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The Review of Reviews. 



WOMAN ON THE BRINK OF VICTORY. 



Mrs. Henry Fawcett begins the Englishwoman 

 for January with a very earnest paper on the opening 

 year. 1912, she says, offers the best chance of success 

 in the House of Commons the Suffragists have ever 

 had. A Woman Suffrage Amendment, carried as an 

 addition to the Governujent Reform Bill, is within 

 measurable distance. " It is," she adds, " with feelings 

 almost of awe that the great host of women who 

 have worked so many decades earnestly and per- 

 sistently for women's enfranchisement come within 

 sight of their goal." She passes in review the sup- 

 porters of the woman's movement in all parties, and 

 declares failure, " humanly speaking, impossible." 

 She ventures on the temerity of stating that " we are 

 told that while freedom will be given to members of 

 the Government and of the party to vote as they 

 please, the influence of the Whips' office will be 

 exerted on behalf of women's suffrage." 



She is not astonished at Sir Edward Grey implying 

 that adult suffrage for both sexes commands no 

 majority either in the House or in the country. 

 " English politics would have to undergo an absolute 

 revolution before it is even conceivable that the House 

 of Commons should at one blow put four million men 

 and eleven million women on the Parliamentary 

 register. The greatest number ever enfranchised in 

 any preceding Reform Bill was about two million in 

 1884." She therefore thinks that something on more 

 moderate lines must be aimed at. 



The signs point to this being an amendment on 

 what is called the Norway lines. " Its necessary 

 modification for this country would probably be house- 

 hold suffrage for women, including married women ; 

 this would mean the woman householder as defined in 

 the Conciliation Bill, with the addition of the female 

 head of the household in the case of married women." 

 The new thing would be the recognition of the wife 

 as joint occupier or joint householder. The house- 

 hold qualification would appeal with special strength, 

 she thinks, to the conservative mind ; and no amend- 

 ment can be carried which does not attract a fair 

 amount of Conservative support. Mrs. Fawcett 

 earnestly pleads that nothing should be done to 

 alienate support or turn friends into enemies. 



The Kaiser as a Friend of Peace. 



One lately said of the iMiiperor, " He cares for his 

 people ; he wants their welfare. His grandfather and 

 father had seen war, and they instilled into him a 

 wholesome knowledge of the hell it is. .And besides 

 he is a real Christian. He will have no war unless 

 his people and the honour of his country demand it." 

 But the ambitious military men and the younger 

 patriots with hot blood in their veins and with heads 

 (lerhaps none too cool think him and his advisers 

 weak and shortsighted.— Fbof. Jencks, in the 

 American Rex'iew of Reviews. 



WESLEY'S SEVEN SISTERS. 



The manifold tragedy of the Wesley family i 

 brought to light in the January Englishwoman by 

 Mabel R. Brailsford. There were seven girls and thre«j 

 boys in the Epworth Rectory. One after another the 

 three boys were sent away to boarding-school anc 

 later on to college, while the seven girls were iefi 

 behind to pick up such knowledge as they coulc 

 from their parents and to do the work of domestic 

 servants. The girls were all beautiful, most of then 

 intellectual, one at least brilliantly clever, bu^ 

 there was no career open to them but that o 

 marriage. 



Emilia, the eldest, lost her heart to a man namet 

 Leybourne, but was forced to break off the engage 

 ment. Then, with rare initiative, she entered a 

 school in Lincoln as a governess. She married neai 

 fifty, and was then once more plunged into povert> 

 and dependence on her mother. 



The second daughter, Sukey, threw herself away 

 upon a man who was her plague and a constant 

 affliction to the family. Finally she broke off al 

 relations with him and fled to London, to the protec- 

 tion of her brothers. 



Molly, the third da'ughter, was deformed from birth 

 and the butt of jokes from strangers and her owr 

 brothers and sisters. A charity school boy taken tc 

 help Mr. Wesley senior in getting out a book became 

 tutor, curate, and finally husband of Molly. But h 

 was not faithful to her, and actually told Molly of hi; 

 new amour. She died at the end of a year, with hei 

 new-born child. 



Hetty, the fourth, was the cleverest and most beau 

 tiful. She fell in love and ran oft" with an unprinciplet 

 lawyer. Ruined and disgraced, she returned, anc 

 then was married to a plumber of Lincoln, a mai 

 totally uneducated, of low tastes, a drunkard aiK 

 a profligate. 



Anne, the fifth daughter, married a neighbour! hl 

 land surveyor, against whom not a word has btei 

 said. 



The sixth, Patty, became engaged to a fellow- 

 student of John Wesley, who betrothed himsel 

 shortly after to Kezia, also. Finally he marric 

 Patty. 



Kezia, thus deceived, gave herself up to an anxiotn 

 and self-centred cultivation of religion and preparatioi 

 for early death. 



Miss Brailsford recalls these painful facts as a proo 

 of the unequal basis on which society was founded 

 Marriage being the one career open to women, .m' 

 man believed himstlf to be the benefactor of tii 

 woman whom he honoured with his proposals. Johi 

 Wesley wrote in 1761 : "Dear Patty, — I have oftei 

 thought it strange that so few of my relations s'n'.H 

 be of any use to me in the work of God." 1 'm) 

 Hetty and Kezia opened their hearts to the nev 

 teaching 



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