Prior to 1868, bonds, mortgages, stocks, etc., were counted personal property, all of which went into the possession of the husband the moment the woman answered "I will," in the marriage ceremony. I worked hard to get the law passed giving the wife the right to her own separate earnings, and at last was greatly helped by the fact that a woman petitioned for a divorce, stating in her application that she was driven from her home, that she and her two children had worked hard and saved $100 for a rainy day, and now her husband claimed the money. It was a case in point, and helped the members of our legislature to pass the wages bill.

Delaware College, the only institution of the kind in the State, was open to girls for thirteen years, but owing to a tragedy committed by the boys in hazing one another, resulting in death, the doors were thereafter closed to girls, although they were in no way directly or indirectly implicated in the outrages. When Governor Stockley was appealed to, he simply gave some of the old arguments against coeducation, and did not recommend, as he should have done, an appropriation at once by the State to build a similar college, with all the necessary appointments for the education of girls. We have women who are practicing physicians, and are also in the State Medical Boards. We have none who practice law or preach in our pulpits, and all the political offices of the State are closed to women. No notaries, bank cashiers, telegraph operators. Women are still in the belief that work outside the home is a disgrace to the men of their families.

In February, 1881, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Miss Couzins and Mrs. Lockwood, held various hearings before the legislature. Mrs. Lockwood read to the gentlemen article 4 of the constitution as amended in 1834: "Any white male citizen over 22 years of age who shall be a tax-payer, shall be eligible to vote for electors." She then showed them how readily, without any marked revolution, the word "white" had been stricken out, while the word tax-payer had virtually become a dead letter. Then turning to the first paragraph of the United States revised code she cited the passage which states that in determining the meaning of statutes after February 25, 1877, "words importing the masculine gender may be applied to females." * * * * At this point the chairman of the committee placed before Mrs. Lockwood the Delaware code from which she read a similar application of the law made many years before. Having laid this foundation she asserted that the women of Delaware were legally entitled to vote under the laws as they are, but that to prevent all question on the subject, she would recommend a special enactment like that prepared in the bill before them. An amendment to the State constitution giving suffrage to women was presented in the House of Representatives in February, 1881, and referred to the committee on privileges and elections. It was reported adversely. The vote showed that all the members, with two[529] exceptions, were opposed to the measure.

Among the friends in Delaware were several liberal families, active in all the progressive movements of the day. Preeminent among these was that of the noble Thomas Garrett, whose good words of encouragement for woman's enfranchisement may be found in the bound copies of The Revolution as far back as 1868. His private letters to those of us interested in his labors of love are among our most cherished mementoes. He was a man of good judgment, broad sympathies, and unswerving integrity.

IV.—KENTUCKY.

Mary B. Clay, daughter of Cassius M. Clay, sends us the following report of what has been done to change the status of women in Kentucky:

The earliest agitation of the suffrage question in our State arose from the advent of Miss Lucy Stone in Louisville, in 1853, at which time she delivered three lectures in Masonic Hall to crowded audiences. George D. Prentice gave full and friendly reports in the Courier-Journal. In later years, Anna Dickinson and others have lectured in our chief cities. But the first note of associated effort is that given in The Revolution from Glendale, which says:

We organized here an association with twenty members the first of October, 1867, and now have fifty. We hope soon to have the whole of Hardin county, and by the close of another year the whole of the State of Kentucky, enlisted on the side of woman's rights.

In the winter of 1872 Hannah Tracy Cutler and Margaret V. Longley were granted a respectful hearing before our legislature at Frankfort. In May, 1879, self-appointed, I represented Kentucky at the May anniversary of the National Association at St. Louis. In the autumn following, Miss Anthony, during an extended lecture tour through the State, stopped in Richmond several days, and aided us in organizing a local suffrage society.[530] Letters were at once written to the leading editors asking them to publish articles on the subject. Many favorable answers were received, and we have largely availed ourselves of the columns of the papers to keep up the agitation. My sister, Sally Clay Bennett, edits a column in the Richmond Register, sister Anne a column in the Lexington Gazette, and Kate Dunning Clarke, a column in the Turf, Field and Farm. Mrs. Clarke is also associate editor of the Kentucky State Journal. The Misses Moore are making a success of a daily paper at Milledgeville.

In May, 1880, Mrs. Bennett and myself were delegates at the great National Mass Convention in Farwell Hall, Chicago. In October, 1881, the American Association held its annual meeting in Louisville. It was largely attended and fully and fairly reported by the press of the city. At its close, a Kentucky State association was organized, with Laura Clay as president.

In January, 1882, the Richmond and Louisville clubs secured a hearing before the judiciary committee of the Senate, Mrs. Bennett and myself representing the former, and John A. Ward the latter. With the valuable aid of Mrs. Mary Haggart of Indianapolis we made a most favorable impression upon our legislators. The points in which our laws are defective and upon which our appeals and arguments were based are well indicated by the pleas of our several petitions:

That women might have municipal and presidential suffrage by statute; that in marriage women might own their property as men own theirs; that women who were married might be the legal guardians of their children's property and persons as well as the father; that women should be appointed with equal responsibility and authority as assistant physicians in insane asylums, and that the appointment of all the officers in such asylums should be made by the legislature, and not by the governor, as now; that women be appointed on boards of visitors and commissioners to all asylums where women are inmates or prisoners.

In 1884, all of the Clay sisters—Mrs. Bennet, Mary, Laura and Anne—with Mrs. Haggart, again went to Frankfort, and held meetings in the legislative hall, which were largely attended by the best classes of the citizens of that city, as well as by members of the legislature.

For several years we have had a woman for State Librarian. In Fayette, one of our most aristocratic counties, Lexington being its county seat, a woman was elected to the office of county clerk by a majority of 200 over her male competitor. In two other counties women are also county clerks. Each of them had served so efficiently in her husband's office, that at his death she had been elected in his place.

That woman has to fight every step of her way to the recognition of her rights as a citizen equal before the law, is shown by the following despatch from Frankfort, dated December 18, 1885:

Mrs. M. C. Lucas was elected by the vote of Daviess county to the office of jailer, to succeed her husband, who was killed by a mob while in discharge of his duty. When she appeared before the county court to give bond for the office, the Judge refused to allow her to qualify. A writ of mandamus from the Circuit Court was applied for to compel the court to allow her to qualify, but the motion was denied. An appeal was then taken to the Court of Appeals. Yesterday that court affirmed the decision of the Circuit Court, that a woman cannot legally hold the office of county jailer.

A woman in Madison county acted as census-taker, and performed her duty well. She was the niece of Mr. Justice Miller of the Supreme Court of the United States. Gen. W. J. Sanderson, internal revenue collector for the eighth district, employed two young ladies as clerks, Miss Brown and Miss Price, the former of whom is said to be his best clerk. She is the sister of Mrs. Smith, the circuit clerk of Laurel county. The successor of General Sanderson, employs his two daughters as clerks, and they receive the same pay as men who do the same work.

Many women in our State manage their own farms. My mother, during my father's absence as minister to Russia, took his farm of 2,500 acres (he making her his attorney), paid off a large debt on the property, built an elegant house costing $30,000, stocked the farm, and largely supported the family of six children, with money which she made during the war. She fed government mules, and did it so well that she would return them to camp before the time expired, in better condition than most feeders got theirs. She is now, 1885, conducting her own farm of 350 acres, selling several thousand dollars' worth of wheat, cattle, and sheep annually, giving her personal attention to everything, at the age of seventy. During the adventurous and perilous period of my father's life she shared his dangers, and was ever his mainstay in upholding his hands against slavery; and in that crowning point of his life, when he was mobbed in Lexington, my mother sat at his bed-side, and wrote at his dictation, "Go tell your secret conclave of dastardly assassins, Cassius M. Clay knows his rights and how to defend them."

Two of my sisters, Laura and Anne, and myself are practical farmers, each having under her immediate superintendence the workmen, both white and black, on 300 acres. We raise corn, wheat, oats, cattle and sheep, buying and selling our own stock and produce. We took possession of the land without stock or utensils, and by our observation and experience, prudence and industry, have greatly improved the lands and stock, and annually realize a handsome income therefrom.

Miss Laura R. White of Manchester, sister of Hon. John D. White, who ably advocated our cause in congress as well as in his own State, was graduated with marked honor from the Michigan State University in 1874. Since that time she has studied architecture in the Boston Institute of Technology one year, worked as draughtsman in the office of the supervisory architect of the treasury department at Washington, two years, studied in the special school of architecture in Paris one year, and is now, 1886, prosecuting her studies with a liberal selection of French and English architectural works at her mountain home in Kentucky. Mrs. Bessie White Heagen, the youngest daughter of Mrs. Sarah A. White, was graduated with honor from the Roxbury High School of Boston, and from the school of Pharmacy of Michigan University. Being denied examination and the privileges of college graduates of the college of pharmacy at Louisville, where she was employed by a prominent pharmacist, she brought suit and obtained a verdict in her favor.

Early in 1882, Dr. J. P. Barnum employed young women in his store with the expectation of being able to educate them in the college of pharmacy. But the hostility of the students to the proposed innovation, and the lack of a systematic laboratory course, caused the relinquishment of that plan and the formation of the new school. Prominent gentlemen in the community assisted Dr. Barnum, and the Louisville School of Pharmacy was duly incorporated under the general laws of Kentucky.[531] Though sustained by men of wealth and influence, the school met with great opposition, the State Board of Pharmacy refusing to register the women who were graduated from it until compelled to do so by a mandamus from the Law and Equity Court, Judge Simral presiding. March 7, 1884, the legislature incorporated the Louisville School of Pharmacy for Women, and by special enactment empowered its graduates to practice their profession without registration or interference from the State board.

