Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/32

 could be prolonged to twenty-five hours he had not a spare moment for further duty. Society would gain in political steadiness, he would say, by extending the franchise to woman. Society would certainly gain moral strength by woman tending her own sex in those delicate medical emergencies, where the intrusion of the other sex is never without sacrifice, and has hitherto been tolerated only as a supposed inevitable necessity.

Yellowly had equally pronounced views on other social questions. He was a strong advocate for every one getting married. If each young man, he would say, were early engaged to each young woman, with purpose of marriage as soon as the respective conditions allowed, society would be, socially and morally, at its very best. Any apprehended difficulties about large families and over population weighed with him as nothing in the scales against the improved morality, and the consequent economy and general vigour of life.

The present aspect of society was in terrible contrast with such a picture. But much of this evil condition was even now somewhat remediable. For instance, he blamed our authorities for their laxity as to the wide prevalence of all kinds of begging, with tramping, gipsying, and vagabondage in general, by which such a huge mass of people were allowed to lapse into idle, useless, and at last, in many cases, criminal life. He considered it a most serious wrong