realistic account of a demonstration by an ardent advocate of woman,
the chief item of which was that, on the approach of a burly policeman
to seize her, she--if the pronouns be not too definite in their
sex--fell upon her back and adroitly received the constabulary "wind"
upon her upraised foot, thereby working much havoc. No one would assert
that the woman's movement is responsible for the production of such
people; no reasonable person would assert that their adherence condemns
it; but we are rightly entitled to be concerned lest the rising
generation of womanhood be misled by such disgusting examples.

Nothing will be said which militates for a moment against the
possibility that a woman may be womanly and yet in her later years, when
so many women combine their best health and vigour with experience and
wisdom, might replace many hundredweight of male legislators upon the
benches of the House of Commons, to the immense advantage of the nation.
If our present purpose were medical in the ordinary sense, the reader
would come to a chapter on the climacteric, dealing with the nervous and
other risks and disabilities of that period, and notably including a
warning as to the importance of attending promptly to certain local
symptoms which may possibly herald grave disease. An abundance of books
on such subjects is to be had, and my purpose is not to add to their
number. Yet the climacteric has a special interest for us because the
special case of those women who have passed it is constantly ignored in
our discussions of the woman question--which is not exclusively
concerned with the destiny of girls and the claims of feminine
adolescence to the vote. The work of Lord Lister, and the advances of
obstetrics and gynecology, largely dependent thereon, are increasing the
naturally large number of women at these later ages--naturally large
because women live longer than men. At this stage the whole case is
changed. The eugenic criterion no longer applies. But though the woman
is past motherhood, she is still a woman, and by no means past
foster-motherhood. Though her psychological characters are somewhat
modified, it is recorded by my old friend and teacher, Dr. Clouston,
that never yet has he found the climacteric to damage a woman's natural
love for children: the maternal instinct will not be destroyed. See,
then, what a valuable being we have here; none the less so because, as
has been said, she now begins to enjoy, in many