British freewomen

CHAPTER IX.

Chapter 914,729 wordsPublic domain

OTHER WOMEN.

“All sisters are _co-parceners_ one with another. The elder-born has no privilege over the younger.”

IF in these pages I have not noted the great majority of women who never have had, under any condition, any privilege of any kind, it is not because I have forgotten them. The needle-workers, whose toil is doubled and whose pay is halved by self-enriching sweaters; the labouring women, toiling in unfavourable conditions alongside of men now privileged with voices powerful enough to control their earnings; the tempted women, whose temptations are made strong and dangerous for them through false social and economic views; the poor married women, who may be happy only according to the degree that their husbands are better than the Law allows them to be; the poor mother to whom Slave Law is still applied in regard to their children. But the principles of Method lead us to take one step at a time; the doctrines of Logic prevent us confusing two ideas; and the Precedents of the Law Courts teach us that “where claims are improperly consolidated they cannot be heard” (_see_ Bennet _v._ Bromfit, Queen’s Bench, 1868).

To lose the possible reward of any effort by misplacing it, is, to say the least of it, unwise.

Men have placed all women in one class now. We are all sisters, and “co-parceners” one with another. They have extended political privileges to all, under conditions very easy to fulfil, except to Aliens, Minors, Lunatics, Criminals, and _Women_. The Aliens may become naturalised, the Minors may attain majority, Lunatics may regain their reason, and when a Criminal has served his time he may become once more a free British Elector. The noblest and the best, the most learned and philanthropic of women, classed with the worst, are reckoned as something lower than the lowest Criminal. He may, combining with others of his class, urge on his narrow, selfish views; they may not enrich the world by advancing the high, generous ideals that lie nearest their hearts. If any women, on any qualification, become enfranchised, the disability of sex-in-itself will be removed, and to all others thereby will be given a ray of hope. It has seemed to me, through following a Psychological study of the springs of human action, that the class most likely to receive Enfranchisement first, is that which formerly had it. Therefore I, with others who would not be immediately concerned in the success of our efforts, join hands in toil to help forward the claims of those who have been British Freewomen, as that section of the community which can claim most on Historical grounds and by Legal Precedents. We hope that they, being given the chance, will help their less fortunate sisters.

We must not forget, that the very Charters, that have so mightily multiplied the legions of _Freemen in Esse_, have likewise increased the number of _Freewomen in Posse_.

When the light increases, so that men can see to read aright, then women may be able “to take up their Freedom too.”

M. Talleyrand Perigord,[24] once Bishop of Autun, observes “that to see one half of the human race excluded by the other, from all participation in Government, is a political phenomenon that on abstract principles it is impossible to explain.” We think the phenomenon very capable of explanation, but the reason is to be found, not in the perfection of human nature, but in its incompleteness.

Footnote 24:

_See_ Dedication of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s “Vindication of the Rights of Women.”

The Romance of the old world was carried on by the “fair women and brave men,” little being said of the _plain women_ and the _weak men_. Civilisation has advanced far enough to recognise the claims of the _weak men_; we want it to go further, and help wisely the cause of the _weak women_. For that we require, reversing the adjectives, armies of “brave women and fair men,” _brave women_ who seek not their lost birthright with futile tears, but with self-sacrificing energies, and heart-inspired sympathies; and _fair men_ who can understand that none lose through another’s gain, and that theirs is not Liberty but License, that use a self-asserted power to the restriction of the rights and privileges of others.

Various tests have been proposed to mark different degrees of Civilisation. I believe that the common-place man of to-day might suggest that the multiplication of Machinery is the most satisfactory index. More thoughtful men would consider a recognition of the first principles of Justice a safer ground. Some of these assert that the position of women is the surest test of the Civilisation of a Country and of a Time. If this be so, Nineteenth Century men must look to their character as posterity will judge it, for the Century is very near its close. They are apt to be judged not by what they have done, but by what they have left undone.

In reality one cause of the existence of so much statutory evil is this, that the majority of men are so much better than the laws—they do not understand their full bearing.

Victor Hugo has said, “Man was the problem of the eighteenth century, Woman is the problem of the nineteenth.” To understand and solve that problem, a totally different set of reasonings must be applied than have hitherto been used by the majority of men. The so-called “Physical Force Argument” is, after all, but the ghost of a Dead Argument raised to scare the timid in the night. It can be valid only in Savage times, when Might makes Right. It is inoperative in Civilisations, where Justice even _pretends_ to decide the rights of men. Even under the “physical force argument,” some women might be free. Many women are stronger than many men; and many women have been known to signalise that strength, not only in disguise as soldiers, or as navvies, but openly fearless and free.[ix.] The courage of Nicholaa de la Haye and Black Agnes of Dunbar; of the Countess of Derby and the Marchioness of Hamilton during the Civil War has been emulated by many others. Some men assert scornfully that women are not fit for privilege or power. To assert a thing is not to prove it. If women are not fit for the Franchise, perhaps it may be made fit for them. It is perfectly certain that they are fitted to enjoy justice and to benefit by freedom. Some sentimentalists say that women are too pliable and delicate to be exposed to the roughnesses of political life. It would destroy their charm. To such objectors I would answer, Look out into the flat meadows where sluggish streamlets wind, and see in the inartistic clumps of pollard-willows an illustration of the manner in which “woman’s nature” has been treated by such men. Though their roots and leaves are the same, though their upward aspirations are permanent, and their vital energies restorative, yet through top-pruning at the will of others, for the use of others, the growth and the ideals of the trees have been marred for ever. Nothing can ever restore to a Pollard-Willow its natural place in the picture-gallery of trees. But its distortion has only been individual, its offspring through freedom may develope into a perfect tree, really sweet and graceful, and not artificially so.

Other sentimentalists say that women are angels, and their purity must not be contaminated by contact with the great outer world of vile realities. They mistake fragile butterflies for God’s angels. These are spirits strong in His strength, whose inward purity gives them power to pass unscathed through external impurity, whose sympathy gives them knowledge and whose presence purifies and refines the moral atmosphere. The more a woman is like an angel, the more is she needed to counsel and to work with men.

That women do not want it, is another futile objection. No classes or masses ever unanimously want saving regeneration of any kind, until the few have made it seem desirable to them. We know that at least a quarter of a million women in this country do want it, and have set their hands to the present great “Appeal to the Members of Parliament” to grant them political freedom for weighty reasons. To refuse that quarter million what the other millions do not ask, is like refusing to the Eagle and the Lark the right to fly, because the Ostrich and the Swan do not care for the exercise.

Others boldly say that this is a man’s world, and in it men must rule. It is true that man has long led in the Song of Life, with words and music written at his will, and woman has but played an Accompaniment. Sometimes in their Duets she has been forced to sing a shrill second, or a piping Bass, in notes that have no meaning when they are sung alone. But he did not see or hear, and she dared not say, that this was not the sole part that she could sing or play. In the many-voiced Concert of the Universe, where harmonious “parts” should combine in balanced perfection, there are constant discords and recurrent “clangs,” because man has misunderstood the Rules of Harmony. The Bass voices are necessary for perfection, but too much Bass becomes monotonous to the listening ear, and overpowering the finer notes, spoils the Conception of the Whole. If there is anything in this Analogy, it is the Woman’s voice that should lead the Melody and express the meaning, and the man’s voice should support her notes and enrich the Harmony. One need not analyse the various other objections. None of them are based on Truth, Justice, Logic, or History.

In my second Chapter I spoke somewhat of women’s privilege as heiresses, but I would like here to add a few words about unprivileged earners.

=Labour is the Basis of Property.=—I do not wish now to analyse all the Economic Theories regarding the relations of Property to Labour, but only the one that touches our question. In olden times Labour was paid in kind. Money is an arbitrary sign of labour, as speech is of thought. Money is an easy medium by which the returns of labour can be transferred, either in purchase of other property or of other labour, or as a free gift or inheritance.

In ancient times fighting was considered a kind of labour, the highest kind. The Service of the King was the most honourable, save that of the Service of the Church. Fighting and praying were alike paid in land, or in coin, and the land or the coin could be inherited by those who neither fought nor prayed. Hard-working traders and farmers also earned coin and land, and sometimes left their gains to idle children. Hence owners have not always been earners. Some writers on National Economy have inveighed against the principle of inheritance. To me it seems natural and right that what a man has produced by labour, he may leave to his descendants, at least, when he does so by old Saxon Law. There has been much virulent denunciation of Landlords, especially in relation to the _unearned increment of property_ in thriving towns. I do not know any however, who have discussed a question, that bears much upon the Argument of this book.

=The Unrecorded Increment of Woman’s Labour.=—Earners are not always owners. Except where a woman brought some fortune at her marriage it has been supposed that her husband “supported her.” But in the majority of respectable middle-class or workmen’s dwellings, this is very far from being the case.

