Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/180

 in as regarded the treatment of the two sexes in such questions. When this justly deahng knife was now apphed to the cord, the cord snapped, and the offender was dropped out, all his later respectabilities and religious tendencies and his conditional penitence notwithstanding. There were not wanting those who at the time thought all this to be hard measure. It was so indeed; for the parties in question were, in fact and of purpose, dealt with as hardly, well-nigh, as had previously been their victims of the other sex.

A characteristic incident occurred in the course of this great social resanitation of the clubs. This was no less than a most cordial acknowledgment from the President of the United National Trades Unions of that time, on behalf of countless parents and families, directly interested for sisters' and daughters' well-being. The president, at the same time, took the opportunity of remarking, that certain previous exhortations to temperance amongst the working classes, made in admittedly good and friendly spirit by the clubs to the unions, and not altogether disregarded by the latter at the time, would have been very much more weighty and appreciative had they come after, instead of before, the exemplary procedure in which the clubs were then engaged.

Trade unions for the working-woman was already a feature of the nineteenth century, as were also ser-