press, 1908.                                                                                    55

offence.  Although the law of breach of promise
exists also for the man, it is well known to be
totally ineffective and practically a dead letter.
It should be remarked that, however gross the
misrepresentations or undue influences on the part
of the woman may have been to induce the man
to marry her, they do not cause her to lose her
right to compensation.  As, for instance, where an
experienced woman of the world of thirty or forty
entraps a boy scarcely out of his teens.  (2) Again,
according to the law of England, the right to
maintenance [support] accrues solely to the woman.                 
Formerly this privilege was made dependent on her
cohabitation with the man and generally decent
behaviour to him.  Now even these limitations
cease to be operative, while the man is liable to
imprisonment and confiscation of any property he
may have.  A wife is now at full liberty to leave
her husband, while she retains her right to get
her husband sent to gaol if he refuses to maintain
her--to put the matter shortly, the law imposes
upon the wife no legally enforceable duties what-
ever towards her husband.  The one thing which
it will enforce with iron vigour is the wife's right of
maintenance against her husband.  In the case of
a man of the well-to-do classes, the man's property
is confiscated by the law in favour of his wife.  In
the case of a working man the law compels her
husband to do corvée [unpaid work] for her, as the                                     56

feudal serf had to do for his lord.  The wife, on
the other hand, however wealthy, is not compelled
to give a farthing towards the support of her
husband, even though disabled by sickness or by
accident; the single exception in the latter case
being should he become chargeable to the parish,
in which case the wife would have to pay the
authorities a pauper's rate for his maintenance.
In a word, a wife has complete possession and
control over any property she may possess, as well
as over her earnings; the husband, on the other
hand, is liable to confiscation of capitalised property
or earnings at the behest of the law courts in
favour of his wife.  A wife may even make her
husband bankrupt on the ground of money she
alleges that she lent him; a husband, on the other
hand, has no claim against his wife for any money
advanced, since a husband is supposed to give, and
not to lend , his wife money, or other valuables.
(3) The law affords the wife a right to commit torts
against third parties--e.g. libels and slanders--
the husband alone being responsible, and this rule
applies even although the wife is living apart from
her husband, who is wholly without knowledge
of her misdeeds.  With the exception of murder,
a wife is held by the law to be guiltless of practic-
ally any crime committed in the presence of her
husband.  (4) No man can obtain a legal separation
or divorce from his wife (save under the Licensing                                          57

Act of 1902, a Police Court separation for habitual
drunkenness alone) without a costly process in the
High Court.  Every wife can obtain, if not a
divorce, at least a legal separation, by going
whining to the nearest police court, for a few
shillings, which her husband, of course, has to pay.  
The latter, it is needless to say, is mulcted [fined]                           
in alimony at the "discretion of the Court."  This
"discretion" is very often of a queer character
for the luckless husband.  Thus, a working man
earning only twenty shillings a week may easily
find himself in the position of having to pay from
seven to ten shillings a week to a shrew out of
his wages.
    In cases where a wife proceeds to file a
petition for divorce, the way is once more smoothed
for her by the law, at the husband's expense.
He has to advance her money to enable her to
fight him.  Should the case come on for hearing
the husband finds the scale still more weighted
against him; every slander of his wife is assumed
to be true until he has proved its falsity, the
slightest act or a word during a moment of
irritation, even a long time back, being twisted
into what is termed "legal cruelty," even though
such has been provoked by a long course of ill
treatment and neglect on the part of the wife.
The husband and his witnesses can be indicted
for perjury for the slightest exaggeration or                                                     58

inaccuracy in their statements, while the most
calculated falsity in the evidence of the wife and
her witnesses is passed over.  Not the grossest
allegation on the part of the wife against the
husband, even though proved in court to be false,
is sufficient ground for the husband to refuse to
take her back again, or from preventing the court
from confiscating his property if he resists doing
so.  Knowledge of the unfairness of the court
to the husband, as all lawyers are aware, prevents
a large number of men from defending divorce
actions brought by their wives.  A point should
here be mentioned as regards the action of a
husband for damages against the seducer of his
wife.  Such damages obviously belong to the
husband as compensation for his destroyed home
life.  Now these damages our modern judges in
their feminist zeal have converted into a fund for
endowing the adulteress, depriving the husband
of any compensation whatever for the wrong done
him.  He may not touch the income derived from
the money awarded him by the jury, which is
handed over by the court to his divorced wife.
It would take us too long to go through all the
privileges, direct and indirect, conferred by statute
or created by the rulings of judges and the practice
of the courts, in favour of the wife against the
husband.  It is the more unnecessary to go into
them here as they may be found in detail with                                                 59