The woman labours as well as her husband. If property is the result of labour, both can be expressed in figures. Let us take a man earning 30s. a week for eight hours’ work a day, and five hours on Saturday, forty-five in all. The payment for each hour is 8d. As the woman spends no time walking to and from her work; as she has no rest on Saturdays or Sundays except through extra work on other days; as she on these other days works very many more hours than her husband, she has bettered the common stock by the amount of ninety hours of work; which taken at half the wage, rises to the same sum, so that the common income should be reckoned at 60s. instead of 30s. But her share being received in kind, it is unrecognised and unrecorded. This may be made clear by supposing that some other person had fulfilled the wife’s duties. In transferring flour into bread she earns what the baker otherwise would gain in the difference between flour and the price of the loaf. In washing and ironing the family linen she earns what the laundress would charge for the same, minus the cost of soap and coals. In carrying a heavy basket from the distant stores, she earns what the local grocer would have done in the difference between wholesale and retail prices; in making clothes for her children out of her own frayed garments, she earns what the draper would have charged for similar material, and what the dressmaker would have required for making it up. If she patches her husband’s clothes, she earns the tailor’s charge. Her daily scrubbing and cooking may be reckoned at charwoman’s wages, and thus, multiplied by the hours of labour, the proportion may come out. Both she and her husband dimly feel that she has saved expenditure, they never realise that she has acquired property.

The spending also must be reckoned. The result of the man’s labour has been translated into coin, a more convenient form in which to pay rent and taxes, the Club-money and direct Shop-purchases for both. Of the common diet the man has the larger and better share. Beyond this he generally has a daily paper, a pipe, and beer. At the lowest estimation these cost 3s. 6d. a week. If he has no vices, there may be 3s. in his pocket at the end of the week, and that 3s. may be put into a Savings Bank in his name, which after years of saving, _by modern_ law, he may will away from his wife and children.

What of her toil, her earnings, her increment of property? It has seemed to vanish, but it has really enriched him. This may easily be seen if, leaving her domestic employments, she goes out to labour as charwoman in the house of others at 2s. 6d. a day of ten hours. She there also receives food. The position then is this. The common house-property is increased by the expenditure on her food being saved. She still saves somewhat to the family in comfort and money by working overtime. Her husband has either to do without some of his comforts or her economies, or spend some hours of his relaxation in home-work. But at the end of the week, there is the visible increment of fifteen shillings. Before 1870 all that belonged legally to the husband, since that time it belongs nominally to the wife. That is the meaning of the Married Women’s Property Bill. A husband should support a wife, but the money she earns she may keep to herself. But it is hard on wives and mothers that their share in the common property should be unrecognised when their toil is continued under the ordinary domestic conditions; but be recognised when circumstances or inclination make it possible for them to seek a visible money reward elsewhere.

We will take another example from a higher rank. Suppose a man has £300 a year, and is left a widower with four young children, he at once feels the diminution of his income, through the increase of his needs. He must have a housekeeper, at a salary, at least, of £25. Her keep costs him another £30. He must find a daily governess to teach the children, and walk with them. Without keep that may cost another £25. He has to pay the dressmaker for making and repairing the children’s clothes, at least £10. He has to pay workmen to hang pictures, put up curtains, to paint the back-garden fence, or enamel the nursery bath; to cover the drawing-room chairs, or patch the dining-room sofa, quite £10 a year. His wife’s whole keep had been saved through greater care in purchasing and managing food, and higher skill in cooking than either his housekeeper or assistant-girl possesses; and the man has not only lost the love and comfort of his wife, but the £100 a year which she indirectly earned for him. He thought his income was £300 and was all his own; he finds it had been really £400, as compared to the present receipts of expenditure, and that the missing £100 had been earned by her. He would have found this out had he allowed her to give music-lessons as she wished to do, a light labour that she loved. Or she might have written that weekly letter to the country paper she was asked to do. She might have earned £100 a year at that, and that money would have been _her own_ to spend in luxury or charity if she pleased, or to have saved up for her children’s future. But then his tradesmen’s bills would have been increased. It is absurd, therefore, to believe that a wife’s earnings are limited to those hours that she takes from her husband’s service and sells to some other employer of labour, who pays her in so much coin of the realm.

But the _partner_ that touches the coin seems always to take the lead. We may see this in the circumstances where the positions are altered, as, for instance, among many fishing communities. There, though the men go out at night and fish, the women not only do their domestic work, but receive the fish, go out and sell it, make the necessary purchases, and “bank” the remainder of the money. The superior intelligence and relative social position of the women in fishing communities has often been noted. I have heard it scornfully said of a fisher-girl, “She marry? Why, she is not able to keep a man!” In this illustrative case, the woman holds the purse, and her share in the family earnings is recognised.

Now, if privilege is based on property, and property is based on labour, how is an industrious woman shut out from the benefits of both? Why must the man only have the earner’s vote? One vivifying revelation of our half-century is the recognition of the nobility of labour. No one has so gracefully expressed it as Mrs. Barret Browning in “Aurora Leigh,” when, urging all to work, she adds:

“Get leave to work; In this world ’tis the best you get at all, For God in cursing, gives us better gifts Than man in benediction.”

But even with her it was too much work for its own sake. It has taken fuller education, even since her time, for women to recognise that it is equally noble and just for them to receive the reward of toil in earning as it is for a man; and to be able to keep or use these earnings as they will. A century ago, men suffered somewhat from the state of things they had themselves initiated. An eldest son that received all the inheritance and privilege had therewith to support the women of his father’s family as well as of his own. It was disgraceful for him as well as for them that they should _earn money_. But they gave him labour, acting as upper servants, butts of ridicule, as the case might be, or blind worshippers when all the outer world had learned to disbelieve in him. Their recreation was the manufacture of useless Berlin-wool monstrosities; or self-sacrificing work in pauperising the poor of the parish, under the misdirection of a callow curate. Higher education was discredited; literary aspiration a shame-faced secret. Miss Austen had to hide her pen and ink and manuscripts by a piece of fancy-work kept handy, lest her world should know and speak its mind of her and her dreadful doings. The only profession open to a lady was matrimony; and the chances of happy matrimony were thereby enormously decreased.

If the dignity of being able to earn money has raised women immensely in social life, their higher education has made this earning possible. Dependent sisters need no longer hang their heads in shame before supporting brothers. If they are not needed in their homes, they may go forth into the world, eat the sweet bread of honest labour, and become individuals.

But the woman is fettered still by the trammels of custom, by the protection accorded to males; false social and economic creeds which teach that man’s work must be paid higher than woman’s, whether it is better done or not; by men’s power of place, which gives them power of veto; by inherited thought-fallacies and linguistic inaccuracies; by the nature of the medium through which things are seen.

Bacon wisely advised men to study all things in the “lumen siccum” or dry light of science, lest vapours arising from the mind should obscure the vision. He also pointed out that “There are four classes of Idols which beset men’s minds. To these for distinction sake I have assigned names—calling the first class Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market-place; the fourth, Idols of the Theatre” (“Novum Organum,” Article xxxix., p. 53; also in lix.). “But the Idols of the Market-place are the most troublesome of all; idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that words react on the understanding.” Is the word “man” a common or masculine term?

After an impartial analysis of the laws regarding women, can men say that they are just? Can they continue to assert that they know better than women do what they need, and wish, and strain after; and if they know, will they _do_ the thing that is necessary? With the best will in the world, which I believe the majority of men have, they do not know how. Only the foot that wears the shoe knows just where it pinches, and feels keenly the need of alteration.

Why must a woman be unable to free herself from an unfaithful husband if his hand is restrained from personal cruelty?

Why may a noble and loving mother have less power over the children she bore, and toiled for, than a selfish, indifferent father, who still “has sacred rights, because he has sacred duties” that he has despised?

Why must strong men inherit their father’s unwilled property before weak women?

Why must a bad workman be paid higher wages than a good workwoman?

Why are all laws in regard to vice notoriously unequal?

Why have labouring men the right injuriously to determine the conditions and opportunities of the labour of women working by their side?

It is because men are represented in Parliament and women are not.

“The House of Commons is as sensitive to the claims of the Represented as the mercury is to the weather.” If women, oppressed by various burdens, wish their will should reach the House, they must be given a voice. The only method by which the needs and wishes of women can be considered duly is by classing them once more among the “represented.” In vain otherwise will they look to their friends in the House to help various Bills they desire to pass, or to restrain other Bills they desire not to pass. It is not their friends they require to affect, it is their opponents. And their opponents can only be converted to the woman’s cause when women become Electors. That Bills affecting the liberties of more than half of the whole population should be left in the hands of “private members,” that they should be left to the chance of a private members’ ballot, that a Machinery Bill, or any other Bill affecting the interests of the smallest class of Electors, should be allowed to “talk out” the limited time allowed for the discussion of a question of such magnitude, shows the peculiar and sinister aspect in which Bills affecting the “unrepresented” can be viewed.

Archimedes of old said that he could move the world if he had but a “place where to stand.” If women want to move their world, to affect its destinies and their own, they too must have a place where to stand, and the place where to stand is the Suffrage.

“I trust the suffrage will be extended on good old English principles, and in conformity with good old English notions of representation” (“Essay on the Constitution,” by Lord Russell).

What these were I have attempted to show.

Apart from the special measures urgently needed on behalf of women, most public measures affect them equally with men.

A woman grocer is as much interested in Sugar Bounties and in Tea-taxes as her male rivals.

A woman housekeeper needs as much to be protected against the imposition of frozen home or foreign meat, at fresh English prices, as does the burdened British farmer.

All women suffer as much in War, and gain as much by Peace as men do.

Noxious trades, impure air, bad drainage, poison women as they do men. Women have as much interest in the character and wisdom of the members of the house as men have, because they also suffer from the consequences of their unwise actions. How, therefore, can anyone say—these things do not concern women?

