South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3015, 25 November 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1882.

The name of Arabi Pasha will always hold a certain prominence in history. The rebellion or disturbance of which he was the originator, has, collapsed, and instead of “ expiring in a blaze of glory,” Arabi is placed on bis trial and bids fair to end his days in.gaol. At any rate, whether he goes to prison or is set free, he is a broken man. His fortunes are at a very low ebb ; he has achieved nothing and these two circumstances will render him, in Oriental minds, a despicable object. To the world in general he appears a vulgar adventurer, and nothing else. He appears to us just one of those peculiar instruments with which Fate appears to effect great purposes, and to achieve great results. It is not always by means of a distinguished or noble instrument that great ends are accomplished. Every revolution has not a Cromwell in the fore-front. Sometimes a mean and insignificant man becomes the leader of a great movement. Arabi is somewhat of this character. The man’s personal ambition carried him so far that it mingled with the popular discontent, and he was immediately the idol of the hour. Destitute of every qualification entitling him to be considered great, having no noble patriotic fire, no heroism, but simply an ordinary rebel of some soldierly qualification, he was by the force of circumstances placed in the van of a great movement. A better day never dawned upon Egypt than when Arabi drew his sword against the Khedive, for staightway everything was overturned, and there was an opportunity given to set them right, an opportunity which England will improye to the permanent, benefit of the hitherto most grossly misgoverned country on earth.

‘The Married Women’s Property, Act 1882,” recently passed in England, which received the Royal assent on

August 18, is a very remarkable statute. By its provisions, married women may occupy a position of complete isolation and independence with reference to their husbands. All former Acts of similar nature are re pealed by this, and a married woman is rendered capable of acquiring, holding, and disposing of real and personal property without the intervention of a trustee. She may separately enter into contracts, may sue or be sued apart from her husband ; she is amenable to, and may avail herself of, any laws of commerce or bankruptcy. The interests of the husband’s creditors, in view of possible fraudulent transfer or investment, are of course carefully guarded. A married woman is, under this Act, subject to separate legal proceedings ; and if she is possessed of property while the husband has none, she is liable for his maintenance exactly as the husband has hitherto been liable for her support. Those who have desired to see woman’s rights upheld, have here very great cause for congratulation,for those rights are thoroughly secured by the New Act. Looking back upon the state of things from which this Act linally'and fairly emancipates married women, at the circumstances which led up to these successive protective enactments,one can hardly deny that this legislation has not been effected prematurely, There was considerable resistance to it on the part of people who believed, or affected to believe, that the intervention of the law would disturb the relationship, between man and wife, promote discord, estrange them from one another, and, in fact, it was supposed by these prophets of ill that all sorts of miseries would follow the institution of laws to protect women from their husbands. Some persons of this way of thinking are met with still, who affect to . consider that the law having taken up the wife’s cause she has no longer that claim upon the sympathy of the community, and the generosity of man which she formerly enjoyed. Now a little reflection will show that this legislation was- designed to afford a refuge for women from the ruin and" misery which others may bring upon them, and to give them an outlet for the exercise of their ability or the expenditure of their capital. The feeling is daily growing stronger that the number of females is far in excess of the opportunities of marriage, that women must look abroad for some independent path in life and not lounge away the best of their years in the matrimonial market. There is no reason why if a married woman possesses business capacity (and some possess it in an eminent degree) she should not be in a position to use it for her own and her children’s good, be secured in the possession of what she accumulates and occupy the same commercial footing as men. If she has an invalid, an unbusinesslike, ora lazy husband, surely it would be better for her to pluck up spirit and enter the arena of commerce than to sit fretting at home. If, then, she is successful, it is but right she should be secured from the wantoness of a brutal loafer, who, under the old regime , might claim as his own everything she had so hardly scraped together. The circumstances leading to this legislation were melancholy enough, the law itself is humane and just.