第68章

"At the end of the lecture, thinking us in actual danger from these ruffians, he offered to let us out by a side door; but our lioness stood up and said, in a voice that rings in my ear even now, 'Thank you, sir;no. There are _gentlemen_ enough here to escort us safely.'

"The magic of a great word from a great heart, at certain moments when minds are heated! At that word, sir, the scales fell from a hundred eyes;manhood awoke with a start, ay, and chivalry too; fifty manly fellows were round us in a moment, with glowing cheeks and eyes, and they carried us all home to our several lodgings in triumph. The cowardly caitiffs of the trades-union howled outside, and managed to throw a little dirt upon our gowns, and also hurled epithets, most of which were new to me; but it has since been stated by persons more versed in the language of the _canaille_ that no fouler terms are known to the dregs of mankind.

"Thus did the immodest sex, in the person of the medical student, outrage seven fair samples of the modest sex--to teach them modesty.

"Next morning the police magistrates dealt with a few of our teachers, inflicted severe rebukes on them, and feeble fines.

"The craftier elders disowned the riot in public, but approved it in private; and continued to act in concert with it, only with cunning, not violence. _It caused no honest revulsion of feeling,_ except in the disgusted public, and they had no power to help us.

"The next incident was a stormy debate by the subscribers to the infirmary; and here we had a little feminine revenge, which, outraged as we had been, I hope you will not grudge us.

"Our lioness subscribed five pounds, and became entitled to vote and speech. As the foulest epithets had been hurled at her by the union, and a certain professor had told her, to her face, no respectable woman would come to him and propose to study medicine, she said, publicly, that she had come to his opinion, and respectable women would avoid him--which caused a laugh.

"She also gave a venerable old physician, our bitter opponent, a slap that was not quite so fair. His attendant had been concerned in that outrage, and she assumed--in which she was not justified-- that the old doctor approved. 'To be sure,' said she, 'they say he was intoxicated, and that is the only possible excuse.'

"The old doctor had only to say that he did not control his assistants in the street; and his own mode of conducting the opposition, and his long life of honor, were there to correct this young woman's unworthy surmises, and she would have had to apologize for going too far on mere surmise. But, instead of that, he was so injudicious as to accuse her of foul language, and say, 'My attendant is a perfect gentleman; he would not be my attendant if he were not.'

"Our lioness had him directly. 'Oh,' said she, 'if Dr. So-and-so prefers to say that his attendant committed that outrage on decency when in his sober senses, I am quite content.'

"This was described as violent invective by people with weak memories, who had forgotten the nature of the outrage our lioness was commenting on; but in truth it was only superior skill in debate, with truth to back it.

"For my part, I kept the police report at the time, and have compared it with her speech. The judicial comments on those rioters are far more severe than hers. The truth is it was her facts that hit too hard, not her expressions.

"Well, sir, she obtained a majority; and those managers of the infirmary who objected to female students were dismissed, and others elected. At the same meeting the Court of Contributors passed a statute, making it the law of the infirmary that students should be admitted without regard to sex.

"But as to the mere election of managers, the other party demanded a scrutiny of the votes, and instructive figures came out. There voted with us twenty-eight firms, thirty-one ladies, seven doctors.

"There voted with the union fourteen firms, two ladies, _thirty-seven doctors,_ and three _druggists._"Thereupon the trades-union, as declared by the figures, alleged that firms ought not to vote. _Nota bene,_ they always had voted unchallenged till they voted for fair play to women.

"The union served the provost with an interdict not to declare the new managers elected.

"We applied for our tickets under the new statute, but were impudently refused, under the plea that the managers must first be consulted: so did the servants of the infirmary defy the masters in order to exclude us.

"By this time the great desire of women to practice medicine had begun to show itself. Numbers came in and matriculated; and the pressure on the authorities to keep faith, and relax the dead-lock they had put us in, was great.

"Thereupon the authorities, instead of saying, 'We have pledged ourselves to a great number of persons, and pocketed their fees,' took fright, and cast about for juggles. They affected to discover all of a sudden that they had acted illegally in matriculating female students. They would, therefore, not give back their fees, and pay them two hundred pounds apiece for breach of contract, but detain their fees and stop their studies until compelled by judicial decision to keep faith. Observe, it was under advice of the lord-justice-general they had matriculated us, and entered into a contract with us, _for fulfilling which it was not, and is not, in the power of any mortal man to punish them._"But these pettifoggers said this: _'We_ have acted illegally, and therefore not we, but _you,_ shall suffer: _we_ will _profit_ by our illegal act, for we will cheat you out of your fees to the university and your fees to its professors, as well as the seed-time of your youth that we have wasted.'

"Now, in that country they can get the opinions of the judges by raising what they call an action of declarator.

"One would think it was their business to go to the judges, and meantime give us the benefit of the legal doubt, while it lasted, and of the moral no-doubt, which will last till the day of judgment, and a day after.