as might be with a certain sum fixed, and therefore the House of Commons could not be considered in any way pledged by anything said by Lord Cairns-- to anything said on the matter in the House of Lords.

Miss TOD, writing to the Northern Whig, on February 1st, says:

:

***When Lord Cairns introduced the Intermediate Education Bill, be made provision for boys only, and not for girls * * * But from the completeness of his acceptance of the claim, and the promptitude with which he promised to take steps for its embodiment in the Bill, we are quite justified in assuming that the original ommission of the girls arose from that common cause of injury to women-their forgetfulness of those who are not conspicuously within the circle of official notice. But were it otherwise-were it possible that a great lawyer, a leading member of Government, anxious to do permanent good to his own country, had intentionally ommitted his young countrywomen from his plan of education-that would by no means justify the phraseology of some persons-very few, fortunately-who think that the girls are intruders, and not entitled to rewards, because they were not named at first in the Bill. The Church surplus, from which the funds required for the scheme were to be taken, assuredly belonged to women as much as to men, so that even on the lowest ground the claim of girls was as good as that of boys. If that claim were not stated at first, the fault lay with those who drew up the Bill, not with parents and friends of the girls. It is a well-known legal maxim that no man must be allowed to profit by his own wrongdoing; and if (which I trust is not the case) there were any advisers of the late Government who intentionally left out the girls from their educational plans, they must not be allowed to argue from that circumstance against their claims now. ***"

MEMORIAL OF THE ULSTER SCHOOLMISTRESSES. The following memorial was adopted at a meeting of the Ladies' Institute and the Ulster Schoolmistresses. It is of considerable importance :

"To the Board of Intermediate Education for Ireland. "My Lords and Gentlemen,-At a conference of ladies who are heads of schools in Ulster, and of others interested in the higher education of women, held in Belfast a year ago, a memorial was adopted, and sent to your Board, urging that no change should be made in the intermediate examinations, which would cause a difference in the papers to be set for boys and for girls respectively, or which would in any way set up a different standard in any subject for boys and for girls. A memorial to the same effect, enforcing this request by many important arguments, was afterwards widely signed by many ladies and gentlemen in Ulster, whose opinions must have carried weight with your Board, and was forwarded to you by the late Professor Nesbitt, of the Queen's College, Belfast. We enclose a copy of it, and beg to assure your Board that the views it contains

are adhered to by us without the slightest change. We acknowledge gratefully that the answer of your Board to this memorial assured us that no such changes were about to be imposed, and we also learned that ladies engaged in teaching should be consulted before further steps were taken. It is therefore with much regret that we find that some changes have been made in the programme for 1882, not, perhaps, important in themselves; but any change which creates a difference between boys and girls we fear foreshadows, or may foreshadow, the alterations suggested in the letter of your Board of the 13th October, 1881, addressed to Mrs. Byers, Ladies' Collegiate School, Belfast. These alterations, by which the scale of marks assigned to some important subjects would be different, according to whether the candidate is a boy or a girl, are, in our opinion, a serious departure from the principles which should regulate the working of a system designed to encourage both a high and a wide education throughout the country. Parents and teachers should judge which subject ought to be commended to each individual pupil, and we respectfully submit that the marks awarded to equal excellence ought to be the same, by whomsoever it is shown, These changes are the more dangerous, as they have been already made the excuse for suggestions of a greater division between the plans for girls and for boys, which would be to the very great injury of the former. Some of the difficulties met with in the practical work of preparing for the examinations would be removed by a limitation of the number of subjects which each candidate might take in each grade. But in case such a rule is at any time adopted, we would strongly deprecate any attempt to select the groups of subjects to be taken, or to make a narrower limit in the case of girls than of boys. We take this opportunity of expressing our sincere thanks to your Board for the important advantages which your action has already bestowed upon girls, and which, we trust, will ere long be seen to have been of the utmost value to the whole community. We remain, &c.

(Signed by the eight Lady Superintendents of the Ladies' Institute and by eighteen Members of the Ulster Association of HeadSchoolmistresses.)

ASSOCIATION FOR SCHOOLMISTRESSES IN DUBLIN.

At a meeting summoned by the Education Department at the Social Science Congress, last October, it had been resolved to take steps in the interests of the Higher Education of Women, by establishing an Association consisting of Schoolmistresses, and ladies interested in education. A preliminary meeting was held at the Provost's House, Trinity Square, Dublin, on the 28th of January, Mrs. Jellatt presiding. More than seventy ladies were present. A Provisional Committee was appointed to draw up the rules and organise the Association. This committee is meeting each week, and hopes to report progress early in March.

INAUGURATION OF LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE.

