Trusts Law Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Trusts Law - Coursework Example The rest of his property, which includes the North Tawton, would go the Parish Council of Devon. This is to happen if only the wife is not alive otherwise the property should go to the parish council, but the interests that the property gains go to the wife. In his statement, Endacott said that the reason he made that decision is on the bases of providing some memorial to him and his family, which was useful. The basic law indicates that all trusts whether charitable or non charitable should have people who have the benefit of the property and thus its application. According to the law, I totally agree and arguing in accordance to the ruling by the court of appeal made through Lord Evershed, that there is a failure in trying to create a trust that is beneficial to a person1. There are exceptions to the statement and to the law that purpose trusts have no validity. It is rather obvious that prohibition does not apply to powers for the purpose, but it applies only to purpose trusts. Fr om the actual law, it is clear that when there is some level of surety that the person to settle the trust has the intentions to do so, and it is certain in relation to the estate as well as the purpose for the trust, then the trust may fail. According to the current law, there is no trust in the exercise that the court of appeal can control. ... In this case, there is consideration of trustees’ duties and rights towards the property by the court. Thus, there is consideration as whether the trustees’ can utilize the property without interference from other parties. This is in line to the ruling made by the court of appeal in the case of Morice v. the bishop of Durham. Where the court indicates it does not control the property in the case. The court of appeal also may take control of the trust to ensure that there is respect to the intentions of the settler. Where the settler is the initial owner of the property as seen in the case of Roxburgh in Re Astor, I agree to the statement further due to the current law clause on express trust. According to the court of appeal definition for express trust, there must be certainty, formality and the making of the trust must be constitutional. For the trust to be biding, the settler must have the ability to create trust, that is. The settler must own property and hold the p roperty he should be able to speak as well as show the intention to create the trust. The settler can then name the beneficiary as it is the requirement of the court for non-charity trusts. Thus, the trust cannot be binding if there are no beneficiaries as this is against the law for the creation of direct trusts3. The statement may not apply where the trust is discretional following a ruling by the court of appeal in the case of McPhail v. Doulton. Where the trust may have many beneficiaries rather than a few who the settler provides in his list of beneficiaries during the making of the trust, Furthermore, the trustee must be able to say for certain who the beneficiary is when

Emile Durkheim's Theories on Education and Morality Essay

Emile Durkheim's Theories on Education and Morality - Essay Example But as America became more populated and as problems became more social, the focus on education had shifted to the human being in relation to society. The people realized that the human being was affected by its environment and the role of education is to transmit present societal traditions and customs to the students by using teachers as social agents. Because of Durkheim's influence, the American society began to value individual freedom and self-determination that depicted the product of Protestant ethic and the impact of psychology on educational theory. The present society now corresponds to Durkheim's theory of education. Focusing on his educational beliefs and view points, this essay aims to acquire the significance of his theoires on the past and present day society. According to Filloux, Durkheim emphasized the general needs of the individual in order to recognize the function of a social phenomenon (304). He asserted that every society has a system of education that is inflicted on individuals and has a concept of a "human ideal"-physically, intellectually and morally. He viewed it as a "methodical socialization" that ensures the "conditions of existence" of every individual in a society. For Durkheim, discipline is a factor of education and a means of averting culpable conduct (43). He viewed morality as a discipline that promotes regularity in people's actions and offers them "determinate goals" that also hinders their horizons (47). There are three elements of morality that determine the form and content of the purposes that educational sociology assigns to education at school: 1) teaching a sense of discipline, 2) group attachment, and 3) autonomy of will (308). In order to be called a moral person, Durkheim stated that the individual has to abide by a norm (23) and "act in terms of the collective interest" (xi). Thus, the function of morality is "to determine conduct, to fix it, and to eliminate the element of individual arbitrariness" (27). In the school institution, moral standards are imposed by the teacher to the pupils though they are given the freedom to learn in their own will. (Filloux 309). For Durkheim, the spirit of independence exists if there is intelligence or understanding and moral orders in certain incidents in life. Durkheim also discussed the school environment in his theory (310). He believed that the school environment promotes the habit of life in a school classroom form. He also stated that in ideal schools, it is not important to produce scientists among his pupils but fully rational beings. (311). Research Discussion Durkheim's structure-function analysis focuses on social facts (Filloux 303). He noted that in order to understand a fact, the causes and purposes must primarily be recognized. His analysis was original for he approached this from two similar viewpoints. One was that the society, made up of its organic components has a systematic entity responding to the societal needs. The other view was that "the social system lends itself to analysis in terms of

