disgrace upon the guilty; but an injured husband may now, in a petition either for judicial separation, or dissolution of marriage, or in a petition limited to such object only, claim damages from any person on the ground of his having committed adultery with his wife, in the same manner as in an action for criminal conversation; and the court has also power to order the adulterer to pay the whole or any part of the costs of the proceedings.

A sentence for judicial separation (which shall have the effect of a divorce a mensâ et thoro under the old law, and such other legal effect as is given by the act) may be also obtained, either by the husband or wife, on the ground of adultery, or cruelty, or desertion without cause for two years and upwards.

Petitions for restitution of conjugal rights, or judicial separation, may be made either to the court itself, or to a judge of assize at the assizes held for the county in which the husband or wife resides, or last resided together; but petitions for the dissolution of marriage, or sentences for nullity of marriage, can alone be dealt with by three or more judges of the court sitting at Westminster. The court also has power to order alimony to a wife, or to her trustees, and to make decrees as to the custody of the children of the marriage.

The wife, in case of a judicial separation, is by the new law, both as to the property which she may acquire, or which may at any subsequent time devolve upon her, and also in respect of the power to sue or be sued, now considered a femme sole (or single woman). Nor is the least important feature of the act that which enables a wife, deserted by her husband, at any time after such desertion, if resident within the metropolitan district, to apply to a police magistrate, or if resident in the country, to justices in petty sessions, or in either case to the court itself, for an order to protect any money or property she may acquire by her own lawful industry, and the property which she may become possessed of after such desertion, against her husband or his creditors, or any person claiming under "him," and such magistrates, justices, or court, if satisfied of the fact of such desertion, and that the same was without reasonable cause, and that the wife is maintaining herself by her own industry, or property, may move and give to the wife an order protecting her earnings and property acquired since the commencement of such desertion, from her husband and all creditors, and persons claiming under him; and such earnings and property shall belong to the wife as if she were a femme sole.

This order of protection to the property of the wife must within ten days thereafter be registered in the County Court, within whose jurisdiction the wife resides; and the husband, and any creditor, or any person claiming under him, may apply for its discharge. Provided also that if such persons shall seize, or continue to hold any property of the wife, after notice given of such order, they shall be liable at the suit of the wife (which she is by the act

empowered to bring) to restore the specific property, and also for a sum equal to double the value of the property so held or seized after such notice; and if any such order of protection be made, the wife shall, during the continuance thereof, be and be declared to have been during such desertion of her, in the like position in all respects with regard to property and contracts, and sueing and being sued, as she would be under the new act if she obtained a decree of judicial separation; that is, she would be liable for her own acts and contracts; her property being subject to her own, but not to the debts of her husband.

Among the numerous cases which have already claimed protection under this clause, the Times' of April 9th, 1858, reports one before Mr. D'Eyncourt, where the applicant met with success. Annexed to this report is the following observation, to which we desire to call the attention of our readers :

"The order was therefore made as desired, but it appears in the course of these cases that, though a remedy is afforded to the wife, whose property is seized and sold after the granting of the magisterial protecting order, by the husband who has ill-used and deserted her and her children, or any creditor of, or other person claiming under the husband,' who shall restore the specific property, and also pay a sum equal to double the value of such property, yet that, instead of a summary power being vested in the wife of giving the husband or person acting under his directions into the custody of a constable, to be punished summarily by a magistrate for what is virtually little other than a robbery upon a helpless woman, she must, to get what compensation is here awarded her, 'institute a suit (which she is hereby empowered to bring)' against such persons, and this constitutes rather a hopeless remedy for a penniless woman against a husband who cannot be found, and who has not been seen by her either before or after he has so deprived her of what little property she may have acquired by her own exertions."

This is surely one of those oversights which will ever occur in legislation, and which needs only to be eliminated to meet with redress. How greatly the protection this clause affords was needed is shown daily in the police reports of the metropolis, and in the reports of the provincial press. It can never have been intended virtually to nullify it, by rendering contempt of such protection on the part of the husband, "or any creditor of, or other person claiming under the husband," preventible or punishable only by means of the expensive process of an action at law. We invite the attention of our legal friends to this important point.

