for human hopes! the husband dies,
and without a will, and the stricken widow, at one fell blow,
loses the companion of her youth, her house and home, and half
the little sum she had in bank. For the law, which takes no
cognizance of widows left with twelve children and not one cent,
instantly spies out this widow, takes account of her effects, and
announces to her the startling intelligence that but one-third of
the house and lot, and one-half the personal property, are hers.
The law has other favorites with whom she must share the
hard-earned savings of years. In this dark hour of grief, the
coarse minions of the law gather round the widow's hearth-stone,
and, in the name of justice, outrage all natural sense of right;
mock at the sacredness of human love, and with cold familiarity
proceed to place a moneyed value on the old arm-chair, in which,
but a few brief hours since, she closed the eyes that had ever
beamed on her with kindness and affection; on the solemn clock in
the corner, that told the hour he passed away; on every garment
with which his form and presence were associated, and on every
article of comfort and convenience that the house contained, even
down to the knives and forks and spoons--and the widow saw it
all--and when the work was done, she gathered up what the law
allowed her and went forth to seek another home! This is the
much-talked-of widow's dower. Behold the magnanimity of the law
in allowing the widow to retain a life interest in one-third the
landed estate, and one-half the personal property of her husband,
and taking the lion's share to itself! Had she died first, the
house and land would all have been the husband's still. No one
would have dared to intrude upon the privacy of his home, or to
molest him in his sacred retreat of sorrow. How, I ask you, can
that be called justice, which makes such a distinction as this
between man and woman?

By management, economy, and industry, our widow is able, in a few
years, to redeem her house and home. But the law never loses
sight of the purse, no matter how low in the scale of being its
owner may be. It sends its officers round every year to gather in
the harvest for the public crib, and no widow who owns a piece of
land two feet square ever escapes this reckoning. Our wid