ve away any
superfluous constraint, and she had found both of them unassailable,
though sociable and agreeable, her conversation, which chiefly concerned
herself, became as utterly devoid of decency as her life had been, so
that no incident of rehearsed romance of herself lost any of its
piquancy by unnecessary assumption of modesty in its narration.

CHAPTER XX.

A Female Spiritualist's Ideas of Political and Social
Economy.-- The Weaknesses of Judges.-- Legal Acumen of the
Adventuress.-- An unfriendly Move.-- Harcout attacked.--
Lilly Nettleton and the Rev. Mr. Bland again together.-- A
Whirlwind.

One evening, after Mrs. Winslow had had a very busy day with her
spiritualistic customers, which had become quite unusual, she showed
herself to be more than ordinarily communicative, undoubtedly on account
of the spirits which had kept her such close company, and at once
started in upon an edifying explanation of her political views, and
confided to Bristol and Fox, as illustrative of her high political
influence, that certain officers of the Government only held their lease
of office through her leniency.

From this she verged into political and social economy, stating her
earnest belief to be that every man should have a military education,
and that if they were found to be unfit physically to withstand the
rigors of a military life, they should be immediately condemned to
death, and thus be summarily disposed of. And so, too, with women. There
should be appointed a capable examining board, and wherever a woman was
found wanting in physical ability to meet every demand made upon her by
her affinities through life, she should also be instantly deprived of
existence. She maintained that there should be a continuous and eternal
natural selection of the best of these mental and physical conditions,
just the same as the stock-raiser bred and inbred the finest animals to
secure a still finer type, and that all persons, male or female, failing
to reach a certain fit standard of perfection in this regard, should be
condemned to death. She would have no marriage save that sanctioned by
the supreme love of one eternal moment; and shamelessly claimed that
passion was the real base of all love, and that, consequently, it was
but a farce on either justice or purity that men and women should be by
law condemned to lives of miserable companionship. In this connection
she held that not half the me