the law seems especially to have
selected as its prey. Upon the death of the husband, the law
takes possession of the whole of the estate. The smallest items
of property must be turned out for valuation, to be handled by
strangers. The clothes that the deceased had worn, the chair in
which he sat, the bed on which he died, all these sacred
memorials of the dead, must undergo the cold scrutiny of officers
of the law. The widow is counted but as an alien, and an
incumbrance on the estate, the bulk of which is designed for
other hands. She is to have doled out to her, like a pauper, by
paltry sixes, the furniture of her own kitchen. "One table, six
chairs, six knives and forks, six plates, six tea-cups and
saucers, one sugar-dish, one milk-pail, one tea-pot, and _twelve_
spoons!" All this munificent provision for, perhaps, a family of
only a dozen-persons. Think of it, ye widows, and learn to be
grateful for man's provident care of you in your hour of need!

Then comes the sale of "the effects of the deceased," as they are
called; and amid the fullness and freshness of her grief, the
widow is compelled to see sold into the hands of strangers, amid
the coarse jokes and levity of a public auction, articles to her
beyond all price, and around which so many tender memories cling.
Experience alone can fully teach the torture of this fiery
ordeal. But this is only the beginning of her sorrows. If she
have children, the estate is considered to belong to them, while
she is but an "incumbrance" upon it. She is to have the rents and
profits of one-third part of the real estate her lifetime, which,
to the vast majority of cases, is so unproductive as to compel
her to leave that spot, endeared to her by so many tender
ties--the home of her early love, the birthplace of her
children--for a cheaper and less comfortable home. But, bereaved
of her husband and robbed of her property,

"The law hath yet another hold on her."

Following up the insulting and injurious assumption of her
incompetency and untrustworthiness, implied in the denial of her
right of suffrage, the guardianship of her children is taken from
her. Her daughter, at the age of twelve, and her son, at fifteen,
are to go through the mockery of choosing for themselves a
_competent_ guardian--a proceeding calculated to destroy the
beautiful trust and confidence in the wisdom and fitness of the
mother to govern and direct them, so natural and so essential to
the