Stress Essay Introduction Essay Example for Free

Stress Essay Introduction Essay People experience stress in private life and at work place. People have to work effectively against time and within the parameter of various rules and regulations. It is not always possible to create an organizational climate conducive to work. Various departments, groups and external environment factors affect individual behaviour. Minimal level of stress is required for organizations to operate effectively. Excessive stress is harmful for the individual as it causes mental and physical disequilibrium and subsequently leads to physical and mental disturbance. People suffer from high blood pressure, heart attack when stress is beyond control of the human beings. It is therefore necessary to identify causes of stress and modify behaviour so that the individual energy is directed towards organizational productivity and healthy organization climate is created. Sports have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and I know from countless experiences how stress and anxiety can affect ones performance. Anyone involved in sports in anyway will understand the feelings that rush through you when you are in a high risk, and high pressure situations. Those final moments of a close game, or even the night before your big match or competition, are great examples of situations that would create the sudden rush of these feelings; and therefore, triggering a spike in anxiety. Whether you are in the stands, on the bench, playing or coaching, you get that â€Å"butterfly† feeling in your stomach. The difference between success and failure is how you deal with high pressure situations. If you let nervousness and anxiety overcome you, it could cost you and your team the match or that podium spot you worked so hard for. The question is, how do you control it, and how important is it that you control it?

