excess of the female over the male population and by her diminished chances of marriage[1]; and thirdly, the tedium which obsesses the life of the woman who is not forced, and cannot force herself, to work. On the top of these grievances comes the fact that the suffragist conceives herself to be harshly and unfairly treated by man. This last is the fire which sets a light to all the inflammable material.
It would be quite out of question to discuss here the economic and physiological difficulties of woman. Only this may be said: it is impossible, in view of the procession of starved and frustrated lives which is continuously filing past, to close one's eyes to the urgency of this woman's problem.
After all, the primary object of all civilisation is to provide for every member of the community food and shelter and fulfilment of natural cravings. And when, in what passes as a civilised community, a whole class is called upon to go without any one of these our hu-
- ↑ Vide footnote p. 138.
