In England the House of Commons rejected parliamentary suffrage for women.  Incensed at the repeated chicanery of politicians who alternately made and evaded their promises, a group of suffragettes known as the “militants” resorted to open violence.  When arrested for damaging property, they went on a “hunger strike,” refusing all nourishment.  This greatly embarrassed the government, which in 1913 devised the so-called “Cat and Mouse Act,” whereby those who are in desperate straits through their refusal to eat are released temporarily and conditionally, but can be rearrested summarily for failure to comply with the terms of their parole.  The weakness in the attitude of the militant suffragettes is their senseless destruction of all kinds of property and the constant danger to which they subject innocent people by their outrages.  If they would confine themselves to making life unpleasant for those who have so often broken their pledges, they could stand on surer ground.  The English are commonly regarded as an orderly people, especially by themselves.  Nevertheless, it is true that hardly any great reform has been achieved in England without violence.  The men of England did not secure the abolition of the “rotten-borough” system and extensive manhood suffrage until, in 1831, they smashed the windows of the Duke of Wellington’s house, burned the castle of the Duke of Newcastle, and destroyed the Bishop’s palace at Bristol.  In 1839 at Newport twenty chartists were shot in an attempt to seize the town; they were attempting to secure reforms like the abolition of property qualifications for members of Parliament.  The English obtained the permanent tenure of their “immemorial rights” only by beheading one king and banishing another.  In our own country, the Boston Tea Party was a typical “militant outrage,” generally regarded as a fine piece of patriotism.  If the tradition of England is such that violence must be a preliminary to all final persuasion, perhaps censure of the militants can find some mitigation in that fact.  Some things move very slowly in England.  In 1909 a commission was appointed to consider reform in divorce.  Under the English law a husband can secure a divorce for infidelity, but a woman must, in addition to adultery, prove aggravated cruelty.  This is humorously called “British fair play.”  In November, 1912, the majority of the commission recommended that this inequality be removed and that the sexes be placed on an equal footing; and that in addition to infidelity, now the only cause for divorce allowed, complete separation be also granted for desertion for three years, incurable insanity, and incurable habitual drunkenness.  The majority, nine commissioners, found that the present stringent restrictions and costliness of divorce are productive of immorality and illicit relations, particularly among the poorer classes.  The majority report was opposed by the three minority members, the Archbishop of York, Sir William Anson, and Sir Lewis Dibdin, representing the Established Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.  Thus far, Parliament has not yet acted and the old law is still in force.