It would be better for men too, if women were represented. They would then understand the meaning of Justice, and enjoy the return blessings of fair-play. They would discover that in the very difference of women lies one great argument for their being consulted.

If public-spirited women continue to be denied the power of offering their judgment in the consensus of public opinion on political matters, the nation will be the poorer. It will ere long recognise this. But it does not yet.

How can any Assembly be said to be “Representative of the People,” when the best half of the People are not represented there; the best half in numbers, through the working out of the modern doctrine of the Survival of the Fittest; the best half by Statistics, as there are five times as many male criminals as female; the best half, by the position in which God placed woman at the Creation, at the Fall, and the Redemption. If it starts under false pretences how can it do the best possible to itself?

There is a strange suggestive duality even in our physical frame. We have two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet, many other dualities, and two lobes of the brain to control them. If by any cause one lobe of the brain is injured, it is the _other side_ of the body that becomes paralysed, but the whole body suffers with its members. If men persist in using only one eye, they not only see things out of focus, but restrict their range of vision. They can only see things on the near side of them. A Government that only uses the masculine eye, and sees but the masculine side of things, is at best but a _one-eyed_ Government. The builder that only toils with one hand impoverishes himself, and makes meaner the design of the great Architect. The traveller that through some brain-sick fancy imagines one of his feet to be decrepit, can get along but by hops and jerks, or by using crutches made of dead wood, instead of living limbs that make motion graceful, equal, and rapid. Yet thus men do, wondering, meanwhile, that the “times are out of joint.”

Let them apply reason to their time-worn aphorisms, and the scales of justice to their out-worn Customs. Let them look at Humanity as it is, and as it ought to be.

Two comparisons will help them in the review, their comparison with their ancestors in this respect, and their comparison with “the perfect man in Christ Jesus,” and his “perfect Law of Liberty.”

For Revelation has enriched our education. Through much misconstruction and misconception the vision of Creation has been coloured by the prejudice of men.

God made man in His own image, male and female; man has made him altogether male. The Creator said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” His creature asserts, “It is best for us to be alone.” But it never has been good; it is not good now. Only in following out the lines of God’s conception can _man_ (_homo_) remain in the image of God. Early names were all connotative, recording some special quality or association, and the early name of Adam was “Dust,” and the meaning of Eve is “Life.” The Titanic and Earth-born Physical force of which Adam was made the representative, must be united to that which _lives and brings Life_, to make one perfect being. Only through the spiritual and practical union of Man with Woman can society be regenerated. When Woman ate of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, she learned more clearly to distinguish the good from the evil and to choose that good. Therefore, God chose the Woman as His fellow-worker in the scheme of Redemption. As part of the curse of Satan it is part of the primeval blessing of Humanity, that “I will put enmity between thee and the Woman.” The hands that restrict the Woman’s power, and limit her opportunity of fulfilling her mission, are fighting against God’s Will.

The words of God, “Thy desire shall be unto thy husband, and he shall rule over thee,” is a prophecy of man’s wrong and not a statute of man’s right. To understand this we have only to collate the passage with that other in which God speaks to Cain before he slew his brother—“If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted, and if thou doest not well sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

The result of the first “physical force argument” was the death of the “righteous Abel.” The result of the same argument, through centuries of human existence, has been the death-in-life of the Woman whom God opposed to Satan. And the paralysis of the half has affected the whole body Social and Politic.

The Divine and Human are united through the Woman.

It is only by the representative Woman that Christ becomes the “Son of Man.” i

Christ, as His Father did, took women to be His friends and fellow-workers. Women never forsook Him. Woman watched by His cradle and spread the “glad tidings” ere yet He had opened His lips. Fearless women stood by His Cross and saw the last of His life; faithful women went to the Tomb and learned first of His Resurrection.

Through the ages, the contest between Satan and the Woman and between the Seed of Satan and the Seed of the Woman, has been made unduly hard both for Man and Woman, because of the Woman being bound both hand and foot. “The Dragon was wroth with the Woman and went to make war with the Remnant of her Seed which keep the Commandments of God, and have the Testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. xii. 17).

Let her have Freedom and Fair Play. Let her show what, God helping her, she can do, when men cease hindering her in the development of _Herself_. They also will be gainers thereby. It will seem a new Creation when the earlier-born _Freeman_ meets the later-born _Freewoman_ and recognises at last that it was not good for him to have been so long alone. For any Moral Regeneration, or for any Political Stability, men must learn to distinguish Good from Evil, Justice from short-sighted Selfishness, and to see, in the recognition of Woman as a help-meet for them _in all things_, the fulfilment of God’s Will in regard to both.

The Truth shall make you _Free_!

THE END.

_APPENDIX_.

[i.—“Eldest daughters,” page 16.] This custom was not clear among the Normans. In one well-known case at least, the younger sisters were made Abbesses or otherwise disposed of, and the eldest made by the Norman law sole heir. Mabile, eldest daughter of Robert Fitzhaymo, was heir of all his lands, and King Henry I. wished to marry her to his illegitimate son Robert. This she long withstood, giving as her reason that she would not have a man for her husband that had not two names. When the King remedied that by calling his son Fitz Roy, she said, “That is a fair name as long as he shall live, but what of his son and his descendants?” The King then offered to make him Earl of Gloucester. “Sir,” quoth the maiden, “then I like this well; on these terms I consent that all my lands shall be his” (Robert of Gloucester’s “Brut,” and Seyers’ “Memoirs of Bristol,” p. 353).]

[ii.—“The Countess Lucy,” page 51.] It is accepted that Anglo-Saxon Earls had only official dignity which was not hereditary. But the inheritance of the lands generally carried the other privileges. Lucy was certainly made Countess of Chester by her third husband, but in some authorities she is entitled Countess of Bolingbroke, as in her own right. In Selby’s “Genealogist,” 1889, there is a long discussion on the point, Who was the Countess Lucy? She is ordinarily considered the grand-daughter of Leofric, Earl of Mercia (who died in 1057), and of his wife the famous Lady Godiva, who survived the Conquest. Their son Alfgar, Earl of Mercia, twice rebelled against the Confessor, and died in 1059. Lucy’s two brothers were Edwin, Earl of Mercia, and Morcar, Earl of Northumbria; her sister Edgiva married first, Griffith of Wales, and second, King Harold. Edwin and Morcar were almost the only English nobles permitted by the Conqueror to retain their lands. Lucy inherited much from her father, probably with the Saxon privilege of the “youngest born,” and afterwards more from her brothers. She married three Norman husbands, with whom she held the position of a great heiress. This is the view Dugdale takes. Others imagine, from her longevity, there must have been two Lucys. The writer in “The Genealogist” thinks, with good reason, that this Lucy was not the daughter of Alfgar, but the only daughter and heiress of Thorold, the Sheriff of Lincoln.]

[iii.—“Women’s service,” page 63.] “Margeria de Cauz has the gift of the lands of Landford, held by the Serjeanty of keeping the Falcons of our Lord the King” (Berkshire Survey. Testa de Neville. Ed. III.)

Many other women are entered as performing military service, or paying other duties.]

[iv.—“Women’s Guilds,” page 83.] Ed. III. imposed limitations upon men’s labour, but leaves women the privilege to work free. “Mais l’intention du roi et de son conseil est que femmes cestassavoir brasceresces, pesteresces, texteresces, fileresces, et œvresces si bien de layne come de leinge toille, et de soye, brandestesters, pyneresces de layne et totes autres que usent œveront œveraynes manuels puissent user et œverer franchement come els ont fait avant ces hures sanz mal empeschementou estre restreint par ceste ordeignance.” (Rot. Parl., 37 Ed. III., c. 6.) This is important in relation to modern legislation about women’s freedom to labour.]

[v.—“Free Kent,” page 91.]

“Oh, noble Kent, quoth he, this praise doth thee belong, The hard’st to be control’d, impatientest of wrong; Who, when the Norman first with pride and horror swayed, Threw’st off the servile yoke upon the English laid; And with a high resolve, most bravely didst restore That liberty so long enjoyed by thee before, Not suffering foreign laws shall thy free customs bind. Then only showd’st thyself of th’ ancient Saxon kind. Of all the English Shires be thou surnam’d the Free, And foremost ever placed, when they shall reckoned be.”

(Drayton’s “Poly-Olbion.” Ed. 1738, Song 18th, p. 33.)

In Testa de Neville, and Rotuli Hundredorum, the large proportion of women’s names as owners of land, in Kent, proves the difference wrought by the working of the Saxon Inheritance Laws.]

[vi.—“The learned Selden,” page 99.] Selden writes warmly in favour of women, and quotes many authorities in support of his opinion. Besides those that have been quoted, we may notice that he refers to Sir Thomas More’s Utopia. “Plato allowed women to govern, nor did Aristotle (whatever the Interpreters of his Politics foolishly say) take from them that privilege. Vertue shuts no door against anybody, any sex, but freely admits all. And Hermes Trismegistus, that thrice great man, in his Poemander, according to his knowledge of Heavenly concerns (and that sure was great in comparison of what the owl-eyed Philosophers had) he ascribes the mystical name of MALE-FEMALE to the great Understanding, to wit, God the Governor of the Universe” (“Janus Anglorum”).]