illustrative cases in the aforesaid pamphlet in which
I collaborated, entitled "The Legal Subjection
of Men" (mentioned in the footnote to p. 55).
    At this point it may be well to say a word on
the one rule of the divorce law which Feminists
are perennially trotting out as a proof of the
shocking injustice of the marriage law to women:
that to obtain her divorce the woman has to prove
cruelty in addition to adultery against her husband,
while in the case of the husband it is sufficient
to prove adultery alone.  Now to make of this
rule a grievance for the woman is, I submit,
evidence of the destitution of the Feminist case.
In default of any real injustice pressing on
the woman the Feminist is constrained to make
as much capital as possible out of the merest
semblance of a grievance he can lay his hand on.
The reasons for this distinction which the law
draws between the husband and the wife, it is
obvious enough, are perfectly well grounded.  It
is based mainly on the simple fact that while
a woman by her adultery may foist upon her
husband a bastard which he will be compelled
by law to support as his own child, in the
husband's case of having an illegitimate child the
wife and her property are not affected.  Now in
a society such as ours is, based upon private
property-holding, it is only natural, I submit, that
the law should take account of this fact.  But not                                             60

only is this rule of law almost certainly doomed
to repeal in the near future, but in even the present
day, while it still nominally exists, it is practically
a dead letter in the divorce court, since any trivial
act of which the wife chooses to complain is
strained by the court into evidence of cruelty in
the legal and technical sense.  As the matter stands,
the practical effect of the rule is a much greater
injustice to the husband than to the wife, since the
former often finds himself convicted of "cruelty"
which is virtually nothing at all, in order that the
wife's petition may be granted, and which is often
made the excuse by Feminist judges for depriving
the husband of the custody of his children.  Mis-
conduct on the wife's part, or neglect of husband
and children, does not weigh with the court which
will not on that ground grant relief to the husband
from his obligation for maintenance, etc.  On the
other hand, neglect of the wife by the husband
is made a ground for judicial separation with the
usual consequences--alimony, etc.  "Thus," as it
has been put, "between the upper and the nether
millstone, cruelty on the one hand, neglect on the
other, the unhappy husband can be legally ground
to pieces, whether he does anything or whether he
does nothing."  Personal violence on the part of
the husband is severely punished; on the part of
wife she will be let off with impunity.  Even
if she should in an extreme case be imprisoned, the                                         61

husband, if a poor man, on her release will be
compelled to take her back to live with him.  The
case came under the notice of the writer a few
years ago in which a humane magistrate was
constrained to let off a woman who had nearly
murdered a husband on the condition of her
graciously consenting to a separation, but she had
presumably still to be supported by her victim.
    The decision in the notorious Jackson case
precluded the husband from compelling his wife
to obey an order of the court for the restitution
of conjugal rights.  The persistent Feminist tendency
of all case-law is illustrated by a decision of the
House of Lords in 1894 in reference to the law
of Scotland constituting desertion for four years
a ground ipso facto for a divorce with the right
of remarriage.  Here divorce was refused to a man
whose wife had left him for four years and taken
her child with her.  The Law Lords justified their
own interpretation of the law on the ground that
the man did not really want her to come back.
But inasmuch as this plea can be started in every
case where it cannot be proved that the husband
had absolutely grovelled before his wife, imploring
her to return, and possibly even then--since the
sincerity even of this grovelling might conceivably
be called in question--it is clear that the decision
practically rendered this old Scottish law inoperative
for the husband.                                                                                             62

    As regards the offence of bigamy, for which a
man commonly receives a heavy sentence of penal
servitude, I think I may venture to state, without
risking contradiction, that no woman during recent
years has been imprisoned for this offence.  The
statute law, while conferring distinct privileges
upon married women as to the control of their
property, and for trading separately and apart from
their husbands, renders them exempt from the
ordinary liabilities incurred by a male trader as
regards proceedings under the Debtors Acts and
the Bankruptcy Law.  See Acts of 1822 (45 & 46
Vict. c. 75); 1893 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 63), and
cases Scott v. Morley, 57 L.J.R.Q.B. 43. L.R. 20
Q.B.D.  In re Hannah Lines exparte Lester C.A.
(1893), 2. 2. B. 113.
    In the case of Lady Bateman v. Faber and others
reported in Chancery Appeal Cases (1898 Law
Reports) the Master of the Rolls (Sir N. Lindley)
is reported to have said: "The authorities showed
that a married woman could not by hook or by
crook--even by her own fraud--deprive herself
of restraint upon anticipation.  He would say
nothing as to the policy of the law, but it had been
affirmed by the Married Woman's Property Act"
(the Act of 1882 above referred to) "and the
result was that a married woman could play fast
and loose to an extent to which no other person
could." ( N.B. --Presumably a male person.)                                                    63