The school confers two degrees; its full course taking three years and requiring more work than is done in other schools. So far its graduates have been representative women, and all have found responsible situations awaiting them. Its faculty remains, with a few exceptions, as in the first session. Dr. J. P. Barnum, to whose indefatigable efforts the foundation of the school is due, is dean and professor of pharmacy and analytical chemistry; Dr. T. Hunt Stuckey, a graduate of Heidelberg University, who joined his efforts with Dr. Barnum at an early day, is professor of materia medica, toxicology and microscopy. Mrs. D. N. Marble, professor of general and pharmaceutical chemistry, and Mrs. Fountaine Miller, professor of botany, were graduates of the first class.

Mrs. Kate Trimble de Roode, in a recent letter says:

Kentucky has had school suffrage for thirty years, but as the right is not generally known or understood, few women have ever availed themselves of the privilege. The State librarian has for many years been a woman, and there are several post-mistresses also in this State. The State University has recently admitted women on equal terms to all its departments. As a general thing the young women of Kentucky are better educated than the men, the latter being early put to business, while most parents desire above all things to secure to their daughters a liberal education. We have a number of women practicing medicine in the larger cities, one architect, but as yet no lawyers, although several women have taken a full course of study for that profession. The question of woman suffrage has been but little agitated in this State, although the last legislature gave a respectful hearing to several ladies on the question. The property rights of married women are in a crude state; the wife's personal property vests in the husband; the profits and rents that accrue from her real estate belong to him also. She can make no will without the assent of her husband, and if given, he can revoke it at any time before the will is probated. The wife's wages belong to her husband. She cannot sue or be sued without he joins her in the suit. The wife's dower is a life interest in a third of the husband's real estate, whereas the husband's curtesy, where there is issue of the marriage, born alive, is a life interest in all the real estate belonging to the wife at the time of her death. This is the statutory law, but the wife by obtaining a decree in chancery may possess all the rights of a femme sole. A bill securing more equal rights to women passed the House of the last legislature, but failed in the Senate. The courtesy of Kentucky men to women in general, has kept them from realizing their civil and political degradation, until, by some sudden turn in the wheel of fortune, the individual woman has felt the iron teeth of the law in her own flesh, and warned her slumbering sisterhood. We are now awaking to the fact that an aristocracy of sex in a republic is as inconsistent and odious as an aristocracy of color, and indeed far more so.

V.—TENNESSEE.

We are indebted to Mrs. Elizabeth Lisle Saxon for the following:

Elizabeth Avery Meriwether is the chief representative of liberal thought in Tennessee. Her pen is ever ready to champion the wronged. I first came to know her when engaged in a newspaper discussion to reestablish in the public schools of Memphis three young women who had been dismissed because of "holding too many of Mrs. Meriwether's views"—the reason actually given by the superintendent and endorsed by the board of directors. A seven month's war was carried on, ending in a triumphant reinstallment of the teachers, a new superintendent, and a new board of directors. Public opinion was educated into more liberal ideas, and the Memphis Appeal, through its chivalrous editor, Mr. Keating, declared squarely for woman suffrage.

When Col. Kerr introduced into the Tennessee legislature a bill making divorce impossible for any cause save adultery, Mrs. Meriwether wrote the ablest article I ever read, in opposition, which Mr. Keating published in his paper, and distributed among the members of the legislature. The result was a clear vote against the bill.

With Mrs. Lide Meriwether and Mrs. M. J. Holmes, she publicly assailed the cross examination of women in criminal trials, either as culprits or witnesses, until the practice was broken up, and private hearings accorded. In 1876 she sent a memorial to the National Democratic convention at St. Louis, asking that party to declare for woman suffrage in its platform. Though her appeal was not read, hundreds of copies were circulated among the members in the hope of stirring thought on the subject in the South. It provoked much sarcasm because it was signed only by Mrs. Meriwether and Mrs. Saxon. In 1880-81 Mrs. Meriwether was one of the speakers in the series of conventions held by the National association in the Western and New England States.

VI.—VIRGINIA.

In the winter of 1870, immediately after the National Washington convention, Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis, while spending a few days in Richmond, formed the acquaintance of Mrs. Anna Whitehead Bodeker, a most earnest advocate of the ballot for women. Mrs. Davis held a parlor meeting in the home of Mrs. Bodeker, enlisting the interest of several prominent citizens of Richmond, who very soon invited Mrs. Joslyn Gage to their city to give a series of lectures. Of the result of this visit we give Mrs. Bodeker's report as published in The Revolution of May, 1870:

DEAR REVOLUTION:—I glory in announcing a grand achievement in the great reform of the day in Virginia. Our energetic and heroic leader, Mrs. M. Joslyn Gage, after giant efforts on her part, and with the aid of some strong advocates of the reform, on Friday evening, May 6, 1870, organized in the city of Richmond a Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association. The whole proceedings I here append, for immediate publication in your columns.

Mrs. Gage, advisory counsel for New York, in the National Woman Suffrage Association of America, delivered a lecture upon "Opportunity for Woman," at Bosher's Hall, corner of Ninth and Main streets, on Thursday evening. The lecture was able, earnest and eloquent, and was listened to with rapt attention by the friends of the cause present. At its conclusion, Judge John C. Underwood gave notice that on the following evening a meeting would be held at the United States Court room (which he freely proffered for the purpose) to organize a State Association, adopt a constitution, elect officers, and appoint delegates to the anniversary of the National Association soon to be held in New York city. The judge remarked that, upon conversing with Governor Wise upon the subject, he expressed his warm sympathy with the objects of the movement save upon the question of giving women the ballot. With all the other rights claimed, he was heartily in accord; especially, he thought, should the professions be opened to women, more particularly the medical, they being the natural physicians of their sex and of children.

Pursuant to the above notice, a meeting was held in the United States court-room. Judge John C. Underwood was called to preside. Previous to action on the regular business of the meeting, several articles favorable to the movement were read. Miss Sue L. F. Smith, daughter of the late Rev. Dr. Wm. A. Smith, read very charmingly a well-written essay prepared by herself in advocacy of granting to women the full meed of powers and responsibilities now enjoyed by men. Mr. William E. Colman read an article entitled "Clerical Denunciation of Woman Suffrage—A Defense," being a reply to a violent attack made by the Rev. Dr. Edwards of this city, upon the adherents of the movement, in a sermon delivered by him recently. A proposed constitution for the government of the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association was adopted; after which came the election of officers[532] of the society. On motion of Judge Underwood, Miss Sue L. F. Smith was appointed delegate to represent Virginia in the National Association to be held in New York city May 12, 13, the society having by resolution connected itself as an auxiliary to said National Association. Mrs. Gage offered resolutions, which were unanimously adopted, after which she delivered a forcible address, enumerating many of the wrongs to which women are subjected in this State, dwelling particularly upon the laws depriving mothers of the right to their own children, placing the property of married women at the mercy of their husbands, and depriving the wives of all voice in the disposition of the property possessed by them before marriage.

In the winter of 1871, Miss Anthony was honored by an invitation from the society, and held several meetings in Judge Underwood's court-room. About this time appeared the following:

Judge Underwood, having stated in a letter that after mature consideration he had come to the conclusion that the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States, together with the enforcement act of May 31, 1870, have secured the right to vote to female citizens as fully as it is now exercised and enjoyed by male citizens, a test case is to be made at once in the Virginia courts. As there are very few advocates of woman suffrage in Virginia, some of the leaders of the movement in Washington are about to move to Alexandria to perfect an organization and be ready with a case when Judge Underwood opens court there.

But Mrs. Bodeker, who also memorialized the general assembly, was first to make the attempt to vote. The Richmond Dispatch describes the occasion:

Yesterday morning the judges of the second precinct of Marshall ward, J. F. Shinberger, esq., presiding, were surprised at the appearance of a lady at the polls. She wished to deposit a ballot, but as the judges declined to allow this, in view of her not having registered, she then asked to be permitted to have a paper with the following inscription placed in the ballot-box: "By the Constitution of the United States, I, Anne Whitehead Bodeker, have a right to give my vote at this election, and in vindication of it drop this note in the ballot-box, November 7, 1871." This paper was taken by the judges, and will be deposited with the ballots in the archives of the Hustings court.

One remarkable incident in Gen. Grant's administration was Miss Elizabeth VanLew's appointment as postmaster at Richmond. She held the office eight years, notwithstanding the persistent opposition of politicians. The Ballot-Box said:

Miss VanLew was postmaster in Richmond under Grant, introducing many reforms in the office, but through the envy of men, who were voters, she, a non-voter, lost her office, as she had lost wealth and friends from her devotion to the Union during the war. Now, since its close, she finds not only her former slave men permitted to make laws for her, but also those whom she opposed when they were seeking their country's life. But women of all ranks, white and colored, are awaking to their need of the ballot for self-protection.

The Philadelphia Press, edited by J. W. Forney, said:

Some covert enemies of the president and the new civil-service reform have been spreading a report, through sensational specials, that the Richmond post-office is to be given to some prominent Virginian of local standing as soon as Miss VanLew's commission expires. If there is any post-office in the United States in which the whole nation at this time has a special interest, it is this one of Richmond which the present incumbent holds, as it were, by a national right, and certainly by popular acclaim. We have not time in a brief paragraph to tell the striking story of what Miss VanLew has done and what she has suffered for the country. Her story will pass into standard history, however, as sadly illustrative of our times. She herself is known and loved wherever the horrors of Libby and Belle Isle are mourned and denounced.

