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 husband has a vote, and to every husband whose wife has one, in addition to the enfranchisement of spinster and widow householders. The consequence of such pusillanimity had been that the enfranchisement of women was restricted to a class who, as might have been foreseen, were likely to favour reaction; most of them had reached a time of life when their habits of thought were fixed, and these having been cast in the mould of the immemorial slavery and degradation of womanhood, there was no hope of much re-casting. So the prospect of having to throw off their slough at the bidding of their advanced and strong-minded sisters did not please these weakervessels and dollymopses, and they began to combine against the women’s rights movement, both socially and politically. Unfortunately their advantage of numbers and of the power of the purse made it easy enough to work mischief against the interests of their own sex, and the new Parliament returned by the General Election of 189— could be trusted to legislate so that the social piggery might slumber undisturbed on its old dirty straw. It proved, however, that this could not be done so as to clog only the obnoxious Women’s Rights movement, leaving home and foreign policy in general to develop healthily.

As already remarked, the Jingoes and the Shillyshallies, although they had no political love for each other, saw that in these days they had no chance against the Thoroughgoers, except by merging their differences. Accordingly it was agreed between them that the new Cabinet should form what was technically called a Bungling Coalition. Under these auspices the political atmosphere was growing close, stifled, charged with malarious elements requiring a storm to clear them away. The country, much to the surprise of resident foreigners who were not disposed to agree with their compatriots in regarding the British power as a