An Analysis Of Water Pollution In China Environmental Sciences Essay

An Analysis Of Water Pollution In China Environmental Sciences Essay The challenge of escalating water pollution in China has posed a formidable threat to the existing water bodies that are immensely beneficial to the natives, industries and the government. This water pollution has been as a consequence of effluents from the heavily industrialized areas, which drain chemicals to rivers and other related streams. The escalating quandary of water pollution in China requires swift and practical measures geared towards safeguarding the few water bodies that have not been polluted, and halting further pollution of those already polluted. These efforts will aid in protecting the aquatic life, and improving on environmental conservation. To effectively limit the levels of water pollution, the Chinese Government ought to implement reasonable and valid systems that will guarantee the reduction in release of toxic effluents into the aquatic ecosystem. The appalling state of affairs resulting from the Chinese industrial effluents from the densely populated manufacturing states have reached to points where they threaten to literally extinguish the aquatic life, and thereby rendering once valuable rivers and streams useless. Indeed, these rivers, streams and other water bodies are affected to a point that they can be seen to be contaminated from visual observation. Additionally, strong and awful smells can be felt emanating from the flowing bodies of water; these polluted masses of moving water are usually black in color (Economy 2010). The Chinese authorities ideally want to intervene and implement effective measures to regulate the culpable industries on their commercial release into these rivers and streams. Many industrialists however argue against such a move, instead positing that by implementing a number of restrictive measures, the authorities will be deterring the growth and development of upcoming industries. Such arguments fall flat in face of logic and only help to champion the further degradation of the environment. The industrialists also posit that these measures will reduce production of some companies, which they argue, are particularly critical in global industrial production and the emergence of China as a superpower. Implementation of restrictive laws should not be compromised by vested interests from industrialists. Restrictive and regulatory environmental laws are designed help in guarding environment for the future generations in China. Environmental standards in China are deteriorating at a particularly unsettling pace when compared to other countries. Natives of Chinese towns are pessimistic about future environmental outlooks. They have witnessed once clean rivers turned into sewerage drainage channels because of extremely uncontrolled dumping of industrial refuse. In an environmental conservation article, Rivers Run Black in Shanxi Province in CHINA.ORG.CN website, a farmer called Li Yonggang recalls a few years back when a nearby riverShushui Riverwas remarkably uncontaminated and bustling with marine life. He notes with vivid contract of how the landscape of back then is so different to that of today. At thirty years, everything has changed and very different to what he used to see in th e 1980s. Li compares how he dug a mere 60 meters in the past to get clean drinking water, but nowà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦well is 180 meters deep (Rivers Run Black in Shanxi Province). Water pollution is normally graded on a scale of I, II, III, IV and V-where I is the purest with least pollutants and V is the most polluted. Shushui River is currently on grade V. Shanxi province is categorized as leading in having worst river waters in the country because of the big industries in the region (China Knowledge Press Pte Ltd Xiahou, 2005). Environmentalists and natives are equally conscious of the heightening status of the quandary, and most wonder if the deteriorating status will be halted in time since all the ten most polluted cities are in Shanxi (Rivers Run Black in Shanxi Province). According to Jian Xies book Addressing Chinas water scarcity: recommendations for selected water resource management issues, which was written in collaboration with the World Bank, the Peoples Republic of China possesses no adequate and proper sewerage management system and as a result, both the public and domestic waste is channeled into nearby water bodies. Some rivers have turned red as a result, clearly depicting the extent of pollution. (See illustration below). Also about 500 million citizens do not have any kind of access to hygienically treated drinking water and majority resort to taking filthy water from rivers (Xie World Bank, 2009). Current studies depict excessive discharge of mans refuse and other pollutants from agricultural area. The discharging of waste in the sea is rampant because the majority of the rural populations do not have abundant water conditioning facilities. This puts them on the verge of getting infected with industrial and human waste related diseases. The Xie/ World Bank book highlights the concerns of many people lacking domestic water, and indicates that such predicaments have pushed people to use flowing water from streams and rivers. Here, they can wash clothes and get water for cooking and drinking. The most culpable industries in the list of agents of pollution are plants that manufacture drugs, chemicals and tannery mills. The picture below shows how factories located near water bodies in China easily dump heaps of wastes. Wastes can be seen spilling in the river depository. Yangtze effluence Evident as it is, water contamination is primarily caused by industrial processes. From the observation of the visual evidence above, not only is water being affected, but the air is equally polluted. These emissions of toxic substances into the environment cost the Chinese government almost $69 billion annually, a figure that is spent on dismal efforts closely related to environmental conservation but which barely have any effect. Marquita Hill reports in Understanding Environmental pollution that China disposes about 11.7 million pounds of organic waste annually. This is mindboggling when you consider that industrialized nations such as the United States emits about 5.5, Japan emits around 3.4, Germany 2.3, India 3.2 and South Africa a paltry 0.6 (Hill, 2009). When you do the mathematics, Chinas emission is almost equal to all these five countries. This is intense pollution according to the statistics the rate is increasing endangering the human existence. There has been evidence of algae blooms in rivers and lakes caused by surface run-off during rainy seasons where industrial and farming chemicals are deposited in the rivers. Hill elaborates on how these run-offs result in the depletion of oxygen in the water leading to death of aquatic life. Chinese residents did try to curb this by pumping oxygen mechanically in water but the ultimate responsibility rests on the government to regulate the use of toxic industrial chemicals in these sectors. China aimed at cutting down on water effluence by ten percent from 2008 to 2010. It also attempted to clean Huai basin in Anhui Province in the 80s and 90s but those efforts foundered; $8 million dollars was spent on the project. It is clear currently that China must invest in river protection. China says water pollution double official figure, (Reuters 2010). According to this report China had grossly underestimated the levels of corruption posted in 2007. Apparently, the government estimation did not factor in the waste from agricultural activities, A study by Chinas Environmental Protection Agency in February 2010 said that water pollution levels were double what the government predicted them to be mainly because agricultural waste was ignored (Reuters, 2010). This unmasked the truth of the matter in China; the extent of Chinas environmental predicaments could be much worse! This also questioned whether the Chinese government is cognizant of its predicament and what measures it must take to reduce negative effects. Earlier in 2007, government reported it had reduced COD by 30 percent to 13.3metric tons. The article reports of extremely alarming statistics of water pollution which need quick action before things get out of manageable brackets. Coupled with both industrial and domestic emissions, the COD rose by 5 percent around the original one in 2007 (Reuter, 2010). China faces dual predicament of water pollution and scarcity. Its vast population is faced with severe water problem which is extreme in heavily populated cities. There are also cases of inadequately treated municipal waters which is unhygienic for human drinking. China therefore is forced to harvest or extract impure water especially in Yantai, Qingdao and Behai. China must supplement its water resources; straighten out any sluggishness in municipal facilities, equip sewerage firms with resources to treat toxic waste and properly channel the drainage system and enact laws to combat irresponsible industrial behaviors. In the country, most of the rivers have grade IV and grade V of pollution; these rivers are toxic and extremely unhealthy for human and living things use. It is the governments responsibility to clean the rivers and avert possible ecological disasters.