VII.—WEST VIRGINIA.

Hon. Samuel Young, in a letter to The Revolution, dated Senate Chamber, Wheeling, West Virginia, February 22, 1869, writes:

In 1867, I introduced a bill in the State Senate, looking to the enfranchisement of all women in West Virginia, who can read the Declaration of Independence intelligently, and write a legible hand, and have actually paid tax the year previous to their proposing to vote. But even this guarded bill had no friends but myself. * * * I introduced a resolution during the present session of our legislature, asking congress to extend the right of suffrage to women. Eight out of the twenty-two members of the Senate voted for it. This is quite encouraging—advancing from one to eight in two years. At this rate of progress, we may succeed by next winter. I give the names of those who are in favor of and voted for female suffrage in the Senate: Drummond, Doolittle, Humphreys, Hoke, Wilson, Workman, Young, and Farnsworth, president. The same senators voted to invite Miss Anna E. Dickinson to lecture in the state-house during her late visit to Wheeling.

VIII.—NORTH CAROLINA.

We are indebted to Mrs. Mary Bayard Clarke of New Berne for the following:

Since 1868, when the constitution was changed, a married woman has absolute control of all the real estate she possessed before marriage or acquired by gift or devise after it, except the power to sell without the consent of her husband, who in his turn is not at liberty to sell any real estate possessed by him before marriage, or acquired after it, without the consent of his wife. Should he sell any real estate without the wife's consent, in writing, she can, after his death, claim her dower of one-third in such real estate. If she owns a farm and her husband manages it, she can claim full settlements from him, he having no more rights than any other agent whom she may employ. So her property, real and personal, is her individual right, with the income therefrom. But she cannot contract a debt that is binding on her property without the consent of her husband. With his written consent, which must be registered in the office of the clerk of the county in which she resides, she may become a free-trader with all the rights of a man, her husband having no claim to her gains and not being responsible for any debt which she may contract. By giving this written consent her husband virtually places her in the position of an unmarried woman, as far as her property is concerned.

In 1881, finding that a widow had no right to appoint a guardian for her children by "letters testamentary," I, through my son, William E. Clarke, who was then senator for this county in our State legislature, succeeded in getting this law so changed that she now has the same rights as a man. In cases of divorce or separation while the children are under age, it is discretionary with the judge to give the children to either parent; but public sentiment always gives them to the mother while young.

As a rule the women of the South are better educated than the men, the boys being put to work while the girls are at school. The girls are not trained to work in any way, and very few, as yet, see the necessity of being regularly trained to do anything by which they may make a living except as teachers. Our public-school system requires a course through the normal school for all teachers. Mixed schools are not popular with us, but we have been forced into them by the public-graded-school tax, which has crushed out our private schools. I am now, and have been for the past two years, making an effort to have women on our school-boards, and a female as well as a male principal for every mixed public school, on the ground that mothers have as much right to a voice in the education of their daughters as fathers have in that of their sons. We have female teachers in our public schools but not as principals, and the pay of the women is, regardless of the quality of their work, always considerably less than that of men.

Our Supreme Court granted a license to Miss Tabitha A. Holton to practice law, and there is no legal impediment in the way of one doing so. The same is true of the medical profession. Dr. Susan Dimock was a North Carolinian by birth and on her application for admission to the State Medical Society was unanimously elected a member of that body. The African Methodist-Episcopal Conference, Bishop Turner presiding, ordained Miss Sarah A. Hughes of Raleigh, a bright mulatto girl, as deacon in the church. Shortly after the close of the late war, my husband being then incapacitated for work by wounds received in the Mexican and the civil war, and my sons under age, I applied to Governor Jonathan Worth for the position of State librarian. Though cordially acknowledging my fitness, intellectually, for the office, and admitting that my sex did not legally disqualify me to hold it, he positively refused to appoint me or any other woman to any office in his gift. Public sentiment then sustained him, but it would not now do so; so many ladies of culture, refinement and social position have been, since the war, forced to work or starve, that it is now nothing remarkable to see them and their daughters doing work which twenty years ago they would have been ostracised for undertaking.

In a letter to the Boston Index, published August, 1885, the venerable Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, who is now a resident of this State, truthfully says,

The women of the North can have little conception of the hindrances which their sisters of the South encounter in their efforts to accept new and progressive ideas. The other sex, in a blind sort of way, hold fast to an absolute kind of chivalry akin to that of the renowned Don Quixote, by which they try to hold women in the background as a kind of porcelain liable to crack and breakage unless daintily handled. Women here see the spirit of the age and the need of change far more clearly than the men, and act up to this light, but with a flexible grace that disarms opposition. They see the necessity of work and are turning their attention to methods for remunerative labor, far more difficult to obtain at the South than at the North.

I cordially endorse this extract. The Southern man does not wish his "women folks" to be self-supporting, not because he is jealous of their rivaling him, but because he feels it is his duty to be the bread-winner. But the much sneered at "chivalry" of the South, while rendering it harder for a woman to break through old customs, most cordially and heartily sustains her when she has successfully done so. There are fewer large centers in the South than in the North, and much less attrition of mind against mind; the people are homogeneous and slower to change, and public opinion is much less fluctuating. But once let the tide of woman suffrage fairly turn, and I believe it will be irresistable and advance far more steadily and rapidly in the South than it has done in the North. Let the Southern women be won over and the cause will have nothing to fear from the opposition of the men. But, after twenty years' experience as a journalist, my honest opinion is that until the Southern women can be made to feel the pecuniary advantages to them of suffrage, they will not lift a finger or speak a word to obtain it.

In 1881, at the March meeting of the Raleigh Typographical Union, No. 194, my son, being then a member of that Union, introduced and, after some hard fighting, succeeded in carrying a resolution placing women compositors on a par in every respect with men. There was not at that time a single woman compositor in the State, to my son's knowledge; there is one now in Raleigh and two apprentices, who claimed and receive all the advantages that men applying for admission to the Union receive.

Mrs. C. Harris started the South Atlantic at Wilmington. The Misses Bernheim and their father started a magazine in the same city called At Home and Abroad, which was afterwards moved to Charlotte; both were short-lived. We have now the Southern Woman. This is the only journal ever edited and managed by a woman alone, with no man associated with or responsible for it. I have been for twenty years connected with the press of this State in one way and another, and am called the "Grandmother of the North Carolina Press Association." In 1880 I delivered an original poem before the association, and another Masonic one before the board of the orphan asylum; making me, I believe, the first native North Carolina woman that ever came before the public as a speaker. I was both denounced and applauded for my "brass" and "bravery." Public sentiment has changed since then.

Mrs. Marion A. Williams, president of the State National Bank at Raleigh for several years, is probably the first woman ever elected to that responsible position in any State of this Union. In 1885 Louisa B. Stephens was made president of the First National Bank of Marion, Iowa; and a national bank in Newbery, South Carolina, honored itself by placing a woman at the head of its official board.

The North Carolinian of January, 1870, contained an able editorial endorsing woman suffrage, closing with:

For one we say, tear down the barriers, give woman an opportunity to show her wisdom and virtue; place the ballot in her hands that she may protect herself and reform men, and ere a quarter of a century has elapsed many of the foulest blots upon the civilization of this age will have passed away.

From an interesting article in the Boston Advertiser, May 22, 1875, by Rev. James Freeman Clark, concerning Dr. Susan Dimock, one of North Carolina's promising daughters, whose career was ended in the wreck of the Schiller near the Scilly islands, we make a few extracts:

One of our eminent surgeons, Dr. Samuel Cabot, said to me yesterday:

"This community will never know what a loss it has had in Dr. Dimock. It was not merely her skill, though that was remarkable, considering her youth and limited experience, but also her nerve, that qualified her to become a great surgeon. I have seldom known one at once so determined and so self-possessed. Skill is a quality much more easily found than this self-control that nothing can flurry. She had that in an eminent degree; and, had she lived, she would have been sure to stand, in time, among those at the head of her profession. The usual weapons of ridicule would have been impotent against a woman who had reached that supreme position which Susan Dimock would certainly have attained."

During the war of the rebellion, Miss Dimock sought admission into the medical school of Harvard University, preferring, if possible, to take a degree in an American college. Twice she applied, and was twice refused. Hearing that the University of Zurich was open to women, she went there, and was received with a hospitality which the institutions of her own country did not offer. She pursued her medical studies there, and graduated with honor. A number of the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for August, 1872, contains an article called "Les Femmes a l'Universitie de Zurich," which speaks very favorably of the success of the women in that place. The first to take a degree as doctor of medicine was a young Russian lady, in 1867. Between 1867 and 1872 five others had taken this degree, and among them Miss Dimock is mentioned. From the medical school at Zurich, she went to that at Vienna; and of her appearance there we have this record: A distinguished German physician remarked to a friend of mine residing in Germany that he had always been opposed to women as physicians—but that he had met a young American lady studying at Vienna, whose intelligence, modesty and devotion to her work was such as almost to convince him that he was wrong. A comparison of dates shows that this American student must have been Dr. Dimock.

