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THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN.

“ You are mv true and honorable wife,

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart.”

Here is true, consistent, reasonable love. It does not worship the ground she walks upon. It does not desire to kiss the glove she wears. He, the Shakespeare husband lover, despises the ground, and would throw the glove into the fire. But Othello, in that moment of fury, would willingly die, and Brutus would give his life for his wife. This love in the married life, as represented by Shakespeare, is the real. It has grown out of companionship and friendship, and passion only plays a super’s part, says his lines and departs. “ My husband is my friend,” is the grandest exclamation of Shakespeare’s married love. The great and noble friendship between husband and wife which, like sun rays, serve to reveal the black and bloody canvas of human his­tory i become fewer and fewer as the progress of the age teaches us the art of a greater selfishness, and teaches us to laugh where once we wept, and never weep at all. Petruchio had the right which was accorded husbands in those days to resort to the Pmglish custom of selling wives whenever considered shrews, but the thought never once suggested itself to him, for he loved Katharina, and endeavored to let her see herself in an exaggerated form, and thus become disgusted with such conduct. But as late as April 7, 1832, at Carlisle, England, occurred an example of wife selling. One Mrs. Thompson was eloquently shuffled off at auction, her husband being the auctioneer, and this is his speech:

. “ Gentleman, I have to offer to your notice my wife, Mary Ann Thompson, other­

wise Williams, whom I mean to sell to the highest bidder. Gentlemen, it is her wish as well as mine to part forever. She has been to me only a born serpent. I took her for the comfort and the good of my house, but she became my tormenter, a domes­tic curse. Gentlemen, I speak truth when I say may God deliver us from troublesome wives and frolicsome women. Avoid them as you would a mad-dog, a roaring lion, a loaded pistol, cholera, Mt. Etna, or any other pestilential thing in nature. Now I have told you the dark side of my wife and shown you her faults and failings. I will intro­duce the bright side and explain her qualifications and goodness. She can read novels and milk cows. She can laugh and weep with the same ease that you take a glass of ale. Indeed, gentlemen, she reminds me of what the poet said of women:

“‘Heaven gave to women the peculiar grace To laugh, to weep, to cheat the human race.’

“ She can make butter and scold the maid, and she can sing Moore’s melodies, and make her frill and cap. She can not make rum, but she is a good judge of its quality from long experience. I therefore offer her, with all her perfections and imperfections, for the sum of fifty shillings.”

It is marvelous that there could have been found any man with courage and valor enough to buy, but such there was by name Henry Mears, who, after an hours hag­gling, offered twenty shillings and a Newfoundland dog. They then parted in perfect good temper, Mears and the shrew and Mr. Thompson and the dog. Petruchio could have exercised his right also to the use of the bridle or brank, which being put upon the offender by order of the magistrate, and fastened with a padlock behind the ear, she is lead in it around the town by an officer to her shame, nor is it taken off until the woman begins to show external signs of humiliation. The character of Petruchio is not so uncommon, and the world is full of Katharinas. Katharina’s closing speech is at once elegant, eloquent, poetical and true. It is worth all volumes on household virtues.

What kind of a man is our modern Petruchio? A sensible fellow with practical ideas to suit his wife, who fancies that men are in danger in their turn of losing some of their rights. He is like the majority of young men in this country, well-meaning, industrious, hoping to make a moderate fortune because a good citizen, husband and father, and go through life creditably and honorably. He says: “What is my wife to