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173 to intellectual power, to enlightened philanthropy, those inestimable prizes, those irresistible encouragements, which they formerly reserved for the valour of the warrior alone. Let another seek the ridiculous side of this interference of woman in the new life of the age. I can only see its serious and touching side. Oh! if woman would but cast on political abjectness that poignant contempt with which she formerly withered military cowardice if she had for him who traffics in a vote, for him who betrays a trust, for him who deserts the cause of truth and justice, some of that mortal irony with which, in other times, she would have overwhelmed the felon knight who had abandoned the lists or purchased his life at the price of his honour, our conflict could not offer that spectacle of demoralisation and of baseness which saddens elevated hearts, jealous of the glory and dignity of their country!

"And yet there exist men, devoted of heart, of powerful intelligence, but who, at the sight of intrigue everywhere triumphant, surround themselves with a veil of reserve and of pride. One sees them giving way to envious mediocrity, extinguishing themselves in a mournful agony, discouraged and discontented. Oh! it is for the heart of woman to understand these chosen natures. If the most disgusting baseness has falsified all the springs of our institutions; if a base cupidity, not content to reign without a rival, with greater effrontery erects itself into a system; if an atmosphere of lead weighs down our social life, perhaps the the cause is to be sought in the fact, that woman has not yet taken possession of the mission which Providence has assigned to her."

During the year, the executive council of the League had been busily but noiselessly engaged. No fewer than 763 petitions, with 175,840 signatures, had been sent to the Commons, and 22, with 18,003 signatures to the Lords. An active correspondence had been opened with every borough where there was any probability of influencing the return of free-trade members a million and a quarter of hand-bills and tracts had been distributed, and 20,000 of "The Anti-Corn-Law Almanack;" 330,000 copies of The Anti-Corn-Law Circular had been circulated application had been made to the clergy, and to all the corporations and all the poor-law guardians in the kingdom, to join in the movement and invitations to form anti-corn-law associations had been sent far and wide. The lecturers,