On her return to the United States Dr. Dimock became resident physician at "The Hospital for Women and Children," on Codman Avenue, in Boston. Both the students of medicine and the patients became devotedly attached to her; they were fascinated by this remarkable union of tenderness, firmness and skill. The secret was in part told by what she said in one of her lectures in the training-school for nurses connected with the woman's hospital: "I wish you, of all my instructions, especially to remember this. Where you go to nurse a patient, imagine that it is your own sister before you in that bed; and treat her as you would wish your own sister to be treated." While at this hospital, she was also able to carry out a principle in which she firmly believed, namely—that in a hospital the rights of every patient, poor and rich, should be sacredly regarded, and never be postponed even to the supposed interests of medical students. No student was allowed to be present at any operation, except so far as the comfort and safety of her patients rendered the student's presence desirable. Her interest in the woman's hospital was very great. She was in the habit, at the beginning of each year, of writing and sealing up her wishes for the coming year. Since her death, her mother has opened the envelope of January 1, 1875, and found it to contain a prayer for a blessing on "my dear hospital."

And now this young, strong soul so ardent in the pursuit of knowledge, so filled with a desire to help her suffering sisters, has been taken by that remorseless deep.

IX.—SOUTH CAROLINA.

The first action we hear of in South Carolina was a Woman's Right's Convention in Columbia, Dec. 20, 1870, of which the Charleston Republican said:

The chairman, Miss Rollin, said: "It had been so universally the custom to treat the idea of woman suffrage with ridicule and merriment that it becomes necessary in submitting the subject for earnest deliberation that we assure the gentlemen present that our claim is made honestly and seriously. We ask suffrage not as a favor, not as a privilege, but as a right based on the ground that we are human beings, and as such, entitled to all human rights. While we concede that woman's ennobling influence should be confined chiefly to home and society, we claim that public opinion has had a tendency to limit woman's sphere to too small a circle, and until woman has the right of representation this will last, and other rights will be held by an insecure tenure."

Mr. T. J. Mackey made a forcible argument in favor of the movement. He was followed by Miss Hosley, who made a few brief remarks upon the subject. General Moses thought woman's introduction upon the political platform would benefit us much in a moral point of view, and that they had a right to assist in making the laws that govern them as well as the sterner sex. Messrs. Cardozo, Pioneer and Rev. Mr. Harris followed in short speeches, endorsing the movement and wishing it success. Resolutions were adopted, and officers chosen.[533] The following letters were read:

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Columbia, Jan. 19, 1871.

Miss L. M. Rollin:—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your invitation to be present at the preliminary organization of the association for the assertion of woman's rights in this State, and regret that the pressure of public duties precludes my indulging myself in that pleasure. Be assured, however, that the cause has my warmest sympathy, and I indulge the hope that the time is not far distant when woman shall be the peer of man in political rights, as she is peerless in all others, and when she will be able to reclaim some of those privileges that are now monopolized by the sterner sex.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, etc.,

R. K. SCOTT, Governor.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, Columbia, Feb. 1, 1871.

I hoped when I received your invitation to the meeting to-night of the friends of woman suffrage, that I should be able to attend in person, but at a late hour I find other duties standing in the way, and I can only say a word of approval and encouragement with my pen. The woman suffrage cause is to my mind so just and so expedient as to need little argument. To say that my mother, my sisters or my wife have less interest in good government than I have, or are less fitted by nature to understand and use the ballot than I am, is to contradict reason and fact.

Upon the same grounds that I defend my own right to share in the government which controls and protects me, do I now assert the right of woman to a voice in public affairs. For the same reasons that I would regard an attempt to rob me of my civil rights as tyranny, do I now protest against the continued civil inequality and thralldom of woman. I take no merit or pride to myself for such a position. I have felt and said these things during my whole life. They are to me self-evident truths; needing no more demonstration by argument than the first lines of the Declaration of American Independence. My claim for woman is simply this: Give her a full and fair chance to act in any sphere for which she can fit herself. Her sphere is as wide as man's. It has no limits except her capacity. If woman cannot perform a soldier's duty, then the army is not her sphere; if she can, it is her sphere, as much as it is man's.

I value the ballot for woman chiefly because it opens to her a wide, free avenue to a complete development of all her powers. The Chinese lady's shoe is nothing compared to the clamps and fetters which we Americans have put upon woman's mind and soul. An impartial observer would scarcely condemn the one and approve the other. What we need now is to accustom the public to these radical truths. Demand the ballot; demand woman's freedom. It is not a conflict of argument or reason, so much as a crusade against habit and prejudice. To tell the truth, I don't think there is a respectable argument in the world against woman suffrage. People think they are arguing or reasoning against it when they are in fact only repeating the prejudices in which they have been trained. With the sincerest wishes for the success of your meeting and of all your efforts for woman suffrage, I remain, yours very truly,

D. H. CHAMBERLAIN.

The American association memorialized the legislature March 13, 1872. The joint committee recommended an amendment to the constitution of the State, providing that every person, male or female, possessed of the necessary qualifications, should be entitled to vote. B. F. Whittemore, H. J. Maxwell, W. B. Nash, G. F. McIntyre, were the committee on the part of the Senate; C. D. Hayne, W. J. Whipper, Benj. Byas, B. G. Yocom, F. H. Frost, committee on the part of the House.

In the debate in congress in 1874, Hon. Alonzo J. Ransier of South Carolina, the civil-rights bill being under discussion, claimed that equal human rights should be extended to women as follows:

And may the day be not far distant when American citizenship in civil and political rights and public privileges shall cover not only those of our sex, but those of the opposite one also; until which time the government of the United States cannot be said to rest upon the "consent of the governed," or to adequately protect them in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Miss Sallie R. Banks, for some years a teacher of colored schools in South Carolina, has been appointed collector of internal revenue for the Sumter district.

X.—FLORIDA.

In 1880, the agricultural department at Washington, paid a premium of $12 to Madame Atzeroth of Manatee, for the first pound of coffee ever grown out of doors in the United States.

The following is from a letter to the Savannah News, reporting a judgment rendered by a Florida county judge, in a case between an old black man and his wife:

OCALA, Fla., May 12, 1874.

Be it known throughout all christendom that the husband is the head of the wife, and whatever is his is his'n, and whatever is hers is his'n, and come weal or woe, peace or war, the right of all property is vested in the husband, and the wife must not take anything away. The ox belongs to Uncle Ben, and he must keep it, and the other things, and if the old woman quits she must go empty-handed. Know all that this is so by order of the Judge of Probate.

[Signed] WM. R. HILLYER.

Though quaintly expressed, yet this decision is in line with the old common law and the statutes of many of the States in this Union to-day.

XI.—ALABAMA.

The women of Alabama are evidently awake on the temperance question, though still apparently unprepared for suffrage. In a report of a meeting in Birmingham in 1885, the following, from a prominent editor, was read by the president:

Tell the admirable lady, Mrs. Bryce, that I would devote everything to the cause she espouses, but there's no use. Let women demand the ballot, and with it they can destroy whisky, and by no other agency. There is no perfect family or state in which woman is not an active governing force. They should have the courage to assert themselves and then they can serve the country and the race.

If a thunderbolt had fallen it would not have created a greater sensation. The ladies at first grew indignant and uttered protestations. When they grew calmer, the corresponding secretary was ordered to furnish the editor with the following:

The ladies of the W. C. T. U. return thanks to the editor for his kindly and progressive suggestions, but, in their opinion, they are not ready to ask any political favors. Whenever suffrage is granted to the women of the United States, those of Alabama will be found on the right side.

At Huntsville lives Mrs. Priscilla Holmes Drake, whose name has stood as representative of our National Association in Alabama since 1868.

XII.—GEORGIA.

We give a letter from Georgia's great statesman, defining his views of woman's sphere:

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D. C., May 29, 1878.

Mrs. E. L. Saxon, New Orleans, La.

MY DEAR MADAM:—Your letter to Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of the 22d inst., came duly to hand. He requests me to thank you for it, and to say in reply that he has ever sympathized with woman in her efforts for a higher and broader sphere of intellectual and moral culture, as well as physical usefulness in life. He does not go so far as to endow woman with the ballot, or to fit her for the more masculine duties of the State. Her sphere, by nature, is circumscribed within certain physical boundaries, but in all those things to which she is fitted by nature, and can enter without interference with the laws of God, he would open the doors wide to her.

Very respectfully yours, C. P. CULVER, Secretary.

FOOTNOTES:

[523] Myrtilla Miner; published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York.

[524] See Vol. II., page 90.

[525] President, Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy; Vice-Presidents, Josophine S. Griffing, Belva A. Lockwood, Jas. H. Holmes, John H. Craney; Advisory Council, Mary E. O'Connor, Josephine S. Griffing, Caroline B. Winslow, Dr. Susan A. Edson, Lydia S. Hall, Mr. and Mrs. Boyle, Caroline B. Colby, and others.

[526] The officers elected were: President, United States Senator S. C. Pomeroy; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing, Mrs. Belva McNall Lockwood, Miss Stickney, Thaddeus Hyatt, Caroline B. Winslow, M. D., S. Yorke At Lee, Mrs. Josephine L. Slade, Prof. William J. Wilson, Mrs. Mary Olin, Judge A. B. Olin, Mrs. C. M. E. Y. Christian, Prof. George B. Vashon, J. H. Crossman, Mrs. Angeline S. Hall, Dr. C. B. Purvis, Mrs. Dr. Hathaway, Bishop Moore, Mrs. C. A. F. Stebbins, Giles B. Stebbins, Miss Emily Stanton, Dr. John Mayhew, John R. Elvana, J. C. O. Whaley, Charles Roeser, George T. Downing; Recording Secretary, George F. Needham; Treasurer, Daniel Breed; Board of Managers, Josephine S. Griffing, Hamilton Wilcox, Dr. Daniel Breed, Mrs. Corner, Geo. F. Needham, Mrs. Lydia S. Hall, J. H. Crane; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Mary T. Corner. Letters were reported from Frederick Douglass, George William Curtis, Mrs. E. Oakes Smith. Addresses were delivered by J. H. Crossman, G. F. Needham, Mrs. Lockwood, R. J. Hinton, and Mr. Tibbits of Virginia. Dr. Breed recited an original poem, entitled, "Woman's Pledge to Freedom."

