Both married and single found their worst foes in their nearest friends. The traffic in women was none the less real in Christian England than it is now in the slave marts of Stamboul or Constantinople.--Ibid.

One of the most recent illustrations of the general regard in which woman is held throughout Christendom, is the experience of the young California heiress, Florence Blythe, who although but fifteen years old, was in constant receipt of proposals of marriage both at home and from abroad. Her attorney, General Hunt, said: “I do not think there is a woman living who has had the number of written proposals that Florence has received, but in all the letters woman is regarded as a chattel, a thing to be bought and sold. The constant receipt of letters of this character, and the equally constant attempt of adventurers to gain a personal interview with the child, at last became unendurable, and to escape such insulting persecution, Florence suddenly married a young man of her acquaintance living near her.” These letters, among them, from sixty titled Europeans, lords, counts, dukes, barons, viscounts, marquises and even one prince, confirm the statement of August Bebel, that marriage sales of women are still as common as in the middle ages, and are expected in most Christian countries.