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tlieir brutality ; and towards whom tlic excess of dependence inspires tlieir mean and savage natures, not witli a generous forbearance, and a point of lionour to bebave well to one whose lot in life is trusted entirely to their kindness, but on the contrary with a notion that the law lias delivered her to them as tlieir thing, to be used at their pleasure, and that they are not expected to practise the consideration towards her which is required from them towards everybody else. The law, which till lately .left even these atrocious extremes of domestic oppression practically unpunished, has within these few years made some feeble attempts to repress them. But its attempts have done little, and cannot he expected to do much, because it is contrary to reason and experience to suppose that there can be any real check to brutality, consistent with leaving the victim still in the power of the executioner. Until a conviction for personal violence, or at all events a repetition of it after a first conviction, entitles the woman ipso facto to a divorce, or at least to a judicial separation, the attempt to repress these “ aggravated assaults” by legal penalties will break down for want of a prosecutor, or for want of a witness.
When we consider how vast is the number of men, in any great country, who are little higher than brutes, and that this never prevents them