[527] The names of the women who attempted to register and vote were: Jane A. Archibald, Clara M. Archibald, Mary Anderson, S. W. Aiken, Sallie S. Barrett, Mary B. Baumgras, Florence Riddle Bartlett, Ann M. Boyle, M. W. Browne, Deborah B. Clarke (Grace Greenwood's mother, eighty years of age), C. W. Campbell, Elizabeth T. Cowperthwaite, Mary T. Corner, Mary M. Courtenay, Mary A. Donaldson, Mary A. Dennison, Ruth Carr Dennison, L. S. Doolittle, Dr. Susan A. Edson, Sarah P. Edson, B. F. Evans, E. W. Foster, Olive Freeman, Maggie Finney, Julia H. Grey, Josephine S. Griffing, A. A. Henning, Susie J. Hickey, Calista Hickey, E. M. Hickey, Mary Hooper, Ruth G. D. Havens, E. E. Hill, Lydia S. Hall, Julia Archibald Holmes, N. M. Johnson, Jennie V. Jewell, Carrie Ketchum, Joanna Kelly, Sara J. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood), Belva A. Lockwood, Susie S. McClure, A. Jennie Miles, Augusta E. Morris, M. T. Middleton, Savangie E. Mark, A. E. Newton, M. C. Page, Eliza Ann Peck, Mary A. Riddle, A. R. Riddle, Caroline Risley, Sarah Andrews Spencer, E. D. E. N. Southworth, Caroline A. Sherman, Mary S. Scribner, Belle Smith, Maria T. Stoddard, Ada E. Spurgeon, Rubina Taylor, Harriet P. Trickham, Eliza M. Tibbetts, Dr. Caroline B. Winslow, Sarah E. Webster (mother of Dr. Susan A. Edson), Julia A. Wilbur, Mrs. Westfall, Mary Willard, Amanda Wall, Lucy A. Wheeler.

[528] For full account see Vol. II., page 587.

[529] David Eastburn and Henry Swaine of New Castle county.

[530] The officers were: Sally Clay Bennett, Maggie S. Burnham, Mrs. Somers, Mary B. Clay.

[531] The incorporators who formed the Board of Regents were, the Right Rev. Thomas U. Dudley, D. D., Bishop of Kentucky; Rev. James P. Boyce, D. D., President of the Baptist Theological Seminary; Rev. E. F. Perkins, Rector of St. Paul's Church; Hon. I. H. Edwards, Chancellor of Louisville Chancery Court; Theodore Harris, President Louisville Banking and Insurance Co.; W. N. Haldeman, President Courier Journal Co.; Nicholas Finzer, President of Finzer tobacco works; Samuel L. Avery, President B. F. Avery Co.; G. H. Cochran, President Louisville School Board; Robert Cochran, Commissioner of Chancery Court; Hon. Charles Godshaw, Trustee of Jury Fund; Dr. E. A. Grant and Mr. James K. Lemon. The board was organized by the election of Mr. Theodore Harris, President, Dr. E. A. Grant, Secretary, and James K. Lemon, Treasurer. The school opened with fifteen students, and continued until June, 1883. A lecture and practical course combined, occupy ten months of the year—lectures being given five afternoons of each week during the term.

[532] President, Mrs. Anne W. Bodeker, Richmond; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Maria G. and Judge John C. Underwood, Mr. and Mrs. Judge Westal Willoughby, Mr. and Mrs. Judge Lysander Hill, all of Alexandria; Mr. R. M. Manly, Richmond; Mrs. Martha Haines Bennett, Norfolk; Mr. Andrew Washburne and Mr. William E. Coleman, Richmond; Secretary, Miss Sue L. F. Smith, Richmond; Executive Committee, Rev. W. F. Hemenway, Mrs. Andrew Washburne, Mrs. Dr. E. H. Smith, Dr. and Mrs. Langstedt, Richmond, and Mrs. Allen (Florence Percy) of Manchester.

[533] President, Gov. R. K. Scott; Vice-Presidents, Hon. B. F. Whittemore, Hon. G. F. McIntyre, Gen. W. J. Whipper, Mrs. R. C. DeLarge, Hon. D. H. Chamberlain, Mrs. A. J. Ransier, and Mrs. R. K. Scott; Secretary, Miss K. Rollin; Treasurer, Mrs. K. Harris.



CHAPTER LV. (CONCLUDED).

CANADA.

We are indebted to Miss Phelps of St. Catharines and Mrs. Curzon of Toronto for the facts we give in regard to women's position in the Dominion. Miss Phelps says:

History tells us that when the thirteen American colonies revolted and their independence was declared there were 25,000 who adhered to the policy of King George, under the name of the United Empire Loyalists, some of whom came to Canada, others to Acadia and others wandered elsewhere. The 10,000 who sought a home in Canada at once formed a government in harmony with English laws and usages. Parliament was established in 1803 at York, now Toronto, and during that session the first law for the protection of married women was passed. At first, if a married woman desired to dispose of her property, she was obliged to go before the courts to testify as to her willingness to do so. In 1821 a bill was passed enabling her to go before justices of the peace. This was a great convenience, for the courts were not always in session when it was imperative for her to sell. In 1849 a bill was passed to naturalize women who married native-born or naturalized subjects. In 1859, under the old parliament of Canada, the Married Woman's Property act was passed, which in brief provides that every woman who may marry without any marriage-contract or settlement shall, after May 4, 1859, notwithstanding her coverture, have, hold and enjoy all her real estate, whether belonging to her before marriage or in any way acquired afterward, free from her husband's debts and obligations contracted after May 4, 1859. A married woman may also hold her personal property free from the debts and contracts of her husband, and obtain an order of protection for her own earnings and those of her minor children. She may become a stockholder of any bank, insurance company or any incorporated association, as if she were a feme sole, and may vote by proxy or otherwise. A married woman is liable on contracts respecting her own real estate. No married woman is liable to arrest either on mesne or final process. Any superior court of law or equity or any judge of said court, or a judge of a surrogate court, or deputy, may, on hearing the petition of a mother, or minor whose father is dead, appoint her as guardian—notwithstanding the appointment of another person by the father—of the estate to which the minor is entitled, and of such sums of money as are necessary from time to time for the maintenance of the minor. In 1881 a law was passed enabling a woman to discharge a mortgage on her lands without her husband being a party to it, while a husband cannot dispose of his property without her consent.

More than thirty years ago school suffrage was granted to women on the same grounds as to male electors, and they are eligible to all school offices. Women have, however, been slow to avail themselves of this privilege, owing to their ignorance of the laws and their lack of interest in regard to all public measures. When they awake to their political rights they will feel a deeper responsibility in the discharge of their public duties. But the steady increase in the number of those who avail themselves of this privilege is the one encouraging indication of the growth of the suffrage movement in Canada.

In 1882 the municipal act was so amended as to give married women, widows and spinsters, if possessed of the necessary qualifications, the right to vote on by-laws and some other minor municipal matters. Again, in 1884, the act was still further amended, extending the right to vote at municipal elections to widows and unmarried women on all matters. In Toronto, January 4, 1886, the women polled a large vote, resulting in the election of the candidate pledged to reform. But it must be remembered that this progressive legislation belongs only to the Province of Ontario.

Mrs. Curzon writes:

In the year 1876 Dr. Emily H. Stowe—graduated in New York—settled in Toronto for the practice of her profession. Thoroughly imbued with the principles roughly summed up in the term "woman's rights," and finding that her native Canada was not awake to the importance of the subject, she lectured in the principal towns of Ontario on "Woman's Sphere and Woman in Medicine." By reason of the agitation caused by these lectures a Woman's Literary Club[534] was organized in Toronto with Dr. Stowe, president, and Miss Helen Archibald, secretary. The triumphs scored through the efforts of this club were the admission of women to the University College and School of Medicine of Toronto, Queen's University and the Royal Medical School of Kingston, and the founding of a medical school for women in each city. When the municipal franchise was granted to women the club decided to come out boldly as a suffrage organization. Accordingly by resolution the Toronto Woman's Literary Club was dissolved and the Canadian Woman Suffrage Association[535] formed, March 9, 1883.

McGill University at Montreal has an annex for women founded through the munificence of one of the merchants of that city.——Dalhousie College, Halifax, admits women on the same footing as men. The Toronto Mail says it is only a question of time when all Canadian colleges will do the same thing.——In 1883 the provincial legislature of Nova Scotia gave duly qualified women the right to vote, and they exercised it very generally the following year.——In New Brunswick the old laws and prejudices remain, but woman suffrage has its friends and advocates in Mrs. E. W. Fisher and Mr. and Mrs. W. Frank Hathaway of St. Johns.——In 1885 the Mount Allison Methodist College at Sackville, N. B., conferred the degree of M. A. on Miss Harriet Stewart. This is the first instance of an educational institution in the Dominion conferring such an honor upon a lady.