University College, Liverpool, was formally inaugurated on January 14th. The occasion is one for great congratulation to ladies, for under the Royal Charter constituting the College, no restrictive tests can be imposed upon either professors or students; and the classes, except those of the medical faculty, are by statute open to male and female students on the same terms. The College is in connection with the New Victoria University, which has its centre in Manchester, and there the women students of the College will now have a legal claim to take degrees under the University.

At the public meeting which followed the inauguration, Professor RENDALL expressed his conviction that there would be no lack of students, women as well as men, to take advantage of the opportunities of intellectual advancement held out by the College. It might be said that the higher education of women had not yet passed the experimental stage; yet in so far as it had been tried, even those who instinctively distrusted it, could not allege failure. Therefore had the unanimous sense of the directors of that movement willed that students of either sex should there find equal favour, and that the infant college should not close her doors to those to whom the ancient Universities were already giving access.

GIRLS' PUBLIC DAY SCHOOL COMPANY.-The Portsmouth High School, the twenty-fourth school of the Company, will open at Marlborough House, Osborne Road, Southsea, on February 21st.

The Council have also undertaken to open a High School at Clapham, in addittion to the Middle School there, and a High School at Tunbridge Wells.

BILLS IN PARLIAMENT.

Parliament was opened on February 7th, and notices of the following Bills in which women are particularly concerned, were given:

Mr. M'COAN, the Municipal Franchise (Ireland) Bill. Mr: T. D. SULLIVAN, a Bill for the Better Protection

of Women and Children in England from Crimes of Violence.

Mr. STANSFELD, a Bill for Repealing the Contagious Diseases Acts.

THE number of ladies assembled to witness the ceremony of the opening of Parliament has been this year unprecedently large.

MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY.

In consequence of the abuses of the half-past twelve o'clock rule last Session, it has been decided to proceed this Session with the Married Women's Property Bill in the House of Lords in the first instance, in order to save the time which must otherwise inevitably be lost whilst the discussion of procedure occupies the House of Commons.

The Married Women's Property Committee have the pleasure of announcing that the Lord Chancellor has taken charge of the Bill, and will present it to the House of Lords at an early date.

Under these circumstances they earnestly beg the immediate and active co-operation of all their friends, in order to secure the full advantage of the present auspicious opportunity for the early passing of the Bill into law.

WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE.

Mr. HUGH MASON, M.P., will take an early opportunity of moving in the House of Commons the following resolution upon this subject:-"That in the opinion of this House the Parliamentary franchise should be extended to woman who possess the qualifications which entitle men to vote, and who in all matters of local government have the right of voting."

POOR LAW GUARDIANS.

BIRMINGHAM.-A public meeting on the subject of electing women as Poor Law Guardians was held on January 23rd in the small theatre of the Midland Institute, under the presidency of Mr. George Dixon. The attendance was large. Among the ladies present were Mrs. C. E. Mathews, Mrs. G. Mathews, Mrs. R. Parker, Mrs. Blissard. Mrs. E. O. Smith, Mrs. W. L.

Sargent, Mrs. R. Peyton, Mrs. Hill, Miss Sturge, Mrs. Crosskey, Dr. Annie Barker, Miss Osler, Mrs. W. Ryland, Mrs. B. Perry, Miss Stacy, Miss Stansfield, Mrs. Middlemore, Mrs. Bartleet, &c. Letters of apology were announced by Mrs. C. E. Mathews from the Rev. Canon Wilkinson, Mr. Jesse Collins, M.P., Mr. R. W. Dale, Mr. J. S. Hopkins, Mr. J. H. Chamberlain, Councillor Lawson Tait, Mr. W. F. Clarkson, Messrs. C. R. Bowling, Jesse Herbert, H. F. Talbot, and others.

The CHAIRMAN said he was glad to find so large and influential a gathering in support of the movement, and from the letters they had heard read they would see that they would have as much support outside the meeting as inside. He had not heard a dissentient against the movement. It was not intended by those who advocated the election of women Guardians to cast the slightest reflection upon the conduct or policy of the present or any preceding Board of Guardians. For his own part he had not been able to follow their work, therefore he was entirely ignorant of it. They advocated women Guardians mainly on the ground that they were of opinion that there was a kind of work for them to do, which men could not do; or, at any rate, if they attempted it they would not be able to do it so well as women could. In the conduct of the workhouse the life-long experience of women would enable them to supervise with a keener eye many things that it was impossible for men to do. And besides that, when they remembered that by far the larger proportion of paupers were women and children, surely they could not fail to arrive at the conclusion that if they were to do for them what they wished to do for them in their miserable condition, they would wish that the "ministering angel," woman, should be sent to them, and should be able in some measure to supervise the action taken on their behalf. For many years and in many places it had been the custom to have some of the Guardians women. In Birmingham they had experience of what could be done by women, by what Miss Kendrick had done on the School Board. Miss Kendrick would tell them that as a lady she had been received by the School Board members with all the