XXV.-EXTRACTS FROM THE LAWS OF LIFE, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PHYSICAL EDUCATION OF GIRLS.

BY ELIZABETH BLACKWELL, M.D.

"OBSERVE how in all ages our ancestors have endeavoured to express their ideals by beautiful forms, through which the spirit might freely shine; they saw more clearly than we do, that the condition of our present life is the union of body and soul, that we cannot live as disembodied spirits, but must necessarily express ourselves through a material frame—that our aspirations are often limited by the body, and that the condition of our material organization reacts most powerfully upon the soul. They saw that weakness, ugliness, and disease, deaden our power, cripple all our activities, and render our lives discordant-therefore they figured their gods and goddesses and heroes, under forms of surpassing beauty; their bodies were well proportioned, the features regular; every muscle had a living development, every sense a vigorous organ; and all these forms, though perfect, were infinitely varied-the beauty of Juno was not the beauty of Diana-the perfection of Jupiter differed from that of Apollo—it was not the beauty of material form as an end, that they aimed to reach, but the grand truth that the loftiest qualities of the soul find their highest expression in corresponding beauty of form."

"When we read in the chronicles of past ages, the many feats recorded of physical power,-of a body that knew neither weakness nor fatigue, an iron strength of endurance and action-it seems to us like the echo of a distant age with which we have nothing to do. We cannot realize the strength of the beautiful Cymburga, wife of the stalwart Duke Ernest of Austria, who could crack nuts with her fingers, and drive a nail into a wall with her hand, as far as others with a hammer. When we hear of the lofty Brinhilda, who bound her offending lover with her girdle, and slung him to a bearn of the ceiling, we do not recognize that the myth which represents the wild strong life of that distant age has a lesson for us, and we should ponder the question whether in our modern days we have not lost much stout virtue, with the failure of our bodily powers. The breakfast feats of good Queen Bess and her maids, on rounds of beef and mugs of ale, seem incredible in our poor dyspeptic days-what would not our delicate ladies and gentlemen give for that vigorous life, which could spring out of bed at five o'clock, full of energetic activity, digest and enjoy plain substantial fare, and pursue every occupation of the day, with the power of robust health ?"

"And if the tone of the muscles is destroyed, if they are weak, relaxed, unfit for duty-the tone of all the organs will be destroyed in corresponding degree. Thus from the neglect of exercise during youth, we have this formidable result to the body, a weakness of the whole muscular system. Now the time would fail me to trace out all the bodily evils, all the diseases that inevitably spring from this condition of weakness. The crooked spines, with other vices of growth, may be directly traced to it, and its injurious influence on the functions of adult life, I shall soon have occasion to dwell upon.

"Let me recapitulate the special evils which will thus arise to the whole material frame when the muscular system is not called into exercise, and developed as its structure and important functions demand. I have called your attention, 1st. To the congestion of the various organs, and consequent impairment of their functions. 2nd. To the stagnation of the venous circulation, from the absence of muscular stimulus. 3rd. To the deficiency of heat and electricity, which are produced by muscular contraction. 4th. To the irritability and undue excitement of the nervous system, which must arise when the motor nerves are not called into action. 5th. To the loss of tone in the whole body, from the weakness of the muscular system. Now, all these evils, more and more formidable as they will seem, the more you reflect upon them in detail, are still minor evils, because they do not refer to the great object of the muscular system, which is to furnish a varied and powerful instrument for the expression of the soul.