[vii.—“Sir Edward Coke,” page 104.] In Foss’s “Lives of the Judges of England,” VI. 112, he says, “In the trial of Essex, he gave the first specimen of that objurgatory and coarse style, which makes his oratory so painfully remembered.” He also tells about his unhappy second marriage, and its ominous opening. In the Trials for the Murder of Sir Thomas Overburg, Foss says, “Guilty, as the parties undoubtedly were, Coke conducted the Trial most unfairly.” In regard to the suspicions attending the death of Prince Henry, Sir Anthony Weldon records—“It was intended the Law should run in its proper channel, but was stopt and put out of its course, by the folly of that great Clerke, though no wise man, Sir Edward Coke” (“The Court and Character of King James”). Sir E. Conway writes in 1624—“Sir Edward Coke would die, if he could not help to ruin a great man once in seven years.” “Butler notices that Coke had not studied the Feudal Law” (“Dict. Nat. Biog.”). This may account for his ignorance of the powers of women. “The Lord Coke in his Preface to Littleton, thinks Littleton’s Tenures were first printed in 24 Hen. VIII; my Lord was _mistaken_” (J. Anstiss Nicholl’s “Illustrations of Literature”).

In 1620 Coke was intrusted with the drawing up of the Charge against Bacon. Macaulay says, “For the first time in his life, he behaved like a gentleman.” He who drew up the famous “Petition of Rights” for men, has by his careless or premeditated words drawn up also the plea of disfranchisement for women.]

[viii.—“Judge or Jury,” page 106.] There are numerous instances in old records of women acting as Judges or Jury, at least in women’s cases. “On 1st February, 1435, Parochia Edlyngeham, Margareta Lyndseay contra Johannem de Longcaster, Johannem Somerson, Johannem Symson, Diflamata quod fuit incantatrix ... negavit et purgavit se cum Agnete Wright, Christiana Ansom, Alicia Faghar, Emmota Letster, Alicia Newton, et restituta est ad famen, et Johannes Longcaster, Johannes Somerson, Johannes Symson, moniti sunt sub pœna excommunicationis quod de cetero talia non prædicent de ipsa.”

On 3rd October, 1443, “Beatrix Atkynson and Margareta Donyll habent ad purgandum se cum 6th manu mulierum honestarum vicinarum suarum” (“Depositions from the Court of Durham, Surtees Society,” p. 28, 29). See also “Liber Albus.”]

[ix.—“Physical Force Argument,” page 163.] “The Lord Marquis of Hamilton’s Mother commands a Regiment, and leade them into Edenboroughe with a case of pistols at her saddle, and a case at her side. Our ladys are not more skilfull in curlinge and poudringe then the Scotchwomen in charging and discharging their pistols.” (Letter from Sir Henry Herbert, Edinburgh, June, 1639. “Letters of the Herbert Family.”) The Women Volunteer Movement of to-day shews that the spirit of courage and patriotism is not yet extinct.

In Somerset, “One of the ferdell-holders (_i.e._, holder of a quarter of a virgate of land) found all the Blacksmith’s work for the Lord’s horses and ploughs, and at the time of the compilation of the Custumal of Bleadon in the 13th Century,” this RENT for her land was paid by the widow Alicia as Common Smith of the Vill or Manor. (“Papers on the Custumal of Bleadon, as illustrative of the History and Antiquities of Wilts,” 1857, p. 193.)]

[x.—“=Women and the Universities=,” page 155.]—The Universities of this country have for some time recognised in a gracious, but far-off way, the industrial and educational needs of outsiders. The University Local Examinations, the University Extension Lectures, etc., instituted through consideration of the intellectual advance of the people, have always been open to women as well as to men. But the relations of women to Universities, where they suffer, or have suffered disabilities on the ground of their sex alone, are anomalous.

The younger Universities are generally more liberal to women than the older ones. Yet there is no universal rule, based upon observable conditions. The general uncertainty makes the position of things as they are, worth noting. Taking the Universities, not in the chronological order of their foundation, but in the order of their opening to women, the oldest is the London University. It may be considered as a foundation either old or young. In 1548, Sir Thomas Gresham founded in London, chairs for Divinity, Music, Astronomy, Geometry, Law, Physic and Rhetoric, a liberal course for his days. In Stow’s “Annals,” 1615, there is a notice of “the three famous Universities of _Oxford, Cambridge and London_.” I do not now go into its claims to the title at that period.

On 19th August, 1835, the Duke of Somerset and others petitioned for a Charter for London University, and in November of that year the words were added to their claim—“It should always be kept in mind that what is sought on the present occasion is an equality in all respects with the ancient Universities, freed from those exclusions and religious distinctions which abridge the usefulness of Cambridge and Oxford.” Their demand was granted, and London University refounded, but it was only men who were “freed from those exclusions.” Its first Charter was formally renewed in the beginning of the present reign, and a supplementary Charter in 1850 permitted it to affiliate certain Colleges, but later on, its duty became limited to _Examination_. The actual Charter by which it is now governed is that of January 6th, 1863. In 1807 another Charter conferred upon the University the power of instituting special examinations for women. In the same year the Reform Act gave the graduates the right to send one Representative member to Parliament. The Examinations for Women did not thrive. It was found they did not want a system devised exclusively for their use. After much discussion, the Senate and Convocation agreed to accept from the Crown in 1878 a supplemental Charter, making every Degree, Honour, and Prize awarded by the University, accessible to both sexes on perfectly equal terms. The University of London was thus the first Academic body in the United Kingdom to admit women as Candidates for Degrees. This supplement decrees that “5. All the powers and provisions relating to the granting of Degrees and Certificates of Proficiency contained in our said recited Letters Patent of the 6th day of January in the 26th of our reign shall henceforward be read and construed as applying to women as well as to men, and that, except as hereinafter mentioned, all the parts of the same Letters Patent shall be read and construed as if the extended powers hereby conferred were contained in the same Letters Patent.”

“6. And further, know ye that we do in like manner will and ordain that notwithstanding anything in our said Letters Patent of the sixth day of January in the twenty-sixth year of our reign to the contrary, no Female Graduate of the said University shall be a member of the Convocation of the said University unless and until such Convocation shall have passed a resolution that Female Graduates be admitted to Convocation.” Later, Convocation did pass that resolution. Women are now admitted to their general Council. The recording of their vote for their member of Parliament depends on other decisions. “The Visitor,” is a woman, our Queen. Therefore women cannot complain much of London University. There, they have had a fair field and no favour. The records of the results can be followed in the University Calendars. Women have attained a very good position, and many honours in proportion to the relative number of their candidates.

As London University grants degrees to all capable persons whether educated in Academic haunts or private homes, there are no Colleges that can be said to be “affiliated.” But there are several Colleges that prepare students definitely for the London Examinations. Chief of these is University College, London. There, since the opening of London University, women have been freely admitted to all the instruction in the Science and Arts Classes, with their prizes and honours. They require the recommendation of the Lady Principal (Miss Morison) before admission as students, but that can be easily attained by those really desirous of attending the classes. Wives and daughters of Members of Senate or former Members of Senate are admitted free, and without recommendation in the same manner as are sons of the same gentlemen.

The medical classes are, however, still closed, and women have to be trained in Medicine in their own Medical School in 30 Handel Street, whence they can take London Degrees. During the past year 143 women students attended the College, and 14 have been registered as full medical practitioners. Admission to the legal practice of Medicine is regulated by the General Medical Council of Great Britain and Ireland in accordance with the powers conferred by Act of Parliament upon that body, under whom are 20 examining boards. Women educated in this school are eligible also to the exams. of the Society of Apothecaries, London, and to other examinations in other University centres. The British Medical Association is now opened to them. King’s College, Strand, admits women, but they are kept apart. What is called “The Ladies’ Department” is at 13 Kensington Square, a thriving centre. They can there prepare for London University Exams.

The Mason College founded in Birmingham by Sir Joshua Mason, Knt., 23rd February, 1875, opened by Prof. Huxley, in 1880, admits men and women on the same terms.

Aberystwyth University College of North Wales was opened in 1871, and there were women students in the musical department in its early years. The first woman admitted to full College Course was one who took an Exhibition of £15 in 1884. There was no mention of sex in the Charter of the College, and therefore she only asked admission, and was received. The number of women students gradually increased, and after various attempts, a Hostel was founded for their reception, and residence made compulsory for all students not living with parents or guardians. A rapid increase ensued in the number of women students, under the wise care of Miss Carpenter, and they now number over 120. All prizes, the “open” scholarships, are free to women, as well as the Associateship of the College. In the London exams. the Aberystwyth women students have done well. Other Welsh Colleges receive women. This year the united Colleges of Wales have applied for a University Charter, and the Professorships, as well as Studentships, are opened to women.

We cannot go into full details of all the Colleges that send up women students to London University Examinations.

* * * * *

Dublin University, founded in 1591, was incorporated in 1593, and other colleges were afterwards affiliated. In 1869, women were admitted to Queen’s College Examinations.

The Charter of the Royal University of Ireland in 1880, decided that “all Degrees, Honours, Exhibitions, Prizes and Scholarships in this University are open to students of either sex.” The Royal University of Ireland, absorbing the old Queen’s University, the offices and emoluments of the one University merely passed on to the other, with fuller powers and wider scope. It is now also an examining body as is London.

At the commencement of the Royal University, many qualified women students attained the degrees thereby thrown open to them. Since that time 665 women have been granted B.A. degrees, 90 M.A., 22 LL.D., and 20 LL.B. The old Queen’s Colleges of Belfast, Cork, Galway and others, prepare students for the Royal University, private students having, however, the same privileges.

