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LONDON LEGAL LETTER. London, October, 1902. IT may be of interest to some aspiring women lawyers in America to know that there is one country in the world where their services are urgently needed and where, if once admitted to practice, they need fear no competition from " mere men." Among the many legal subjects which have been dis cussed in the newspapers and the various conferences during the long vacation none has exceeded in interest that of certain women in India who are known as " Perdahmshins," or women who " sit in seclusion." Every Mo hammedan woman is necessarily a Perdahmshin, and in the Northwest provinces of India none but the least of the servants are exempt from the strict observances of the caste. These women are required to sit in such seclusion that no man can see them and they can see no man. They can have no intercourse with the outside world nor transact any business which requires the in tervention of one of the male sex except from behind a curtain, while the man must have his eyes heavily bandaged. Many women-of them own large properties in their own right, while others are entitled to the enjoyment of life estates. Some in fact are very rich and have authority over money and lands of great value and extent. All their business must be transacted through agents and servants, with whom they may converse, but whom they never have seen and can never see. The servants likewise have no knowledge of the identity of their mis tresses other than that which can be gathered from the sound of their voices. It is unnec essary to say that in these circumstances a principal is at the mercy of her dishonest agent. An easy door is opened to his frauds, and few are able to withstand the temptation,

especially as the injured individual has no way of seeking redress except through the wrong-doer. The courts of India have been obliged to recognize the evil, for their records abound with instances of peculation and ruin, and have in many instances made the Perdahmshins wards of Chancery in order to throw the protection of the law around them. The Privy Council has by an order directed that all of the class shall be treated as persons suffering from disabilities. But even these provisions are ineffective to prevent these women as a class from being made the victims of their dishonest agents. The cura tor who travels over the country to examine into his ward's affairs must be blindfolded before he can interview her, and she has no opportunity whatever of seeing his face from her seat behind the curtain. He is not likely to inspire her with confidence, for she cannot be sure that he is not an impostor or attended by her enemies, while he, in turn, has no means of ascertaining if the woman to whom he is speaking is in fact the person she pur ports to be or, if she is the right person, if her statements are made of her own free-will and without coercion. Although subject to this seclusion, these women are in many cases well educated and thoroughly intelli gent, and it is from letters which they have been able to write in private and to procure to be delivered to the judges of the courts that in some instances injustice and whole sale robbery has been prevented, and the injustice of the whole system has come to light. It is now proposed that women lawyers be admitted to practice in all of the Indian Courts in whose jurisdiction this caste pre vails, and that all Perdahmshins be acquainted