FOOTNOTES:

[534] The Ballot-Box in 1880 said: "The Citizen of Toronto, Ont., has established a 'Ladies' Column' under the auspices of the Toronto Woman's Literary Club, the first ladies' club ever formed in Canada. This club has been in existence four years. The Citizen is said to be the first Canadian paper devoted, even in part, to woman's interest. Heading this change 'Important Notice,' it says: 'We have great pleasure in announcing that we have made an arrangement with the Toronto Woman's Literary Club to occupy an important space in our columns, for the advance of moral, social, educational and family matters affecting woman generally. Mrs. S. A. Curzon has charge of this column as associate editor.' The club in a stirring salutatory defines its work and objects. It is the intention to give, each week, a resume of the current topics concerning women, education, the franchises, the legal abilities and disabilities of women, etc., hoping to arouse a national sentiment among Canadian women and intelligence upon these important subjects. This appeal is signed by Mrs. McEwen, the president, and Emily H. Stowe, Mrs. W. J. MacKenzie, Mrs. W. B. Hamilton and Mrs. S. A. Curzon, the executive committee."

[535] The officers were: President, Mrs. Donald McEwen; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Curzon, Mrs. E. H. Stowe, M. D., Captain W. F. McMaster, John Hallam, esq.; Treasurer, Mrs. W. B. Hamilton; Secretary, Miss J. Foulds; Executive Committee, Mrs. McKenzie, Mrs. S. McMaster, Mrs. Riches, Mrs. Miller, Miss Hamilton, Miss McMaster, Miss Alexander, William Houston, J. L. Foulds, P. McIntyre, Phillips Thompson, Thomas Bengough.



CHAPTER LVI.

GREAT BRITAIN.

BY CAROLINE ASHURST BIGGS.

Women Send Members to Parliament—Sidney Smith, Sir Robert Peel, Richard Cobden—The Ladies of Oldham—Jeremy Bentham—Anne Knight—Northern Reform Society, 1858—Mrs. Matilda Biggs—Unmarried Women and Widows Petition Parliament—Associations formed in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, 1867—John Stuart Mill in Parliament—Seventy-three Votes for his Bill—John Bright's Vote—Women Register and Vote—Lord-Chief-Justice of England Declares their Constitutional Right—The Courts give Adverse Decisions—Jacob Bright secures the Municipal Franchise—First Public Meeting—Division on Jacob Bright's Bill to Remove Political Disabilities—Mr. Gladstone's Speech—Work of 1871-2—Fourth Vote on the Suffrage Bill—Jacob Bright fails of Reelection—Efforts of Mr. Forsyth—Memorial of the National Society—Some Account of the Workers—Vote of the New Parliament, 1875—Organized Opposition—Diminished Adverse Vote of 1878—Mr. Courtney's Resolution—Letters—Great Demonstrations at Manchester—London—Bristol—Nottingham— Birmingham—Sheffield—Glasgow—Victory in the Isle of Man—Passage of Municipal Franchise Bill for Scotland—Mr. Mason's Resolution— Reduction of Adverse Majority to 16—Conference at Leeds—Mr. Woodall's Amendment to Reform Bill of 1884—Meeting at Edinburgh— Other Meetings—Estimated Number of Women Householders—Circulars to Members of Parliament—Debate on the Amendment—Resolutions of the Society—Further Debate—Defeat of the Amendment—Meeting at St. James Hall—Conclusion.

In writing a history of the woman suffrage movement, it is difficult to say where one should begin, for although the organized agitation which arose when John Stuart Mill first brought forward his proposal in parliament dates back only eighteen years, the foundations for this demand were laid with the very earliest parliamentary institutions in England. As a nation we are fond of working by precedents, and it is a favorite saying among lawyers that modern English law began with Henry III. In earlier Saxon times women who were freeholders of lands or burgesses in towns had the same electoral rights as men. We have records of the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, showing that ladies of the manse, in their own right, sent members to parliament. Down to the time of the civil wars women were accustomed to share in the election of "parliament men." In 1640, some women voted in an election for the county of Suffolk, Sir Simonds d'Ewes being high-sheriff:

Who, as soon as he had notice thereof, sent to forbid the same, conceiving it a matter verie unworthy of anie gentleman, and most dishonourable in such an election to make use of their voices, although in law they might have been allowed.

The spirit of the Puritans was not favorable to woman's equality; but, though disused, the right was never absolutely taken away by law. In a celebrated trial, Olive vs. Ingram (reign of George II.) the chief-justice gave it as his opinion that "a person paying scot and lot," and therefore qualified to vote, was a description which included women; and all the writs of election down to the time of William IV. were made to "persons" who were freeholders. However, for all purposes of political life this right was as good as dead, being absolutely forgotten. But still the local franchises remained. We have no data to determine whether these were as completely neglected as the parliamentary franchise. Parishioners voted for overseers of the poor and for other local boards; and women were never legally disqualified from voting in these elections. The lowest period in the condition of women appears to have been reached at the end of the last century, though they were not then indifferent to politics. "You cannot," says Miss Edgeworth's Lady Davenant, "satisfy yourself with the common namby-pamby phrase, 'Ladies have nothing to do with politics.' * * * Female influence must exist on political subjects as well as on all others; but this influence should always be domestic not public; the customs of society have so ruled it." This sentence exactly represented ordinary English feeling. It was never considered derogatory to an English lady to take an active part in elections, provided she did so for some member of her family; but of direct responsibility she had none.

In the ferment of opinion which preceded the great Reform bill, woman's claim to participate in it was never heard. The new franchises which were then for the first time created applied exclusively to male persons, but in the old franchises continuing in force, the word "person" alone is strictly used. Mr. Sidney Smith said:

In reserving and keeping alive the qualifications in existence before those itself created, this statute falls back exactly to the accustomed phraseology of the earlier acts. Whenever it confers a new right it restricts it to every male person. Whenever it perpetuates existing franchises, it continues them to every person, leaving the word "male" out on system.

This may have been little more than an oversight, or it may have been that respect for precedent which used to be an inherent quality in English statesmen. But it is curious that the first petition ever, to our knowledge, presented for women's suffrage to the House of Commons should date from this same year. It was presented on August 3, 1832, and is the worthy predecessor of many thousands in later times. Hansard thus describes it:

Mr. Hunt said he had a petition to present which might be a subject of mirth to some honorable gentlemen, but which was one deserving of consideration. It came from a lady of rank and fortune, Mary Smith of Stanmore, in the county of York. The petition stated that she paid taxes, and therefore did not see why she should not have a share in the election of a representative; she also stated that women were liable to all the penalties of the law, even death, and ought to have a voice in the fixing of them; but so far from this, on their trials both judges and jurors were of the opposite sex. She could see no good reason for the exclusion of women from political rights while the highest office of the State, that of the crown, was open to the inheritance of females; and, so we understood, the petitioner expressed her indignation against those vile wretches who would not marry, and yet would exclude females from a share in the legislation. The prayer of the petition was that every unmarried female, possessing the necessary pecuniary qualifications, should be entitled to vote for members of parliament.

The following year Sir Robert Peel in opposing vote by ballot said:

The theoretical arguments in favor of woman suffrage were at least as strong as those in favor of vote by ballot. There were arguments in favor of extending the franchise to women to which it was no easy matter to find a logical answer. Other and more important duties were entrusted to women. Women were allowed to hold property, to vote on many occasions in right of that property; nay, a woman might inherit the throne and perform all the functions of the first office of the State. Why should they not vote for a member of parliament?

But Sir Robert Peel evidently had no idea that a time would come when women would ask this question in downright seriousness. Meanwhile the preference for the words "male person" in the new enactments still continued. It was employed in the Municipal Corporation Reform act, 1835; and in the Irish poor-law act of 1838, women, as well as clergymen, were expressly excluded from election as poor-law guardians. The repeal of the corn-laws brought the political work of women to the front; they formed local committees, collected funds and attended meetings. In a speech on free-trade, delivered in Covent Garden Theater January 15, 1845, Richard Cobden said:

There are many ladies present, I am happy to say; now, it is a very anomalous fact that they cannot vote themselves, and yet that they have a power of conferring votes upon other people. I wish they had the franchise, for they would often make much better use of it than their husbands.

Again in 1848, in supporting a motion of Mr. Joseph Hume in the House of Commons to the effect that the elective franchise should be extended to all householders, Mr. Cobden said:

A gentleman asked me to support universal suffrage on the ground of principle, and I said to him, if it is a principle that a man should have a vote because he pays taxes, why should not a widow who pays taxes and is liable to serve as church-warden and overseer, have a vote for members of parliament? The gentleman replied that he agreed with me.

In 1853, Mr. W. J. Fox, member for Oldham, in acknowledging the presentation to him by the ladies of Oldham of a signet-ring bearing the inscription, "Education, the birthright of all," spoke strongly in favor of women having a definite share in political life:

If women have nothing to do with politics, honest men ought to have nothing to do with politics. They keep us pure, simple, just, earnest, in our exertions in politics and public life. They have to do with it, because while the portion of man may be by the rougher labors of the head and hands to work out many of the great results of life, the peculiar function of woman is to spread grace and softness, truth, beauty, benignity over all. Nor is woman confined to this. In fact I wish that her direct as well as indirect influence were still larger than it is in the sphere of politics. Why, we trust a woman with the sceptre of the realm, consider her adequate to make peers in the State and bishops in the Church; surely she must be adequate to send her representatives to the lower House. I know the time may not have come for mooting a question of this sort; but I know the time will come, and that woman will be something more than a mere adjective to man in political matters. She will become a substantive also. And why not?