As all prizes and exhibitions are said to be open to all matriculated students of the Colleges, some time ago Miss Lee (daughter of the Late Archdeacon Lee of Dublin), now Principal of the Old Hall at Newnham College, was proposed for a Fellowship. She only gained 4 votes, one being that of Archbishop Trench; but the fact of her being proposed and voted for at all, showed that her sex did not exclude her from competition. The Act under which the Royal University was founded, excludes women from Convocation, unless they were members of the Senate. Convocation at present consists of the Senate, and of qualified male Graduates. The Senate, however, at first appointed by the Queen, consists of 36 Senators and one Chancellor, and except 6 Graduates, afterwards elected by Convocation, it does not exclude women. The word used in the Charter is invariably “person.”

* * * * *

The Royal Charter of the Victoria University is dated 20th April, 1880, which incorporates Owen’s College, Manchester; University College, Liverpool; and Yorkshire College, Leeds, with freedom to admit other Colleges. It makes no distinction of sex. It says:—

“IV. The University shall have power to grant and confer all such degrees and other distinctions as now or at any time hereafter can be granted and conferred by any other University in our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to and on all persons, male or female, who shall have pursued a regular course of Study in a College in the University and shall submit themselves for Examination.”

Medicine and Surgery degrees are here excepted. The supplemental Charter of 20th March, 1893, however, ordains:—

“I. The Victoria University shall have power to grant and confer to and on all persons, whether male or female ... Degrees and Certificates of Proficiency in Medicine and Surgery.”

The Medical Degrees are therefore theoretically open to women. But the characteristic of the Victoria University is, that it examines those only who have gone through a course of study in each subject of examination in a College of the University, and the privileges of the University depend upon the arrangements made at the Colleges. The Medical Schools at all three Colleges are still closed to women, and therefore the Victoria University medical degrees are practically dependent on extraneous teaching. If women want a medical degree “they must study for two years, in one of the affiliated Colleges, and take their medical classes at a recognised school such as Queen Margaret College, Glasgow, or the Medical School for Women, Edinburgh.”

Women were admitted to some classes in Owen’s College, Manchester, in 1876. All the Science and Arts classes are now open, but Biology, and some of the Laboratories are closed. In the junior classes men and women are taught separately, though the examinations are the same. The Department for Women of Owen’s College, Manchester, is at 223 Brunswick Street.

At the two younger colleges of Liverpool and Leeds; all Classes and Laboratories are open to women, except in the Medical School.

A fair proportion of women’s names appear in the Degree Lists and in the Prize Lists. Several women are members of Convocation, and there will soon be more. Many of them are Associates of their College. Besides full Degrees, there are Certificates of Proficiency granted by this University to women. All _University_ prizes are open to women, and the majority of College Prizes.

* * * * *

Edinburgh University was founded in 1582 on the site of the lonely Kirk of Field, where Darnley met his death. The present building, however, now called the Old University, was only begun in 1739. It is to this College alone that women are as yet admitted. The University New Buildings, commenced in 1878, were partly opened for teaching purposes in 1880, and completed in 1888. This has been handed over to the great “School of Medicine,” of Edinburgh University. The McEwan Hall for public Academic Ceremonials and for the conferring of Degrees was completed the year before last, and some women graced its first public function.

Edinburgh retains the honour of having been the earliest place in the British Islands where women were admitted to the advantages of a University education. Mrs. Crudelius in 1866 conceived the idea, and with an ever-increasing army of sympathisers, she formed in 1867 the “Edinburgh Association for the Higher Education of Women,” afterwards entitled the “Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women.” This did good work. In the session 1867-8 a class was opened in a separate hall, in which Professor Masson delivered his University Lectures on English Literature, 265 women enrolling themselves as students. Encouraged by their success, in November, 1868, a second winter session, the Association arranged for three classes in three departments, “the Literary,” represented by Professor Masson’s on English Literature, in which 129 women appeared; “the Scientific,” represented by Professor Tait’s class of Experimental Physics, in which 141 women entered; and “the Philosophical,” represented by Professor Fraser’s Lectures on Logic and Psychology, the first time such a course had been offered to women, and 65 women took advantage of it. The quality of the work done both in Examinations and Essays, showed that Intellect was of no Sex. The Association worked on patiently through the years, more and more gaining the sympathy and co-operation of the University, which soon granted Certificates for proficiency in any three subjects, proved in examinations of the M.A. Standard, the first of which was gained in 1873. Separate Honours Examinations were also instituted.

Later, a higher Certificate, called a Diploma, was offered to those who had passed in seven subjects of M.A. Standard, one at least in Honours. The first was gained in 1875, before any other Scottish University had considered the needs of women, and before London or Dublin had opened their doors. The disturbances made against the attempts by women to gain admission to the medical school, had made it more difficult for the Association to gain what it desired, the opening of the Art Classes and Degrees to women. But it lived to make warm friends among members of the University Senate who were at first its foes. The Scottish Universities Bill coming into force the year before last, empowered the several Scotch Universities to open their doors to women in their own time and in their own way. Women students were to matriculate under the same conditions as men.

Ordinance 18. IX.

“1. It shall be in the power of the University Court of each University to admit women to graduation in such Faculty or Faculties as the said court may think fit.

“2. It shall be competent to the University Court of each University to make provision within the University for the instruction of women in any of the subjects taught by the University either by admitting them to the ordinary classes, or by instituting separate classes for their instruction. Such classes shall be conducted by the Professors in the several subjects, or by Lecturers specially appointed for the purpose by the University Court, provided always that the Court shall not institute classes where men and women shall be taught together, except after consultation with the Senatus, and provided also that no Professor whose commission is dated before the approval of this ordinance by Her Majesty in council shall be required, without his consent, to conduct classes to which women are admitted.

“3. The conditions for graduation within any Faculty in which women are admitted to graduation shall be the same for women as for men, with the exceptions,” that there are advantages offered at present to women which may be classified under the name of Retrospective Recognition. “So long as provision is not made for the education of women in any University, qualifications gained at other recognised centres will be accepted as preparing for examinations and degrees.”

“4. So long as provision is not made for the education of women in Medicine, the University is empowered to admit to graduation women trained at other home or foreign Universities. So soon as, within any of the said Faculties in any University, provision is made for the instruction of women in all subjects qualifying for graduation, ... the conditions for the graduation of women within such Faculty shall be the same as the conditions for the graduation of men.

“5. Women who had begun their studies in recognised University classes before this date to be admitted to graduation, as if they had been members of the University and, if they had passed in the specified seven subjects qualifying for M.A., to receive that degree without further examination.”

The result of this concession is that eight ladies received the degree of M.A. of Edinburgh University, and several more will be qualified through the next Examination. Those who take their Degree will be admitted to the General Council. Therefore, Edinburgh stands at the head of the Scotch Universities in the order of time of the admission of women. She will have several women graduates before any other University can present one. That, of course, was only made possible by her efforts commencing earlier, and her work being more systematic. One hundred and thirty-four women in all have taken at least three of the subjects towards their Degree Examination. Edinburgh has simply admitted women to mixed Classes in the Old University, with all privileges in Arts. About one hundred and twenty women have matriculated this session. A Hall of Residence is now being built for women, to be called the Masson Hall, in commemoration of the life-long devotion of Professor David Masson to the cause of Women.

The New University Building, the School of Medicine, is still closed. But women have now fuller opportunities granted them of studying in the “Medical College for Women,” 30 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, with liberty of clinical instruction in the Royal Infirmary. This College was founded by the Scottish Association for the Medical Education of Women, the arrangements for teaching and fees being the same as those of the School of Medicine, the Teachers and Lecturers being duly qualified Lecturers of the School of Medicine, and the classes recognised as the Extra-Mural School. Since degrees can be taken in London, Victoria, and elsewhere, the prime difficulties in the medical education of women are practically overcome. Thirty-four women at present attend these classes.

* * * * *

St. Andrews University was founded in 1411; and besides its own colleges, it has affiliated to it, “University College,” Dundee. This famous University has long been friendly to women. In 1876, it added to the ordinary local Certificates a new and higher “Certificate for women” in three subjects, of the same standard as the M.A. Degrees; and later on an examination in seven subjects secured a Diploma with the Title L.A., and the privilege of being allowed to wear the University Badges. As residence at the University was not necessary, and as there was no limiting clause as to age, though the questions were hard, and the standard high, these examinations became very popular. In 1892, there were 700 candidates at 36 centres, among which were Berlin, Birmingham, Constantinople, Cork, Dresden, Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Marseilles, Pietermaritzburg, Seville, Truro, Uitenhage, and Wolfenbüttel. They have thus spread widely over the continent of Europe, and invitations have been sent to form centres in America, which are now under consideration. This Diploma is recognised as equivalent to the “Brèvet Superieur” for admission to the Sorbonne Examinations in Paris.

