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They arc by law his children. lie alone has any legal rights over them. Not one act can she do towards or in relation to them, except by delega­tion from him. Even after he is dead she is not their legal guardian, unless lie by will has made her so. He could even send them away from her, and deprive her of the means of seeing or corresponding with them, until this power was in some degree restricted by Serjeant Talfourds Act. This is her legal state. And from this state she has no means of Avithdrawing herself. If she leaves her husband, she can take nothing with her, neither her children nor anything -which is rightfully her own. If he chooses, he can compel her to return, by law, or by physical force; or he may content himself with seizing for his own use anything which she may earn, or which may be given to her by her relations. It is only legal separation by a decree of a court of justice, which entitles her to live apart, without being forced back into the custody of an exasperated jaileror which empowers her to apply any earnings to her own use, without fear that a man whom perhaps she has not seen for twenty years -will pounce upon her some day and carry all off. This legal separation, until lately, the courts of justice would only give at an expense which made it inacces­sible to any one out of the higher ranks. Even now it is only given in cases of desertion, or of