Implications of Chinese Capital Account Liberalisation

Implications of Chinese Capital Account Liberalisation If China does liberalise, few other events over the next decade are likely to have more impact on the shape of the global financial system. This also sets out a conceptual framework, identifying three separate factors which help explain why the scale of the subsequent movements in capital flows — both into and out of China — could be very large relative to the size of the world economy: (i) ‘Closing the openness gap’- There is a large gap between China’s current level of openness and that of advanced economies. Liberalisation will lead this gap to close, generating large flows in the process. (ii) ‘Catch-up growth’- China’s economic growth is expected to be relatively high over the next decade. So even if China’s capital flows do not increase relative to its own economy, they will relative to the world economy. (iii)‘Declining home bias’- Prior to the recent crisis, the global financial system became increasingly integrated. A resumption of these trends over coming decades would lead capital flows to increase both in China and globally. Summary chart Potential impact of capital account liberalisation on China’s international investment position Based on these three factors and some simple but plausible assumptions, the summary chart shows a hypothetical scenario for China’s global financial integration in 2025. It shows that China’s gross international investment position could increase from around 5% to over 30% of world GDP. The global financial integration of China has the potential to be a force for economic growth and financial stability not just in China but also globally. Global implications of Chinese capital account liberalisation The potential changes in both the magnitude and composition of capital flows outlined in the previous section would dramatically alter the financial landscape both in China and globally. In principle, capital account liberalisation in China could be a powerful force that enables the Chinese and global Implications for China For China, there are several potential benefits of liberalisation which can all be viewed through the broader lens of contributing to economic rebalancing. The Chinese economy is now starting to transition to a new model of growth, away from reliance on exports and investment as the key sources of demand. The new model of growth will therefore place a greater emphasis on consumption as a source of demand and an increase in the production of services relative to exportable manufactures. This is a challenging task and will require an ambitious agenda of structural reforms. Among these reforms, capital account liberalisation will play a key role. A removal of restrictions on outflows, for example, will allow Chinese companies and households to diversify their large pools of savings by investing in overseas assets. This should help to spread risk, reducing the need for precautionary saving and hence free up income for current spending. And it may also boost household income if returns earned on overseas assets are higher than on domestic assets (which is likely given that real deposit rates in China are currently negative due to  regulatory caps). China has the biggest banking system in the world by total assets but it is very domestically focused. If China’s banks were to diversify their balance sheets by expanding abroad — either directly through cross-border bank lending, or indirectly through lending to foreign affiliates — they may become more resilient to an adverse shock in their home market and so be better able to maintain lending to domestic companies and households in China. Allowing more channels for inflows, on the other hand, will help to deepen and diversify China’s financial system, providing alternative sources of capital for Chinese borrowers. Should liberalisation also lead to lower reserve accumulation, it could lead to an improvement in China’s fiscal balance since the return on its FX reserves is lower than the cost of sterilising those purchases. And if it were accompanied by a more flexible exchange rate regime (as was suggested by the Third Plenum), it could allow China to operate a more effective monetary policy, increasing its ability to respond to domestic shocks. All of these factors should promote China’s rebalancing and its transition towards a new model of growth. But there are also risks. There are several notable examples where capital account liberalisation has resulted in instability. The most recent, perhaps, was the Eastern European countries where large capital inflows contributed to unsustainably rapid cr edit growth that ultimately culminated in economic and financial crisis in 2008 (Bakker and Gulde (2010)). Chinese policymakers will need to ensure they have sufficient scope to set policy to offset shocks that could pose risks to economic and financial stability. It will be particularly important to sequence carefully external liberalisation with appropriate domestic macroprudential and microprudential policies to mitigate risks from excessive credit growth and asset price volatility. One concern is that by opening the financial gates, some banks and, ultimately, borrowers in the Chinese real economy may find themselves faced with a shortage of liquidity. China’s banking system is heavily reliant on domestic deposits for its funding, which account for around two thirds of total liabilities. A reallocation overseas of even a small share of these deposits could therefore cause funding difficulties. By  enabling higher real returns for Chinese domestic savers, however, domest ic interest rate liberalisation could help to reduce these risks. Another set of risks are related to inflows. In the short run, there could be indigestion in China’s asset markets, which are still small relative to potentially large inflows of capital. And over a longer time period, inflows could lead to an unsustainable build-up of maturity and currency mismatches in national balance sheets (for example, long-term domestic investment funded by short-term overseas FX-denominated borrowing). Large mismatches are susceptible to unwind in a disorderly way, as was the case for some Asian economies in 1997–98. Finally, the risks arising from a more flexible — and potentially more volatile — exchange rate would need to be effectively managed. Which of these outcomes — more sustainable growth or a rise in instability — would dominate will depend on the accompanying policy framework. The empirical evidence on the costs and benefits of financial openness tends to suggest that countries benefit most when certain threshold conditions — such as a well-developed and supervised financial sector and sound institutions and macroeconomic policies — are in place before opening up to large-scale flows of capital (Kose et al (2006)). This underscores the importance in China of careful sequencing of capital account liberalisation alongside other domestic reforms such as domestic interest rate liberalisation, development of effective hedging instruments and enhancing the microprudential and macroprudential regimes. Implications for the rest of the world From the perspective of policymakers outside of China, it is important to understand how capital account liberalisation might ‘spill over’ to affect other economies. Four such