started up (he is an old fogy, who does not keep up with the
times) and said, "She is a party out of sight in law; in law, she
is one of the invisibles"; when, to my great surprise and joy
(for I had lost track of it myself) the lady's lawyer pulled out
from his pocket a slip from a newspaper, which contained the
noble law of the 20th of March, 1860, and that law says that "any
married woman may bring and maintain an action in her own name
for damages against any person or body corporate for any injury
to her person or character." That obviated the difficulty. The
law was handed to the opposite lawyer, and when he had read it
through, with a frown on his face, he said, ill-naturedly, "If
your honor please, it is so; they have emancipated the women from
all obligations to their husbands." Now, just look at that old
presumption of the law, that a married woman could not tell the
truth, even in a matter about which she knew better than any one
else, on the ground that she was a _feme covert_, and was
_nil_--nothing!

That was one case. Another was that of a woman who made a bitter
complaint against her husband, saying that he had become a
drunkard, and was squandering her estate, and threatened to take
their two children away. I signed the writ, and the husband and
two children were brought in. He addressed the Court in his own
defence, and I have not heard such eloquence in court for many a
year. He told how he loved his wife, how devoted he was, and
that it would ruin him for ever to be separated from her. He said
to his lawyer, "Do you keep still; I can talk better than you
can." "Now," said he to the Court, "I adjure you, by the feelings
of a father and a man, restore to me my wife and children! Do not
disgrace me in this way!" All present were deeply affected, and
it seemed as if he had carried the people with him, whether he
had the Court or not. His speech sounded admirably; but I am
sorry to say, that when his wife's turn came, she had not spoken
five minutes before she had taken the wind entirely out of his
sails. "I was married," she said, "eleven years ago, and not a
fortnight after, he beat me, and left his bruises upon me. He has
pawned all my clothes, everything I have in the house has been
pledged, and I am left destitute; a