inate love of power, does continually
set nature and nature's laws at open defiance. The father may
apprentice his child, bind him out to a trade, without the
mother's consent--yea, in direct opposition to her most earnest
entreaties, prayers and tears.

He may apprentice his son to a gamester or rum-seller, and thus
cancel his debts of _honor_. By the abuse of this absolute power,
he may bind his daughter to the owner of a brothel, and, by the
degradation of his child, supply his daily wants: and such
things, gentlemen, have been done in our very midst. Moreover,
the father, about to die, may bind out all his children wherever
and to whomsoever he may see fit, and thus, in fact, will away
the guardianship of all his children from the mother. The Revised
Statutes of New York provide that "every father, whether of full
age or a minor, of a child to be born, or of any living child
under the age of twenty-one years, and unmarried, may by his deed
or last will, duly executed, dispose of the custody and tuition
of such child during its minority, or for any less time, to any
person or persons, in possession or remainder." 2 R. S., page
150, sec. 1. Thus, by your laws, the child is the absolute
property of the father, wholly at his disposal in life or at
death.

In case of separation, the law gives the children to the father;
no matter what his character or condition. At this very time we
can point you to noble, virtuous, well-educated mothers in this
State, who have abandoned their husbands for their profligacy and
confirmed drunkenness. All these have been robbed of their
children, who are in the custody of the husband, under the care
of his relatives, whilst the mothers are permitted to see them
but at stated intervals. But, said one of these mothers, with a
grandeur of attitude and manner worthy the noble Roman matron in
the palmiest days of that republic, I would rather never see my
child again, than be the medium to hand down the low animal
nature of its father, to stamp degradation on the brow of another
innocent being. It is enough that one child of his shall call me
mother.

If you are far-sighted statesmen, and do wisely judge of the
interests of this commonwealth, you will so shape your future
laws as to encourage woman to ta