ppled a tribe and sometimes even threatened
its extinction. Such forcible transfers of ownership must have added
greatly to the hardness of the woman's lot, for by such means many
mothers were permanently separated from their offspring.

The weight of probability and of evidence seems to leave little room
for doubt that the early inhabitants of Britain were cannibals. While
there was no scarcity of game as a rule, it is quite likely that these
savage peoples, as those of the same grade of culture in all times,
when experiencing the delirium of a victory over their enemies, put
to death by cruel tortures the unhappy captives that fell into their
hands, and then, to complete their triumph, roasted and ate the flesh
of the slain. Aside from the deductive probability of the case,
human bones dating back to this period have been found along with the
remains of weapons and in association with the ashes of camp fires;
and in such cases the bones have invariably been broken, in order to
extract from them their marrow. The story of the battle, the tortures,
and the feast is eloquently suggested by the silent memorials that
have been preserved through the lapse of ages. As we picture the
far-off scene of human savagery, the figure of woman flits through the
lights and shadows of the horrid orgy: for she it was who prepared the
gruesome repast; it was in defence of her, perhaps, that the fierce
battle was fought; some of her own near of kin, it may be, she has
been forced to prepare for the unnatural appetites of her enemies.
Possibilities! but read in the light of the times, they become
probabilities, and probabilities furnish much of the data of history.

The tragedy of woman's life is again brought before us with startling
vividness when we look upon the skull of a woman of this remote race,
as it lies in a cave, with a little stone hatchet beside it, where
it was ruthlessly cast after the commission of a bloody crime; for in
that skull is a jagged hole into which fits the blade of the hatchet.
The scene, sketched from a remote past, might have been an occurrence
of yesterday, so close to us is it brought by the silent witnesses;
these and similar relics disclose the sad lot of woman in that savage
society.

There are fuller evidences of the state of domestic resources among
the women of the cave-dwellers than with those of the river-drift. The
remains show, too, a greater variety and adaptation; for while there
is no clear