Some of the St. Andrews Professors had given lectures to women in the neighbouring town of Dundee as well as in St. Andrews. So the soil was prepared for the passing of the Scottish Universities Bill. St. Andrews nobly went as far as it could, in fulfilling these, and therefore in the University Calendar for the session appears, “The University Court of the University of St. Andrews, in consultation with the Senatus Academicus, has resolved to open _all_ its classes in Arts, Science, Theology and Medicine to women students. Women may henceforward matriculate as Students of the University and be admitted to any class or classes they may select, with a view to graduation in Arts, Science, Theology or Medicine. In the year 1893 a sum of _£_30,000 will become available for Bursaries or Scholarships at the University, one half of which is reserved for women students exclusively; those who intend to enter the Medical Profession having a prior claim to these Bursaries, though they are tenable while Arts and Science Classes are being attended. A Hall of Residence for women students will be instituted, where they can live together under a head.” Mrs. Morrison Duncan of Naughton’s liberality has made it possible to offer ten Bursaries to women at the very outset of their career. Nineteen women matriculated in October. The LL.A. examinations will go on all the same for those who cannot attend the University.

* * * * *

Glasgow University was founded in 1450, by a Bull from Pope Nicholas V. After the Reformation, in 1577, James VI. gave it a new Charter. Glasgow University has some special claims to notice in the way that it has followed the lines of the Scottish Universities Acts of last year.

In 1876 a movement for the University Education of Women was initiated, and the Glasgow Association for the Higher Education of Women founded. Shortly afterwards a liberal friend gave ground and funds to build a College for women, to be called the Queen Margaret College. There the University Professors and Assistants have lectured, good work has been done and examinations instituted. But when the ordinances of the Scottish Universities Acts came into force in February, 1892, the existence of Queen Margaret College endowment enabled the Glasgow Senatus to proceed on different lines from the other Universities. The Executive Council of Queen Margaret’s College arranged to hand over to the University the College Buildings, grounds and endowment, on condition that they should be used for University Classes for Women exclusively. Their College therefore becomes University Property and Part of the University, and the old Executive Council is about to dissolve. It is now governed by the University Court and Senate, who make all the appointments and arrangements for classes; the classes qualify for the University Degrees, in the same way as the classes at Gilmore Hill, the Men’s University Buildings.

Students must matriculate as the men do; they have seats in the College Chapel, use of the Libraries and Museums; the University prizes are open to them, and graduates will be admitted to Convocation. There is a full curriculum kept up in Arts and Medicine, and the girls who go up for preliminary Arts, Science and Medicine Examinations and Degree Examinations are examined along with the men, under the same conditions. There is a good attendance at the classes, 86 having matriculated in Arts, and 45 in Medicine, 131 in all compared with 1935 men students. The votes of the undergraduate girls have been solicited already in the election of the Lord Rector.

If the apparatus in the Queen Margaret College is not sufficient to illustrate the Science and Medical Classes, the supply is supplemented from the other building, or the girls may go there for demonstrations, at different hours from the men. There are several women going up not only for Preliminary exams. in Arts, but for Professional exams. in Medicine.

The relation between the two Colleges has been sometimes called Affiliation. This is incorrect. Affiliation supposes a separate governing body and other details of separate existence. At one time Affiliation was suggested, but the Rulers of Queen Margaret College preferred that it should be taken over and become a part of the University. The new arrangement works very well, and in a large University like Glasgow the women prefer it to mixed classes.

The Medical Department of the College is the only active School of Medicine for women belonging to a University in this Country. As applications are constantly being received, the number of its students is likely to increase rapidly. After Matriculation, women are admitted to the Hunterian Museum, have permission for the usual attendance in the Wards and on the clinical Lectures at the Royal Infirmary. The classes in Medicine being University classes, certificates of attendance thereon may be used by those who propose to become Candidates for the degrees of the other Scottish Universities, for those of the London University, Victoria University, and the Royal University of Ireland, as well as for the Qualification of the Scottish Corporations, the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (Conjoint).

Glasgow University, like that of Edinburgh, for the time being, has made those differences in favour of women that we call Retrospective Recognition, of those who had attended classes in Queen Margaret College, though there are none completely ready to take full advantage of it. As soon as arrangements are fully made for their education, the conditions for women will be the same as for men.

* * * * *

The University of Aberdeen was founded in 1494. Women’s claims on its attention have not been so persistent as they have been in the Southern Universities. But it rose to the new conditions of the Scottish Universities Acts.

Ordinance No. 18 of the Universities Commission having passed, the University Court of Aberdeen, on the recommendation of the Senatus, resolved to admit women to _Graduation_ in _all_ Faculties. As to their _instruction_, women are, within the University, on the same footing as men, in the Faculties of Arts and Divinity, Science, and in the Faculty of Law, except _so far_ as the class of Medical Jurisprudence is concerned, which is classified with the other Medical classes proper, in which the University has meantime considered it not advisable to provide the necessary instruction.

Eleven women have matriculated this year and have commenced with the Class of Literature. In answer to a question the Secretary of the Senatus replied, “When we have any women Graduates, questions of their privileges will have to be considered. But I can see no ground on which membership in our General Council can be denied to them, except there be any legal difficulty connected with the right of every member of Council to vote for the M.P. for Glasgow and Aberdeen.”

* * * * *

Durham University was founded in 1832-33 by the Dean and Chapter of Durham; the Newcastle-on-Tyne College of Medicine was made an integral part of the University in 1870, the Newcastle College of Physical Science in 1871. There is no notice of Women in the Calendar. Women have from the beginning been admitted to the classes of the College of Physical Science in Newcastle, but not to the Medical College in Newcastle nor to the Durham College itself. A strong petition was drawn up in 1881 to admit women to _full_ privileges in Durham, but Convocation refused to allow women matriculation unless a Hostel were established, that is, they would have no “unattached” women students. It is always difficult to find funds for the needs of women, and the “Hostel” was not at once forthcoming. Convocation assented to the following:—

“1. That female students who shall have fulfilled the requirements of the University regarding residence and standing shall be admitted to the Public Examinations and have first degree in Arts of the University.”

Then the University discovered, or thought it did, that by their Charter they could not admit women to full Degrees, and so the matter dropped. In Newcastle, however, women have gone on attending the classes. They can go in for the same Examinations as men, and gain the Class Prizes, but they are excluded from degrees. Titles such as A.S.C., “Associate of Science”; C.E., “Civil Engineer”; L.S., “Licentiate in Surgery,” they may obtain. Among the Students working for A.S.C., women are about 1 to 30. Among the ordinary matriculated students, the average of the sexes are about equal. Among non-matriculated students who attend such classes as Literature, Fine Art, etc., the women are about 30 to 1.

* * * * *

When we come to the older Universities, it seems but just to consider the women-benefactors as being related somehow to the Colleges; and through them to the University itself.

The oldest College at Cambridge, St. Peter’s, was founded in 1284. The second, Clare College, was founded in 1326 by the Lady Elizabeth, sister and co-heir of Gilbert, Earl of Clare. Three scholarships in this college were founded by Mrs. Tyldesley de Bosset.

Pembroke College or Valence-Mary, 1347, was founded by Mary de St. Paul, widow of _Aymer_ de Valence, Earl Pembroke.

Corpus Christi, 1352, was founded by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary. These old Guilds had “sustren” as well as “brethren” in their fraternity, and consequently women had something to do with that foundation, however little it may generally be recognised.

Queen’s College was founded 1448, by Queen Margaret of Anjou, and refounded by Elizabeth Widville, Queen of Ed. IV.

St. Catherine’s was founded 1473, by Dr. Robert Wodelarke, but large benefactions from Mrs. Mary Ramsden endowed 14 scholarships. Other benefactors were women.

Christ’s College, 1505, was refounded by Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby (mother of Henry VII.), and 2 scholarships were given by Lady Drury.

St. John’s, 1511, was also founded by Lady Margaret (mother of Henry VII.) and a fellowship was given by Lady Jane Rokeby.

Magdalen holds benefactions from the Countess of Warwick, Lady Anne Wray, Mrs. Margaret Dongworth, and others.

To Trinity, 1546, Queen Mary added 20 scholarships. Mrs. Mednyanszky is an important benefactor.

Sidney Sussex was founded 1594 by Lady Frances Sidney, Dowager Duchess of Sussex.

These are some of the gifts women have given to Cambridge. It proves that the sex valued and honoured learning.

Hitchin Temporary College was opened for women by the Cambridge Association for the Education of Women, in Oct., 1869, and a rapid success enabled the friends of women to incorporate Girton College, 1872, to which the students removed in 1873, and Newnham was founded in Oct., 1875.

At first there was no connection with the University at all. Then women were allowed to have examination papers, and to answer the questions, but no information was given as to the Class of the Student except privately. No official record was kept of these informal examinations. But in 1882 by a grace of the Senate the examinations were thrown open to women students of Girton and Newnham who had passed certain preliminary exams, and had resided the proper number of terms, had paid the customary fees, and had been recommended by the authorities of their College. Class Lists have ever since been published in which the exact place of the women is mentioned with regard to the men. Some women, such as Miss Ramsay and Miss Fawcett, would have held the first place, had they been allowed to take it. No Prizes or Degrees are granted them by the University. But what is called a Degree Certificate is conferred upon any student whose proficiency has been certified by the standard of examinations qualifying for B.A., which entitles the holder to all the rights and privileges of certificated students. These are signed by the Vice Chancellor. There is no probability at present of their receiving degrees. The objection is that this would make them eligible as members of senate. As there is no matriculation, women cannot even become under-graduates in Cambridge.

The Cambridge University Calendar now gives the conditions of the admission of women to University Examinations.

