The new Parliament will not grant female suffrage, but it
is 'evidently favourable to women's rights. On Wednesday, Mr. Hinde Palmer carried the second reading of his "Married Women's Property Acts Consolidation Bill," without a division, and almost without opposition. This Bill contains the strong new clause," That a married woman shall be capable of acquiring, holding, alienating, and bequeathing her property, and of con- tracting, suing, and being sued, just as if she were unmarried." If that clause passes, married women will have all the rights of spinsters as regards property ; and it seems probable that it will pass the Commons, though not the Peers, who have invariably thrown out such Bills. Mr. Warton denounced the Bill, as making the wife independent; but as that is its precise object, the objection is a little irrelevant. The Attorney-General threatens modifications in committee, but they will be generally in the direction of increasing the wife's liabilities, as, for in- stance, in bankruptcy. They ought, of course, to be equal to the liabilities of unmarried women.
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