In the early eighties of the last century appeared a skit in the form of a novel from the pen of the late Sir Walter Besant, entitled "The Revolt of Man," depicting the oppression of man under a Feminist régime, an oppression which ended in a revolt and the re-establishment of male supremacy. The ideas underlying this jeu d'esprit of the subjection of men would seem to be seriously entertained by the female leaders of the present woman's movement. It is many years ago now since a minister holding one of the highest positions in the present Cabinet made the remark to me:—"The real object, you know, for which these women want the vote is simply to get rascally laws passed against men!" Subsequent Feminist agitation has abundantly proved the truth of this observation. An illustration of the practical results of the modern woman's movement is to be seen in the infamous White Slave Traffic Act of 1912 rushed through Parliament as a piece of panic legislation by dint of a campaign of sheer hard lying. The atrocity of this act has been sufficiently dealt with in a previous chapter.[1]
- ↑ There is one fortunate thing as regards these savage laws aimed at the suppression of certain crimes, and that is, as it would seem, they are never effective in achieving their purpose. As Mr Tighe Hopkins remarks, apropos of the torture of the "cat" ("Wards of the State," p. 203):—"The attempt to correct crime with crime has everywhere repaid us in the old properly disastrous way." It would indeed be regrettable if it