channels are discussed below, although there are undoubtedly others. Greater exposure to the Chinese financial system If liberalisation has a large impact on the Chinese economy or financial system, it is also likely to have a significant impact in other countries as well. Although China’s economy is already considered able to generate material spillovers onto other economies (International Monetary Fund (2011b)), the process of capital account liberalisation will likely increase its systemic importance even further, by magnifying existing transmission channels, while also creating new ones. Foreign households, businesses and financial institutions will increase the amount and the number of their claims on China, while those in China will do the same with respect to the outside world, thereb y deepening the complex web of financial interconnectedness. If China does hard-wire itself into the global financial system, it will bring important benefits in terms of risk-sharing. Households that purchase Chinese assets whose returns are not perfectly correlated with their own income would be better able to smooth consumption. And foreign banks that  expand in China would diversify their earnings base and potentially enhance their resilience. The flipside of increased interconnectedness, however, is that the global financial system will be more sensitive to shocks originating in China. Increased holdings of Chinese assets, for example, would imply greater exposure to fluctuations in their price. Greater reliance of global banks on Chinese banks for  funding, in turn, would bring about the possibility of a liquidity shortage if those banks were to repatriate funds in response to balance sheet pressures back home.(1) Increase in global liquidity If China’s financial walls are lifted, some of its vast pool of domestic savings will migrate into global capital markets, providing a significant boost to liquidity. The illustrative scenario in Chart 5 suggests that these flows could amount to a substantial share of world GDP. A new source of global liquidity from China could lead to several beneficial effects, particularly during a period where the world’s financial system is becoming increasingly fragmented and retreating into national borders (Carney (2013b)). As well as providing a new source of finance for borrowers, it could lead to a more diversified and more stable global investor base. At the same time, however, a rapid increase in liquidity from China could lead to absorption pressures in some asset markets in the short run, which could lead to a mispricing of risk with adverse consequences for financial stability. Increased global role of the renminbi Greater international use of the renminbi would add another dimension to the global impact of capital account liberalisation. Potential benefits include lower transaction costs and a reduced risk of currency mismatches. But it may also amplify the international transmission of Chinese policy and domestic shocks, of which policymakers around the world will need to take into account. Take the following hypothetical case: a country purchases a large proportion of its imports from China and its currency depreciates against the renminbi. If the prices of those imports are set and invoiced in the domestic currency of that country, the depreciation would not automatically lead to an increase in their price and hence no response in domestic monetary and fiscal policy would be needed.(2) If, however, the imports were invoiced in RMB, then their price would increase in line with the exchange rate depreciation, leading to domestic inflation. Moreover, a country that had no trade with China but whose imports were set and invoiced in RMB — such that the RMB would be a ‘vehicle currency’ — would need to respond to macroeconomic or policy fluctuations in China that affect the exchange rate and feed through into domestic prices of that country. There is a body of literature which finds evidence of these invoicing effects for the US dollar, as the world’s most international currency. Goldberg (2010) finds that for non-US economies, large use of the US dollar in reserves and in international transactions is typically associated with greater sensitivity of trade, inflation and asset values to movements in the value of the dollar relative to the domestic currency. However, as discussed above, it would likely take much longer than a decade for the renminbi to take on a similar role to that of the US dollar today. Global imbalances The literature on the causes and consequences of global imbalances is as vast as it is inconclusive. According to one influential perspective, the large imbalances in current account positions that accumulated over the past decade partly originated in high net saving rates in developing Asian countries (Bernanke (2005). If true, capital account liberalisation in China could potentially help to alleviate these imbalances to the extent that it leads to a reduction in China’s net savings and correspondingly its current account surplus (although clearly the impact of this on overall imbalances would depend on the corresponding adjustment in other countries). This may occur either because liberalisation lowers the incentives for precautionary saving or because it leads to a more flexible and higher exchange rate. But even if Chinese capital account liberalisation were to lead to no reduction in global imbalances, it could still help to lessen some of the adverse consequences relating to these imbalances. There is evidence that reserve accumulation by foreign governments can materially depress the risk-free interest rate in the United States (Warnock and Warnock (2009)) which, in turn, may encourage excessive risk-taking behaviour globally. So to the extent that Chinese capital account liberalisation were to result in a switch in the composition of outflows, away from reserve accumulation by the central bank and towards overseas investment in riskier assets by other Chinese residents, this may reduce some of the downward pressure on government bond yields and related rates i n the United States and globally. Of course, this would bring other challenges. But in the longer term, it could be beneficial for the stability of the international monetary and financial system as a whole. Conclusion If China continues to liberalize its capital account over the next decade or so, it is likely to be a force for development and constancy not just in China but also for the international monetary and financial system. While this process will be companied by new and important risks, it falls to international bodies and national authorities to monitor and take appropriate policy actions to mitigate such risks. This will not be a petty task. As we already know Chinese capital account liberalisation could lead to striking changes in the global financial landscape, policymakers will be facing uncharted territory. In order to succeed, policy cooperation between national authorities is necessary, both to increase understanding of the risks and to develop common policy approaches. Currently the Bank of England is working intimately with the People’s Bank of China regarding the development of offshore renminbi activity in the United Kingdom and will continue to seek other ways to suppo rt a successful integration of China into the global financial system.