* * * * *

Oxford, oldest in foundation, is youngest in regard to granting privileges to women.

University College, Oxford, is said to have been founded in 872 by Alfred. In it a Civil Law Fellowship was founded by Mary Anne, Viscountess Sidmouth.

Balliol College was founded by John Balliol and Devorgilla, his wife, 1263-8. Eight scholarships were founded by Hannah Brackenbury, in Law, History, and Natural Science.

In Exeter College, founded 1314, 2 scholarships were given by Miss Hasker.

Queen’s College was founded 1340, by Hubert de Eglesfield, Chaplain to Philippa, Queen of Edward III.

In Brasenose, founded 1509, Sarah, Dowager Duchess of Somerset, founded 22 scholarships, and Misses Colquilt, 3 exhibitions.

Christ Church holds 2 scholarships from Mrs. Dixon, and Miss Slade’s exhibition.

Jesus College was founded in 1571, by Queen Elizabeth. Wadham in 1612, by Nicholas Wadham of Merifield and Dorothy, his wife.

To Pembroke College, founded 1624, by King James I., his Queen, Anne, attached a Canonry of Gloucester to the Mastership.

To Worcester, founded 1714, Mrs. Sarah Eaton was a benefactor.

It may be that the result of there being fewer female benefactors in Oxford than in Cambridge may have affected the comparative want of gratitude to women in this city. Whatever be the cause, the oldest University is the hardest to move.

Oxford Lectures for the benefit of women were started as early as 1865, but not in connection with the University. In 1873, another scheme was set on foot by a Committee of Ladies. But the formation of the “Association for the Education of Women,” such as at present exists, was first suggested by Professor Rolleston, June, 1878.

The first series of Lectures commenced in October, 1879. In 1880 one College Lecture was attended. At the present time students are admitted under certain regulations to lectures in almost every College in Oxford. The Lectures are of three kinds. Those of the University generally are open without fee, those in the different colleges for men, for which fees are paid, and those provided by the Association, for which fees are paid. Until 1884, the only Oxford Examinations open to Students of the Association were those provided for women by the Delegates of Local Examinations. In that year, in answer to a petition put forward by the Association and numerously signed by resident M.A.’s, a Statute was passed by Convocation opening to women, Honour Moderations, and the Final Honour Schools of Mathematics, Science, and Modern History. In 1888, another Statute admitted women to the Final School of Literæ Humaniores, and in 1890, to the Honour Law School and the Final Examination for Mus. Bac. All examinations for B.A. in Honours are now opened to women, except Theology and Indian languages, for which no application has been made.

The University, like that of Cambridge, does not admit women to Matriculation, or Graduation, but it does not impose on them all the restrictions of men.

The University Examinations for women still provide for all Pass Subjects and for the Honour Subjects of English and Modern Languages, in which there are no University Examinations for men.

Three Halls have been founded, Lady Margaret Hall, 1879 (Church of England with liberty for other denominations); Somerville Hall, 1879 (non-denominational), and St. Hugh’s, 1886 (Church of England). There are also unattached students residing in Oxford under certain regulations. From 1879 to 1892 the number of students has been in all 539. But though women are admitted to the Oxford University Exams., Honours and Pass, and are ranked in Classes, they have no reward or recognition by the University, and no notice of women appears in the University Calendar.

Therefore in a country in which Free Trade principles have been forced on the British farmer for the benefit of other classes of the community, however prejudicial to his own, protection still reigns in these old Universities, that illogically “protect” the stronger against the weaker sex, who are thus forced to prove their capability in face of many difficulties and overwhelming odds.

Women are admitted to the following privileges:—

1878. London:

Subordinate Colleges give Education. Examination. Degrees. Convocation.

1880. Royal University of Ireland:

Subordinate Colleges give Education. Examination. Degrees. Convocation.

1880. Victoria Combined Colleges:

Matriculation. Education (Partial). Examination. Degrees. Convocation.

1892. Edinburgh:

Matriculation. Education (Partial). Examination. Degrees. General Council.

1892. St. Andrews:

Matriculation. Education. Examination. Degrees. General Council.

1892. Glasgow:

Matriculation. Education Separate. Examination. Degrees. General Council.

1892. Aberdeen:

Matriculation. Education (Partial). Examination. Degrees. General Council.

Durham. . . . .Education (Partial). Examination. Titles. Cambridge. . .Education (Partial). Examination. Certificates. Oxford. . . . . .Education (Partial). Examination. Certificates.

FINIS.

--------------

_Printed by Cowan & Co., Limited, Perth._

SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES.

=_SCARLET CLOTH, EACH 2s. 6d._=

--------------

=1. Work and Wages.= —— Prof. J. E. THOROLD ROGERS.

“Nothing that Professor Rogers writes can fail to be of interest to thoughtful people.”—_Athenæum._

=2. Civilisation: its Cause and Cure.= —— EDWARD CARPENTER.

“No passing piece of polemics, but a permanent possession.”—_Scottish Review._

=3. Quintessence of Socialism.= —— Dr. SCHÄFFLE.

“Precisely the manual needed. Brief, lucid, fair and wise.”—_British Weekly._

=4. Darwinism and Politics.= —— D. G. RITCHIE, M.A. (Oxon.).

New Edition, with two additional Essays on HUMAN EVOLUTION.

“One of the most suggestive books we have met with.”—_Literary World._

=5. Religion of Socialism.= —— E. BELFORT BAX.

=6. Ethics of Socialism.= —— E. BELFORT BAX.

“Mr. Bax is by far the ablest of the English exponents of Socialism.”—_Westminster Review._

=7. The Drink Question.= —— Dr. KATE MITCHELL.

“Plenty of interesting matter for reflection.”—_Graphic._

=8. Promotion of General Happiness.= —— Prof. M. MACMILLAN.

“A reasoned account of the most advanced and most enlightened utilitarian doctrine in a clear and readable form.”—_Scotsman._

=9. England’s Ideal, &c.= —— EDWARD CARPENTER.

“The literary power is unmistakable, their freshness of style, their humour, and their enthusiasm.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._

=10. Socialism in England.= —— SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.

“The best general view of the subject from the modern Socialist side.”—_Athenæum._

=11. Prince Bismarck and State Socialism.= —— W. H. DAWSON.

“A succinct, well-digested review of German social and economic legislation since 1870.”—_Saturday Review._

=12. Godwin’s Political Justice (On Property).= —— Edited by H. S. SALT.

“Shows Godwin at his best; with an interesting and informing introduction.”—_Glasgow Herald._

=13. The Story of the French Revolution.= —— E. BELFORT BAX.

“A trustworthy outline.”—_Scotsman._

=14. The Co-Operative Commonwealth.= —— LAURENCE GRONLUND.

“An independent exposition of the Socialism of the Marx school.”—_Contemporary Review._

=15. Essays and Addresses.= —— BERNARD BOSANQUET, M.A. (Oxon.).

“Ought to be in the hands of every student of the Nineteenth Century spirit.”—_Echo._

“No one can complain of not being able to understand what Mr. Bosanquet means.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._

=16. Charity Organisation.= —— C. S. LOCH, Secretary to Charity Organisation Society.

“A perfect little manual.”—_Athenæum._

“Deserves a wide circulation.”—_Scotsman._

=17. Thoreau’s Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers.= —— Edited by H. S. SALT.

“An interesting collection of essays.”—_Literary World._

=18. Self-Help a Hundred Years Ago.= —— G. J. HOLYOAKE.

“Will be studied with much benefit by all who are interested in the amelioration of the condition of the poor.”—_Morning Post._

=19. The New York State Reformatory at Elmira.= —— ALEXANDER WINTER. With Preface by HAVELOCK ELLIS.

“A valuable contribution to the literature of penology.”—_Black and White._

=20. Common Sense about Women.= —— T. W. HIGGINSON.

“An admirable collection of papers, advocating in the most liberal spirit the emancipation of women.”—_Woman’s Herald._

=21. The Unearned Increment.= —— W. H. DAWSON.

“A concise but comprehensive volume.”—_Echo._

=22. Our Destiny.= —— LAURENCE GRONLUND.

“A very vigorous little book, dealing with the influence of Socialism on morals and religion.”—_Daily Chronicle._

=23. The Working-Class Movement in America.= —— Dr. EDWARD and E. MARX AVELING.

“Will give a good idea of the condition of the working classes in America, and of the various organisations which they have formed.”—_Scots Leader._

=24. Luxury.= —— Prof. EMILE DE LAVELEYE.

“An eloquent plea on moral and economical grounds for simplicity of life.”—_Academy._

=25. The Land and the Labourers.= —— Rev. C. W. STUBBS, M.A.

“This admirable book should be circulated in every village in the country.”—_Manchester Guardian._

=26. The Evolution of Property.= —— PAUL LAFARGUE.

“Will prove interesting and profitable to all students of economic history.”—_Scotsman._

=27. Crime and its Causes.= —— W. DOUGLAS MORRISON.

“Can hardly fail to suggest to all readers several new and pregnant reflections on the subject.”—_Anti-Jacobin._

=28. Principles of State Interference.= —— D. G. RITCHIE, M.A.

“An interesting contribution to the controversy on the functions of the State.”—_Glasgow Herald._

=29. German Socialism and F. Lassalle.= —— W. H. DAWSON.

