Page:Remarkable life and death of Agnes Webster.pdf/4

4 allow well dressed men to set the pattern, and we cry out for the whip when men in fustian act up to the example. If the young lady who flung herself into the water at Southampton the other day had been insulted or outraged by a working man—if her arm had been bruised or her face cut, the revenge of the law had been terrible. But she was only betrayed and deserted by a gentleman; her life and fame were only blasted; and the gentleman sailed away to India with flying colours and a gallant reputation. Working men live among people who talk freely of such coarse facts; they note the facts, and take up the manly tone. They have not the finesse to seduce or the art to betray; but they gratify their passion with bludgeon blows, or win consent to their lust by rude force. We are too delicate to talk on these incidents, and too refined to apply to the evil direct legislation. We gracefully veil the sins of the seducers; we do not talk of them in the drawing room, nor compile statistics of them in the office; but their existence is the current cant in any meeting of young men. Working men imitate our actions and follow out our practices in their own way. It would be wrong to say that a full remedy for brutality towards woman would be a just punishment of all kinds of outrages upon them committed