ABSTRACT
The second resolution, which was as follows :-"That this meeting pledges itself to endeavour to secure tbe rnturn of suitable women as Poor Law Guardians in Brighton and Hove, by inducing candidates to come forward for election and canvassing for this object," was moved by Miss Ellice Hopkins, who deprecated women being deterred from this work by "bugbear phrases." One frequently beard it objected that the return of women Guardians would "open a door." 'Why should it not 1 Our lif~ was not a grave, but a house, and an open door in a house was an excellent thing. She then pleaded with burning eloquence for a woman's care for the poor children in our pauper schools. Wa~ it not a grievous thing that, in our child-loving England, children with hearts as loving and characters as fine, as any to be found among our own little ones, should be barracked and warehoused, and brought up by the hundred, under circumstances which made it impossible for those who had chargr,, of them to show them any affection T Was not the woman's hand and the ~oman's heart needed here, to replace this evil system by a better one T Yet more earnestly, if possible, would she entreat a woman's care for the young mothers with their first babies, of whom, alas, there were so many in our workhouses. We were accustomed to despise them, but little did we know bow great the temptation to which they succumbed, nor how earnest, in many cases, the wisb. to redeem the past.