Other speakers and writers brought forward the same point. Jeremy Bentham declared he could find no reasons for the exclusion of women, though he laid no stress on the matter; Herbert Spencer in "Social Statics" (1851), Mr. Thomas Hare in his book on "Representation," and Mr. Mill in "Representative Government," all discussed it. In 1843 Mrs. Hugo Reid published an excellent volume, "A Plea for Woman," in which she maintained that "There is no good ground for the assumption that the possession and exercise of political privileges are incompatible with home duties." In 1841 a strong article appeared in the Westminster Review, written by Mrs. Margaret Mylne, a Scotch lady still living. Mrs. Stuart Mill's admirably comprehensive article appeared in the same review in 1851.[536] In 1846, also, Col. T. Perronet Thompson, the well-known anti-corn-law advocate, wrote:

Whenever the popular party can agree upon and bring forward any plan which shall include the equal voting of women, they will not only obtain an alliance of which most men know the importance, but they will relieve the theory of universal suffrage from the stigma its enemies never fail to draw upon it, of making its first step a wholesale disqualification of half the universe concerned.

Among other writers and speakers on the subject, we must also enumerate Anne Knight, an earnest warm-hearted Quaker lady. She sometimes lectured upon it, and many of her letters written to Mrs. Elizabeth Pease Nichol of Edinburgh, Lord Brougham, and others, are still preserved, in which she eagerly advocates the admission of women to the suffrage. She assisted in founding the Sheffield Female Political Association. On February 26, 1851, this association held a meeting at the Democratic Temperance Hotel, Sheffield, and unanimously adopted an address, which was the first manifesto dealing with the suffrage ever formulated by a meeting of women in England:

ADDRESS OF THE SHEFFIELD POLITICAL ASSOCIATION TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND—Beloved Sisters: We, the women of the democracy of Sheffield, beg the indulgence of addressing you at this important juncture. We have been observers for a number of years of the various plans and systems of organization which have been laid down for the better government and guidance of democracy, and we are brought to the conclusion that women might with the strictest propriety be included in the proclamation of the people's charter; for we are the majority of the nation, and it is our birth-right, equally with our brother, to vote for the man who is to sway our political destiny, to impose the taxes which we are compelled to pay, to make the laws which we with others must observe; and heartily should we rejoice to see the women of England uniting for the purpose of demanding this great right of humanity, feeling assured that were women thus comprehended, they would be the greatest auxiliaries of right against might. For what would not the patient, energetic mind of woman accomplish, when once resolved? The brave and heroic deeds which history records are our testimony that no danger is too great, no struggle too arduous for her to encounter; thus confirming our convictions that woman's cooeperation is greatly needed for the accomplishment of our political well-being. But there are some who would say: "Would you have woman enjoy all the political rights of men?" To this we emphatically answer: Yes! for does she not toil early and late in the factory, and in every department of life subject to the despotism of men? and we ask in the name of justice, must we continue ever the silent and servile victims of this injustice? perform all the drudgery of his political societies and never possess a single political right? Is the oppression to last forever? We, the women of the democracy of Sheffield, answer, No! We put forth this earnest appeal to our sisters of England to join hand and heart with us in this noble and just cause, to the exposing and eradicating of such a state of things. Let us shake off our apathy and raise our voices for right and liberty, till justice in all its fulness is conceded to us. This we say to all who are contending for liberty, for what is liberty if the claims of women be disregarded? Our special object will be the entire political enfranchisement of our own sex; and we conjure you, our sisters of England, to aid us in accomplishing this holy work. We remain with heartfelt respect, your friends.[537]

At the end of 1858 there was established in Newcastle-on-Tyne an association called the Northern Reform Society, which had universal suffrage for its object, and it expressly invited the contributions of women. Letters were written by Matilda Ashurst Biggs, and afterwards by two or three women in different parts of the country, offering to become members. In acknowledging these letters, the secretary stated that the Northern Reform Union only contemplated the extension of the franchise to men, although he admitted that many of its leading members were individually in favor of "woman suffrage" but they believed that by asking for manhood suffrage, they were advancing a step towards universal franchise. He added. "The society will be very glad of women's subscriptions, and trusts that they will use their best efforts to promote its extension." Undoubtedly, there has never been any reluctance to accept the subscriptions of women towards promoting the objects of men. In commenting upon this letter, Mrs. Biggs[538] said in the Newcastle Guardian, February 19, 1859:

I have never given my rights to be merged in those of any other person, and I feel it an injustice that I, who am equally taxed with men, should be denied a voice in making the laws which affect and dispose of my property, and made to support a State wherein I am not recognized as a citizen. I consider that a tyranny which renders me responsible to laws in the making of which I am not consulted. The Northern Reform Society, which "takes its stand upon justice," should claim for us at least that we be exempted from the duties, it we are to be denied the rights belonging to citizens.

These books, speeches and letters though scattered and unconnected, slowly prepared the ground for the organized agitation. Another Reform bill grew into preparation. Men's thoughts were turned again towards the question of representation, and every word spoken on behalf of the enfranchisement of women assumed double force as it drew near to a political issue. The enfranchisement of women advanced from a question of philosophical speculation to actual politics in the election of John Stuart Mill member of parliament for Westminster in 1865. In his election address, Mr. Mill, as previously in his work on representative government, openly avowed this article of political faith. Nevertheless, the first speech of which we have record in the House of Commons plainly vindicating the right of women to the vote, was that of a man who differed from Mr. Mill in every other feature of his political life and creed—Mr. Disraeli. He used almost the same form of argument as Sir Robert Peel had done thirty years before, but unlike the former statesman he backed it up with his vote and personal influence for many succeeding years. It was in 1866 that he spoke these words, long and gratefully remembered by the women of the country:

In a country governed by a woman—where you allow woman to form part of the estate of the realm—peeresses in their own right for example—where you allow a woman not only to hold land, but to be a lady of the manor and hold legal courts—where a woman by law may be a church-warden and overseer of the poor,—I do not see, where she has so much to do with the State and Church, on what reasons, if you come to right, she has not a right to vote.

These words from Disraeli were the spark that fired the train. In answer to a request from Miss Jessie Boucherett, Mrs. Bodichon and Miss Bessie R. Parkes, Mr. Mill replied that if they could find a hundred women who would sign a petition for the franchise, he would present it to the House of Commons. A committee was immediately formed in London, and the petition was circulated. In two or three weeks it had received 1,499 signatures. Among these were many who in after years took a prominent part, not only in suffrage, but in other movements for the elevation of women. The petition was presented by Mr. Mill in May, 1866, and was received with laughter. He then gave notice of a motion to introduce into the Reform bill a provision to the same effect. The committee[539] immediately began to circulate petitions and pamphlets. Two of these were by Mrs. Bodichon, "Reasons for, and Objections against the Enfranchisement of Women," being the substance of a paper she had read at the Social Science Congress, in October, 1866. We give the text of the petition, as it differed somewhat from those circulated in after years:

To the Honorable, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled:

The humble petition of the undersigned,—showeth, That your petitioners fulfill the conditions of property or rental prescribed by law as the qualification of the electoral franchise, and exercise in their own names the rights pertaining to such conditions; that the principles in which the government of the United Kingdom is based, imply the representation of all classes and interests in the State; that the reasons alleged for withholding the franchise from certain classes of her majesty's subjects do not apply to your petitioners. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray your honorable House to grant to such persons as fulfill all the conditions which entitle to a vote in the election of members of parliament, excepting only that of sex, the privilege of taking part in the choice of fit persons to represent the people in your honorable House.

This form of petition was only signed by unmarried women and widows of full age, holding the legal qualification for voting in either county or borough, but there were other forms for other classes of persons. On March 28, the Right Hon. H. A. Bruce presented a petition from 3,559 persons, mostly women. Mr. Mill, in April, presented one with 3,161 names collected by the Manchester committee, and the Right Hon. Russell Gurney one signed by 1,605 qualified women, i. e., free-holders and householders who would have had the vote had they been men. In all 13,497 were counted in the parliamentary report this session; among these were many clergymen, barristers, physicians and fellows of colleges.

While we are on the subject of petitions we may as well briefly glance at what was done in this branch of work during succeeding years.[540] No better method could be found of testing public opinion, or of affording scope for quiet, intelligent agitation. Many friends could help by circulating petitions, distributing literature at the same time and arguing away objections. In 1868 there were presented 78 petitions with nearly 50,000 signatures. One of them, headed by Mrs. Somerville and Florence Nightingale, contained 21,000 names, and was a heavy but delightful burden which Mr. Mill could hardly carry to the table. This petition excited great attention. During all these years no petitions were presented against granting the suffrage to women. These numbers were undoubtedly a surprise to many members of parliament who were inclined to look upon woman suffrage as an "impracticable fad," "the fantastic crochet of a few shrieking sisters." But the collection and arrangement of the signatures took up incalculable time, and after a few years this method of agitation was discarded to a great extent in the large political centres. Friends became wearied out with the toilsome process of year by year collecting signatures, which when presented were silently and indifferently dropped into the bag under the table of the House of Commons. But during the early days of the movement these petitions, signed by all classes of men and women, were invaluable in arousing interest in our movement.

In 1867, for the better prosecution of the work, instead of one committee embracing the whole of England, separate associations were formed in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. The London committee consisted of ladies only, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, Mrs. Fawcett, Miss Hampson, Miss Hare, Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Stansfeld, with Mrs. Taylor as secretary. In the Manchester committee Mr. Jacob Bright, M. P., at once took up the position of leader and advocate which he afterwards so long and nobly maintained in the House of Commons. Miss Becker was appointed secretary. The Edinburgh committee elected Mrs. McLaren[541] for their president. At a special general meeting, November 6, 1867, it was resolved that these three societies should form one national society, thus securing the advantages of cooeperation while maintaining freedom of action. The same rule applied to societies in Birmingham, Bristol and other towns.