"We need muscles that are strong and prompt to do our will, that can run and walk in doors and out of doors, and convey us from place to place, as duty or pleasure calls us, not only without fatigue, but with the feeling of cheerful energy; we need strong arms that can cradle a healthy child, and toss it crowing in the air, and backs that will not break under the burden of household cares, a frame that is not exhausted and weakened by the round of daily duties. We want faces that can smile and light up with every noble sentiment, and not be rigidly set to vacancy, or wrinkled by care, faces that will greet the stranger with a welcome that he can feel; that will show to the loved ones the rich affections of the heart; that can lighten with indignation, or glow with honest approbation: we need faces that know how to move and express true feelings, instead of remaining like an icy barrier, through which the warm feelings of the heart strive in vain to break. We need developed muscles that shall make the human body really a divine image, a perfect form rendering all dress graceful, and not requiring to be patched and filled up and weighed down with clumsy contrivances for hiding its deformities. Bodies that can move in dignity, in grace, in airy lightness, or conscious strength, bodies erect and firm, energetic and active-bodies that are truly sovereign in their presence, the expressions of a sovereign nature. Such are the bodies that we need, prompt to do and to feel, truly our own. And such nature intends us to have. In order to give us so perfect and beautiful an instrument, the muscular frame was constructed, so rich in every way, so obedient to the mind. Exercise, then, the means by which the muscular system may be developed, assumes its true position, as of primary importance during the period of youth. It is the grand necessity which everything else should aid. We have seen how the organic involuntary life needs our aid but indirectly, but this education of exercise is immediately under our control, and demands imperatively our direction. Let us consider what we have to do in this important matter.

"The young infant is almost withdrawn from our control. Nature says to us, 'stand by, and watch my work!' This delicate life will admit of no trifling, no neglect, no experiment; but watch the infant how it kicks, and cries, and works, not arms and legs alone, but every part of its body in pain or pleasure. We sit and smile, or silently weep; but the baby puts every muscle in motion; if it is pained or angry, it will scream with its whole life, and contract every little fibre, and strain and wriggle in infantile rage, to the intense alarm of its mother. We may leave it to nature for exercise; it will be well attended to, and carried through an efficient course, reaching every muscle of the body, that we should find difficult to imitate by art."

XXVI.-NOTICES OF BOOKS.

1.-Recollections of the Last Four Popes, and of Rome in their Times. By H. E. Cardinal Wiseman. Hurst and Blackett.

THIS book may be considered as a section of the great ecclesiastical history of Italy, or rather as memoirs pour servir, to be consulted hereafter by the professed historians of the Romish Church. It is an able and amusing volume, composed without much regard to precision or order, and, if we may venture to say as much, in parts a little too efflorescent. Nothing can be more agreeable than the style, except where it becomes ambitious. We have a profusion of anecdote,—a variety of information on many points. It tells us pleasantly about the distinguished author himself-about Napoleon -about the visitors to the Vatican-about the banditti-about English, French, and other cardinals—and, finally, about the four eminent men who are supposed to form the substance of the book.

The Recollections' of Cardinal Wiseman are not to be canvassed and criticised strictly, like an ordinary historic record; but are to be taken cum grano, as the view of a disciple or proselyte gazing through a rose-coloured medium at the features of his beloved teachers. Were the volume wanting in this natural prejudice, we confess that we should feel disposed to examine its merits more carefully; but Paul at the feet of Gamaliel should only drink in the wisdom flowing from his tongue, and should not carp at word or manner, like one who is a stranger to his excellence.

The book is written, as we have suggested, without any aim at order, and we do not like it the less on that account. Whether it be that we are of that desultory class that delight chiefly in the spontaneous, unconfined efforts of the human mind, we do not know; but we have received more pleasure from these irregular tracings of the author's memory, than if he had sate down with more malicious preparation, and given us, in precise chronological reckoning, the sum and elaborate calculations of his judgment.

We like a loving record: it tells well for the writer-it tells well for the person respecting whom it is written. Apart from a mere vulgar display of cleverness or scholastic acquirement (which after all is of little value, except in the common market), what is there so truly estimable as the "Words of a Believer,”- as that history and expression of belief which makes us familiar with the good actions and thoughts, the gratitude and affections of men?

"It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."

It teaches us respect and love;-sometimes it teaches us justice. And should it excite, as it probably may, some aspiring within us, it is