Perfect, but not too Perfect :: essays research papers fc

PERFECT, BUT NOT TOO PERFECT Once in a village long, long ago, there was a home with a family inside of it. And in that family was a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, and a grandmother. In this village it rained all the time. More than London, or the Amazon or all the rainforests in the world combined. In this village also were a church, a store, a mill, and a monument for the chief: Jades Samoa. This wasn’t a village like in Africa or Cambodia, but a very nice village. The people wore amazing clothing. Better than any fashion brand today. The buildings wore made perfectly with smooth glass, smooth brick, and the smoothest wood. These buildings could withstand anything from a simple hurricane to a giant monsoon. The villagers drank the purest water and the finest wine. They were elegant, graceful, civilized, and always stood straight up. There were fantastic parties thrown every night and the people gathered and talked and laughed bout there lives. There beautiful and perfect lives. All the children were given the finest educations by the most brilliant adults; whom were smarter than Leonardo DaVinci and Albert Einstein would ever fathom to be. The streets were made of pure diamond and the lampposts of ivory. The cars never used any energy and never depreciated. They had plush seating made of soft leather. Every home was built according to the family, but every home was very large and spacious. They contained the finest furniture and the finest robotic staff that never became tired and always completed every demand made by their masters.

Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl Essay -- Harriet Jacobs

Harriet Jacobs wanted to tell her story, but knew she lacked the skills to write the story herself. She had learned to read while young and enslaved, but, at the time of her escape to the North in 1842, she was not a proficient writer. She worked at it, though, in part by writing letters that were published by the New York Tribune, and with the help of her friend, Amy Post. Her writing skills improved, and by 1858, she had finished the manuscript of her book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. L. Maria Child, a prominent white abolitionist, agreed to edit Jacob's book, although she apparently did little to alter the text except to rearrange some sections, suggest the removal of one chapter, and add material to another. In a letter to a friend, Child wrote, "I abridged, and struck out superfluous words sometimes; but I don't think I altered fifty words in the whole volume." The subject matter of the book -- sexual abuse of slave women -- was taboo in the mid-19th century, and Harriet had struggled over whether or not to expose herself so publicly. But she realized the significance of her story and so decided to go ahead, although she wrote under the psydonym, Linda Brent, and assigned fictitious names to everyone mentioned in the book. Child, too, was aware of the story's significance, writing in the book's introduction: "I am well aware that many will accuse me of indecorum for presenting these pages to the public; for the experiences of this intelligent and much-injured woman belong to a class which some call delicate subjects, and others indelicate. This peculiar phase of Slavery has generally been kept veiled; but the public ought to be made acquainted with its monstrous features, and I willingly take the respon... ...e program in African-American Studies. She is the author of several acclaimed books and editor of the Penguin Classics edition of the Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Through the war years, Harriet Jacobs lived in Washington, D.C., assisting contrabands, nursing black troops and teaching. After the war, she and her daughter did relief work in Savannah and Edenton. In 1868, they traveled to London to raise funds for an orphanage and home for the aged in Savannah. The year before her death in 1897, she was actively involved in organizing meetings of the National Association of Colored Women in Washington, D.C. She is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge. For nearly a century, the authorship of her book was questioned, but a new edition published in 1987 by Harvard University Press named Harriet Ann Jacobs as the true author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.