To return to the debate in the House of Commons on May 20, 1867 on clause 4 of the Representation of the People bill. Mr. Mill moved to leave out the word "man" and insert the word "person." His speech has been too long before the public to need quotation; it is a model of inductive reasoning and masterly eloquence. The debate which followed was very unequal in character, but the division was gratifying, for he received 73 votes (including pairs, 81); 194 voted against him. Mr. Mill wrote afterwards to a friend:

We are all delighted at the number of our minority, which is far greater than anybody expected the first time, and would have been greater still had not many members quitted the House, with or without pairing, in the expectation that the subject would not come on. But the greatest triumph of all was John Bright's vote.

At the election for Manchester, held near the end of 1867 (when Mr. Jacob Bright was elected), Lily Maxwell, whose name had been accidentally left on the parliamentary register, recorded her vote. No objection was taken to it by the returning officer, or by the agents of either candidate. The Times devoted a leading article to it. The circumstance was of no legal value, but it was useful to show that a woman could go through the process of recording a vote in a parliamentary election even before the Ballot act was passed. The idea gained ground that by the new Reform act the right to vote had been secured to women. The Reform act of 1867, sec. 3, declares that:

Every man shall in and after the year 1868 be entitled to be registered as a voter, and when registered, to vote for a member to serve in parliament.

In the substitution of the word "man" for that of "male person" in the Reform act of 1832, a great difference was already discernable, but this difference was more important when taken into conjunction with what was popularly known as "Lord Romilly's act," an act for shortening the language used in acts of parliament (13 and 14 Vict.). This act provides, "that all words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include females, unless the contrary is expressly provided"; and in the Representation of the People act there was no express provision to the contrary. This had been pointed out by one or two members at the time.

Accordingly the several societies united in a systematic endeavor to procure the insertion of women's names on the registers of electors under the new Reform act. A circular respectfully requesting the boards of overseers to insert on the list of voters the names of all persons who had paid their rates, was sent to several hundred boards in different parts of the country. Very few replies were received, but women were placed on the lists in many counties, in Aberdeen, Salford and many small districts in Lancaster, Middlesex, Kent, etc. The overseers of Manchester declined compliance. In that city there were 5,100 women householders who claimed their votes, and when the revision courts were opened in September, this claim came on for consideration. The case was ably argued, but the revising barrister decided against admitting it, granting, however, a case for trial at the Court of Common Pleas. Another case was also granted, being that of Mrs. Kyllman, a free-holder, her claim being under the old free-holding franchise 8 Henry VI., to wit.:

Elections of knights of the shire shall be made in each county by people dwelling and resident therein of whom each has free-hold to the value of L40 by the year.

In the majority of districts the revising barristers disallowed the claims; but in four district-revision courts the women's names were admitted. In Finsbury, one of the metropolitan boroughs, Mr. Chisholm Anstey was revising barrister, and he admitted them on account of ancient English law; in Cockermouth, Winterton and two townships of Lancashire, the revising barrister admitted them upon his interpretation of the Reform act taken in conjunction with Lord Romilly's act. In the suffrage report for this year the number of women placed on the electoral roll by these decisions is estimated at about 230, but undoubtedly there were others concerning whom no information was received. In many cases the women voted: 15 did so in Finsbury (not only was there no disturbance, but hardly any remark was made, and they expressed their surprise that it was so easy a thing to do); 12 in Gordon and 10 in Levenshulme, both little districts in Lancashire, and smaller numbers in other places. In Chester the parliament candidate issued his election placards to "Ladies and Gentlemen."

On November 7, the case of the 5,000 Manchester women householders was argued before the Court of Common Pleas. Mr. J. D. Coleridge (now Lord Coleridge, Lord-chief-justice of England) and Dr. Pankhurst were the counsel for the appellants. Mr. John Coleridge in an able argument spoke of the ancient constitutional right of women to take part in elections. He produced copies from the record office of several indentures returning members to parliament, the signatures of which were in the hand-writing of women, or to which women were parties. He argued that the term "man" in the Reform act included woman, not only generally but specifically, under the provisions of Lord Romilly's act. The case was argued before Lord-chief-justice Boville; the decision was given on November 9, and decisively pronounced that the new Reform act had never intended to include women, and that they were incapacitated from voting. This decision did not affect the women who were already on the register, and many voted in the general election which took place afterwards. Thus women have been shut out from electoral rights, not by any decree of parliament, but by this decision of the Court of Common Pleas. However there was no appeal from this Court, except to parliament, and from this time forward the character of the agitation changed. The year 1868 ended with a legal decision which seemed crushing in its finality, while the same year had given the most conclusive proof that women wished to vote, and would do so whenever the opportunity offered.

The next year, 1869, gave another convincing proof that women were eager to vote, and brought us the most substantial triumph yet obtained, due to the wisdom and skilful tactics of Mr. Jacob Bright, member of parliament for Manchester. This victory was the municipal franchise for women. Early in 1869 Mr. Hibbert introduced a bill to regulate the conditions of the municipal franchise. By the Municipal Corporation Amendment act, passed in 1835, male persons only were authorized to vote. The present bill was to amend that. Mr. Jacob Bright, seconded by Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Peter Rylands, proposed the omission of the word "male" from the bill, and the insertion of a clause securing to women the right of voting in municipal elections. Mr. Hibbert concurred in the introduction of these amendments, though he did not anticipate they would lead to any result beyond a discussion. A circular containing full information upon the ancient and existing rights of women to vote in local affairs was sent to each member of parliament by the Manchester committee. It showed that before the passing of the Municipal Corporation act of 1835, women rate-payers had rights similar to those of men in all matters pertaining to local government and expenditure; and that in non-corporate districts they still exercised such rights, under the provisions of the Public Health act, and other statutes guarding the electoral privileges of the whole body of rate-payers. But when any district was incorporated into a municipal borough, the women rate-payers were disfranchised, although those not included within its boundaries remained possessed of votes. It showed also that women can vote in parochial matters, and take part in vestry meetings, called for various purposes, such as the election of church-wardens and way-wardens, the appointment of overseers, the sale of parish property, and, formerly, the levying of church-rates; also that they can vote in the election of poor-law guardians—that in fact, in none of those ancient voting customs, was the sex of the ratepayers taken into consideration as either a qualification or disqualification. We quote from the Manchester society:

In the House of Commons on June 7, 1869, on consideration of the Municipal Franchise bill as amended, Mr. Jacob Bright rose to move that in this act and the said recited act (Municipal Corporation Reform act, 1835) wherever words occur which import the masculine gender, the same shall be held to include females for all purposes connected with and having reference to the election of or power to elect representatives of any municipal corporation. He stated that his object was to give the municipal vote to every rate-payer within the municipal limits; to give to municipal property the representation which all property enjoyed elsewhere; that had the proposition been an innovation, a departure from the customary legislation of the country, he would not have brought it in as an amendment to a bill; but that his object was to remove an innovation—to resist one of the most remarkable invasions of long-established rights which the legislation of this or any other country could show. The bill before the house was an amendment of the Municipal Corporation act of 1835. That act was the only act in regard to local expenditure and local government which established this disability. Before and since, all acts of parliament gave every local vote to every rate-payer. The Health of Towns act of 1848 had a clause almost identical with the one he was moving. He was therefore asking the House not only to make the bill in harmony with the general legislation of the country, but to allow it to be in harmony with its latest expressed convictions as shown in the act of 1848. There were in England 78 non-corporate towns which were not parliamentary boroughs, with populations varying from 20,000 to 6,000. In these every rate-payer voted. There was little if any difference between their government and that of municipal towns. Who could assign a reason why women should vote in one and not in the other? Every parochial vote was in the hands of the whole body of rate-payers. Women held the most important parochial offices. The sister of the member for Stockport had acted as overseer. Miss Burdett Coutts had been urged to take the office of guardian. Had she been a large rate-payer in a municipal town, what an absurdity to shut her out from the vote! He then showed how the process of disfranchisement was going on, and quoted Darlington and Southport. The latter town was incorporated in 1867. In 1866, 2,085 persons were qualified to vote for commissioners; 588 of these were women. From the moment of incorporation these votes were extinguished without a reason being assigned, though they had exercised them from time immemorial. Such would be the case with any town incorporated in the future. He appealed to the metropolitan members, and showed them that unless his clauses were carried, when they came to establish corporations throughout the metropolis, as some of them desired, all the female rate-payers would be struck off the roll; that over a population of 3,000,000 this exclusion would prevail. He stated that where women had the vote they exercised it to an equal degree with the men. Mr. Lings, the comptroller for the city of Manchester, affirms that according to his experience the number of men and women who vote in local affairs bears a just proportion to the number of each on the register. He showed that as the bill was a largely enfranchising measure, his clause was in strict harmony with it, but that while the bill sought to increase the representation of those who were already considerably represented, the clause which he wished to add would give representation to those who within municipal towns were totally deprived of it. He concluded by saying that questions had come to him, since these amendments had been on the paper, from women in different parts of the country, and from those who by their social and intellectual positions might be regarded as representatives of their sex, asking why there should always be this tender regard for the representation and therefore the protection of men, and this apparent disregard for the interest of women; and he appealed to the House, by its decision, to show that as regards these local franchises it had a common regard for the whole body of rate-payers.