“As a biographical history of German Socialistic movements during this century it may be accepted as complete.”—_British Weekly._

=30. The Purse and the Conscience.= —— H. M. THOMPSON, B.A. (Cantab.).

“Shows common sense and fairness in his arguments.”—_Scotsman._

=31. Origin of Property in Land.= —— FUSTEL DE COULANGES. Edited, with an Introductory Chapter on the English Manor, by Prof. W. J. ASHLEY, M.A.

“His views are clearly stated, and are worth reading.”—_Saturday Review._

=32. The English Republic.= —— W. J. LINTON. Edited by KINETON PARKES.

“Characterised by that vigorous intellectuality which has marked his long life of literary and artistic activity.”—_Glasgow Herald._

=33. The Co-Operative Movement.= —— BEATRICE POTTER.

“Without doubt the ablest and most philosophical analysis of the Co-Operative Movement which has yet been produced.”—_Speaker._

=34. Neighbourhood Guilds.= —— Dr. STANTON COIT.

“A most suggestive little book to anyone interested in the social question.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._

=35. Modern Humanists.= —— J. M. ROBERTSON.

“Mr. Robertson’s style is excellent—nay, even brilliant—and his purely literary criticisms bear the mark of much acumen.”—_Times._

=36. Outlooks from the New Standpoint.= —— E. BELFORT BAX.

“Mr. Bax is a very acute and accomplished student of history and economics.”—_Daily Chronicle._

=37. Distributing Co-Operative Societies.= —— Dr. LUIGI PIZZAMIGLIO. Edited by F. J. SNELL.

“Dr. Pizzamiglio has gathered together and grouped a wide array of facts and statistics, and they speak for themselves.”—_Speaker._

=38. Collectivism and Socialism.= —— By A. NACQUET. Edited by W. HEAFORD.

“An admirable criticism by a well-known French politician of the New Socialism of Marx and Lassalle.”—_Daily Chronicle._

=39. The London Programme.= —— SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.

“Brimful of excellent ideas.”—_Anti-Jacobin._

=40. The Modern State.= —— PAUL LEROY BEAULIEU.

“A most interesting book; well worth a place in the library of every social inquirer.”—_N. B. Economist._

=41. The Condition of Labour.= —— HENRY GEORGE.

“Written with striking ability, and sure to attract attention.”—_Newcastle Chronicle._

=42. The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution.= —— FELIX ROCQUAIN. With a Preface by Professor HUXLEY.

“The student of the French Revolution will find in it an excellent introduction to the study of that catastrophe.”—_Scotsman._

=43. The Student’s Marx.= —— EDWARD AVELING, D.Sc.

“One of the most practically useful of any in the Series.”—_Glasgow Herald._

=44. A Short History of Parliament.= —— B. C. SKOTTOWE, M.A. (Oxon.).

“Deals very carefully and completely with this side of constitutional history.”—_Spectator._

=45. Poverty: Its Genesis and Exodus.= —— J. G. GODARD.

“He states the problems with great force and clearness.”—_N. B. Economist._

=46. The Trade Policy of Imperial Federation.= —— MAURICE H. HERVEY.

“An interesting contribution to the discussion.”—_Publishers’ Circular._

=47. The Dawn of Radicalism.= —— J. BOWLES DALY, LL.D.

“Forms an admirable picture of an epoch more pregnant, perhaps, with political instruction than any other in the world’s history.”—_Daily Telegraph._

=48. The Destitute Alien in Great Britain.= —— ARNOLD WHITE; MONTAGUE CRACKANTHORPE, Q.C.; W. A. M’ARTHUR, M.P.; W. H. WILKINS, &c.

“Much valuable information concerning a burning question of the day.”—_Times._

=49. Illegitimacy and the Influence of Seasons on Conduct.= —— ALBERT LEFFINGWELL, M.D.

“We have not often seen a work based on statistics which is more continuously interesting.”—_Westminster Review._

=50. Commercial Crises of the Nineteenth Century.= —— H. M. HYNDMAN.

“One of the best and most permanently useful volumes of the Series.”—_Literary Opinion._

=51. The State and Pensions in Old Age.= —— J. A. SPENDER and ARTHUR ACLAND, M.P.

“A careful and cautious examination of the question.”—_Times._

=52. The Fallacy of Saving.= —— JOHN M. ROBERTSON.

“A plea for the reorganisation of our social and industrial system.”—_Speaker._

=53. The Irish Peasant.= —— ANON.

“A real contribution to the Irish Problem by a close, patient and dispassionate Investigator.”—_Daily Chronicle._

=54. The Effects of Machinery on Wages.= —— Prof. J. S. NICHOLSON, D.Sc.

“Ably reasoned, clearly stated, impartially written.”—_Literary World._

=55. The Social Horizon.= —— ANON.

“A really admirable little book, bright, clear, and unconventional.”—_Daily Chronicle._

=56. Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.= —— FREDERICK ENGELS.

“The body of the book is still fresh and striking.”—_Daily Chronicle._

=57. Land Nationalisation.= —— A. R. WALLACE.

“The most instructive and convincing of the popular works on the subject.”—_National Reformer._

=58. The Ethic of Usury and Interest.= —— Rev. W. BLISSARD.

“The work is marked by genuine ability.”—_North British Agriculturalist._

=59. The Emancipation of Women.= —— ADELE CREPAZ.

“By far the most comprehensive, luminous, and penetrating work on this question that I have yet met with.”—_Extract from_ Mr. GLADSTONE’S _Preface_.

=60. The Eight Hours’ Question.= —— JOHN M. ROBERTSON.

“A very cogent and sustained argument on what is at present the unpopular side.”—_Times._

=61. Drunkenness.= —— GEORGE R. WILSON, M.B.

“Well written, carefully reasoned, free from cant, and full of sound sense.”—_National Observer._

=62. The New Reformation.= —— RAMSDEN BALMFORTH.

“A striking presentation of the nascent religion, how best to realise the personal and social ideal.”—_Westminster Review._

=63. The Agricultural Labourer.= —— T. E. KEBBEL.

“A short summary of his position, with appendices on wages, education, allotments, etc, etc.”

=64. Ferdinand Lassalle as a Social Reformer.= —— E. BERNSTEIN.

“A worthy addition to the Social Science Series.”—_North British Economist._

=65. England’s Foreign Trade in XIXth Century.= —— A. L. BOWLEY.

“Full of valuable information, carefully compiled, and skilfully marshalled.”—_Times._

=66. Theory and Policy of Labour Protection.= —— Dr. SCHÄFFLE.

“Remarkable as an attempt to systematize a conservative programme of reform.”—_Manchester Guardian._

=67. History of Rochdale Pioneers.= —— G. J. HOLYOAKE.

“The first complete edition, brought down from 1844 to the Rochdale Congress of 1892.”—_Co-Operative News._

=68. Rights of Women.= —— M. OSTRAGORSKI.

“Advocates and opponents will find it an admirable storehouse of precedents, collected from authentic sources, carefully brought up to date, supported by exact references, and conveniently arranged.”—_Daily Chronicle._

=69. Dwellings of the People.= —— LOCKE WORTHINGTON.

“An effective and valuable contribution to one of the most pressing problems of the day.”—_Daily Chronicle._

=70. Hours, Wages, and Production.= —— Dr. BRENTANO.

“Substantially a new work on the relation between wages and hours of labour and the work done—characterised by all Professor Brentano’s clearness of style and fulness of historical detail.”—_Economic Review._

=71. Rise of Modern Democracy.= —— CH. BORGEAUD.

“A very useful little volume, characterised by exact research and by very clear political ideas.”—_Daily Chronicle._

=72. Land Systems of Australasia.= —— WM. EPPS.

“A laudable and very useful attempt to place before political thinkers an outline of the methods which govern the use and alienation of the public land of the Australasian Colonies.”—_Times._

=73. The Tyranny of Socialism.= —— YVES GUYOT.

Edited with Introduction by J. H. LEVY.

“M. Guyot is smart, lively, trenchant, and interesting.”—_Daily Chronicle._

------------------

=DOUBLE VOLUMES, Each 3s. 6d.=

=1. Life of Robert Owen.= —— LLOYD JONES.

“A worthy record of a life of noble activities.”—_Manchester Examiner._

=2. The Impossibility of Social Democracy=: a Second Part of “The Quintessence of Socialism”. —— Dr. A. SCHÄFFLE.

“Extremely valuable as a criticism of Social Democracy by the ablest living representative of State Socialism in Germany.”—_Inter. Journal of Ethics._

=3. The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.= —— FREDERICK ENGELS.

“A translation of a work written in 1845, with a preface written in 1892.”

=4. The Principles of Social Economy.= —— YVES GUYOT.

“An interesting and suggestive work. It is a profound treatise on social economy, and an invaluable collection of facts.”—_Spectator._

=5. Social Peace.= —— Dr. SCHULZE-GAEVERUITZ.

Edited by GRAHAM-WALLES.

“A study by a competent observer of the industrial movement in England, and the later developments of trade unionism.”—_Times._

------------------

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LONDON. NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.

● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. ○ There are several cases of un-matched quote marks or nested quotes. I've mostly left them as they are as it isn't easy to tell where the quotes are meant to end. ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that: was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_); was in bold by is enclosed by “equal” signs (=bold=). ○ The use of a caret (^) before a letter, or letters, shows that the following letter or letters was intended to be a superscript, as in S^t Bartholomew or 10^{th} Century.