Price.] 324 [January 



family. It is now the law of Pennsylvania, that whensoever any 

 husband, from drunkenness, profligacy, or other cause, shall neglect 

 or refuse to provide for his wife, or shall desert her, she shall have 

 all the rights and privileges of a /erne sole trader; that is, shall have 

 ability, as a single woman, to make contracts and carry on business; 

 and her property, real and personal, shall be subject to her free and 

 absolute disposal during life, or by will, without any liability to be 

 interfered with, or obtained by such husband, and in case of her in- 

 testacy, it shall go to her next of kin, as if he were previously dead. 

 The mother is substituted to his former rights over their children, 

 and she is to assume his duties; place them in employment and receive 

 their earnings, and bind them apprentices; provided she be worthy 

 of the trust, and the Court shall decree her this independent status; 

 otherwise the (^ourt is to appoint a guardian for the children. And 

 no such husband, who shall have refused to provide for his children, 

 for the year preceding his death, shall have the right to appoint for 

 them a testamentary guardian. (Act of May 4, 1855.) Again, it 

 had been tlie hardship of a deserted wife, that her own earnings might 

 be recovered by her worthless husband; and he might himself be, or 

 prompt another to be, her defamer, and yet she could maintain no 

 action for redress, without its being in his name and subject to his 

 control; for remedy whereof it is enacted, that the deserted wife, in 

 case of defamation, or suit for her earnings, may maintain the action ; 

 and if her husband be the defendant in an action of defamation, she 

 may sue in the name of a next friend. (Act April 11, 185(3.) Thus 

 the unworthy husband and father may forfeit his high position, and 

 the worthy wife replace him in it. This righteous legislation came 

 only after ages and centuries of injustice and wrong, and so far as 

 known to the writer, only yet exists in one of these States. 



It is the unhappiness of some persons, married and unmarried, to 

 have no children on whom to bestow their care and a^ffections, while 

 others have more than they can conveniently provide for and educate; 

 and there are often orphans without relatives to provide for them. It is 

 provided by a section of the Act of 1855, that persons, by certain 

 judicial proceedings, may adopt a child or children, and give them 

 their names and all the rights of heirs, and the parties become, with 

 reciprocal claims and rights, subject to all the duties of parents and 

 child. This law may often fill a void in the fluuily needful to its 

 happiness, tend to equalize the blessings of life and fortune, and 

 prove of inestimable advantage to orphans and other children desti- 

 tute of provision. The natural parental and maternal love unblessed 