    It has indeed been held, to such a length does
the law extend its protection and privileges to the
female, that even the concealment by a wife from
the husband at the time of marriage that she was
then pregnant by another man was no ground for
declaring the marriage null and void.
    The above may be taken as a fair all-round,
although by no means an exhaustive, statement of
the present one-sided condition of the civil law
as regards the relation of husband and wife.  We
will now pass on to the consideration of the
relative incidence of the criminal law on the two
sexes.  We will begin with the crime of murder.
The law of murder is still ostensibly the same for
both sexes, but in effect the application of its
provisions in the two cases is markedly different.
As, however, these differences lie, as just stated,
not in the law itself but rather in its administration,
we can only give in this place, where we are
dealing with the principles of law rather than
with their application, a general formula of the
mode in which the administration of the law of
murder proceeds, which, briefly stated, is as follows:
The evidence even to secure conviction in the case
of a woman must be many times stronger than
that which would suffice to hang a man.  Should a
conviction be obtained, the death penalty, though
pronounced, is not given effect to, the female
prisoner being almost invariably reprieved.  In                                                64

most cases where there is conviction at all, it is
for manslaughter and not for murder, when a
light or almost nominal sentence is passed.  Cases
confirming what is here said will be given later
on.  There is one point, however, to be observed
here, and that is the crushing incidence of the law
of libel.  This means that no case of any woman,
however notoriously guilty on the evidence, can
be quoted, after she has been acquitted by a
Feminist jury, as the law holds such to be innocent
and provides them with "a remedy" in a libel
action.  Now, seeing that most women accused of
murder are acquitted irrespective of the evidence,
it is clear that the writer is fatally handicapped
so far as confirmation of his thesis by cases is
concerned.
    Women are to all intents and purposes allowed
to harass men, when they conceive they have a
grievance, at their own sweet will, the magistrate
usually telling their victim that he cannot interfere.
In the opposite case, that of a man harassing a
woman, the latter has invariably to find sureties
for his future good behaviour, or else go to gaol.
    One of the most infamous enactments indicative
of Feminist sex bias is the Criminal Law Amend-
ment Act of 1886.  The Act itself was led up to
with the usual effect by an unscrupulous newspaper
agitation in the Feminist and Puritan interest,
designed to create a panic in the public mind,                                                 65

under the influence of which legislation of this
description can generally be rushed through Parlia-
ment.  The reckless disregard of the commonest
principles of justice and common-sense of this
abominable statute may be seen in the shameless sex
privilege it accords the female in the matter of
seduction.  Under its provisions a boy of fourteen
years can be prosecuted and sent to gaol for an
offence to which he has been instigated by a girl just
under sixteen years, whom the law, of course, on the
basis of the aforesaid sex privilege, holds guiltless.
The outrageous infamy of this provision is especi-
ally apparent when we consider the greater
precocity of the average girl as compared with
the average boy of this age.
    We come now to the latest piece of Anti-man
legislation, the so-called White Slave Trade Act of
1912 (Criminal Law Amendment Act 1912, 2 & 3
Geo. V. c. 20).  This statute was, as usual,
rushed through the legislature on the wave of
factitious public excitement organised for the
purpose, and backed up by the usual faked state-
ments and exaggerated allegations, the whole
matter being three parts bogus and deliberate
lying.  The alleged dangers of the unprotected
female were, for the object of the agitation, pur-
posely exaggerated in the proverbial proportion of
the mountain to the molehill.  But as regards many
of those most eager in promoting this piece of                                                 66

Anti-man legislation, there were probably special
psychological reasons to account for their attitude.
The special features of the Bill, the Act in question,
are (1) increased powers given to the police in
the matter of arrest on suspicion, and (2) the
flogging clauses.
    Up till now the flogging of garrotters [stranglers]
was justified against opponents, by its upholders,
on the ground of the peculiarly brutal nature of the
offence of highway robbery with violence.  It
should be noted that in the Act in question no
such excuse can apply, for it is appointed to be
indicted for offences which, whatever else they
may be, do not in their nature involve violence,
and hence which cannot be described as brutal
in the ordinary sense of the term.  The Anti-man
nature of the whole measure, as of the agitation
itself which preceded it, is conclusively evidenced
by the fact that while it is well known that the
number of women gaining a living by "procura-                       
tion" [pimping] is much greater than the number of
men engaged therein, comparatively little vituperation
was heard against the female delinquents in the
matter, and certainly none of the vitriolic ferocity
that was poured out upon the men alleged to
participate in the traffic.  A corresponding distinc-
tion was represented in the measure itself by t