speaking, she has not herself committed the act at all, being out of her senses at the time.  With every bone in her body aching still after her delivery, she has to take the little creature’s life and hide away the body—­think what an effort of will is demanded here!  Naturally, we all wish all children to live; we are distressed at the thought that any should be exterminated in such a way.  But it is the fault of society that it is so; the fault of a hopeless, merciless, scandalmongering, mischievous, and evil-minded society, ever on the watch to crush an unmarried mother by every means in its power!

“But—­even after such treatment at the hands of society, the persecuted mother can rise up again.  It often happens that these girls, after one false step of the sort, are led by that very fact to develop their best and noblest qualities.  Let the court inquire of the superintendents at refuge homes, where unmarried mothers and their children are received, if this is not the case.  And experience has shown that it is just such girls who have—­whom society has forced to kill their own children, that make the best nurses.  Surely that was a matter for any and all to think seriously about?

“Then there is another side of the question.  Why is the man to go free?  The mother found guilty of infanticide is thrust into prison and tortured, but the father, the seducer, he is never touched.  Yet being as he is the cause of the child’s existence, he is a party to the crime; his share in it, indeed, is greater than the mother’s; had it not been for him, there would have been no crime.  Then why should he be acquitted?  Because the laws are made by men.  There is the answer.  The enormity of such man-made laws cries of itself to Heaven for intervention.  And there can be no help for us women till we are allowed a say in the elections, and in the making of laws, ourselves.

“But,” said Fru Heyerdahl, “if this is the terrible fate that is meted out to the guilty—­or, let us say, the more clearly guilty—­unmarried mother who has killed her child, what of the innocent one who is merely suspected of the crime, and has not committed it?  What reparation does society offer to her?  None at all!  I can testify that I know the girl here accused; have known her since she was a child; she has been in my service, and her father is my husband’s assistant.  We women venture to think and feel directly in opposition to men’s accusations and persecution; we dare to have our own opinion.  The girl there has been arrested, deprived of her liberty, on suspicion of having in the first place concealed the birth of a child, and further of having killed the child so born.  I have no doubt in my own mind that she is not guilty of either—­the court will itself arrive at this self-evident conclusion.  Concealment of birth—­the child was born in the middle of the day.  True, the mother is alone at the time—­but who could have been with her in any case?  The