behind, no cause appearing, and had returned, and somewhat clandestinely obtained possession of the child.  The Judge, following Blackstone’s views of husband’s rights, remanded the infant to the custody of the father.  He thought the law required it, and perhaps it did; but if mothers had had a voice, either in making or in administering the law, I think the result would have been different.  The distress of the mother on being thus separated from her child can be better imagined than described.  The separation proved a final one, as in less than a year neither father nor mother had any child on earth to love or care for.  Whether the loss to the little one of a mother’s love and watchfulness had any effect upon the result, cannot, of course, be known.

The state of the law a short time since, in other respects, in regard to the rights of married women, shows what kind of security had been provided for them by their assumed representatives.  Prior to 1848, all the personal property of every woman on marriage became the absolute property of the husband—­the use of all her real estate became his during coverture, and on the birth of a living child, it became his during his life.  He could squander it in dissipation or bestow it upon harlots, and the wife could not touch or interfere with it.  Prior to 1860, the husband could by will take the custody of his infant children away from the surviving mother, and give it to whom he pleased—­and he could in like manner dispose of the control of the children’s property, after his death, during their minority, without the mother’s consent.

In most of these respects the state of the law has undergone great changes within the last 25 years.  The property, real and personal, which a woman possesses before marriage, and such as may be given to her during coverture, remains her own, and is free from the control of her husband.

If a married woman is slandered she can prosecute in her own name the slanderer, and recover to her own use damages for the injury.

The mother now has an equal claim with the father to the custody of their minor children, and in case of controversy on the subject, courts may award the custody to either in their discretion.

The husband cannot now by will effectually appoint a guardian for his infant children without the consent of the mother, if living.

These are certainly great ameliorations of the law; but how have they been produced?  Mainly as the result of the exertions of a few heroic women, one of the foremost of whom is her who stands arraigned as a criminal before this Court to-day.  For a thousand years the absurdities and cruelties to which I have alluded have been embedded in the common law, and in the statute books, and men have not touched them, and would not until the end of time, had they not been goaded to it by the persistent efforts of the noble women to whom I have alluded.