whom are of foreign birth. Second—They are held amenable to laws they have had no share in making and in which they are forbidden a voice—laws which touch all their most vital interests of education, industry, children, property, life and liberty. Third—While compelled to bear the burdens and suffer the penalties of government, 'they are debarred the honors and emoluments of civil service, and the control of offices in the righteous discharge of whose duties their interest is equal to that of men. Fourth—They are taxed without their consent to sustain men in office who enact laws directly opposing their interests, and inasmuch as the State of New York pays one-sixth the taxes of the United States, its women feel the arm of oppression—like Briareus with his hundred hands—touching and crushing them with its burdens. Fifth—They are under the power of an autocrat whose salary they must pay, but who, in opposition to the will of the people—as recently shown in the passage of the School bill by the legislature—has by his veto denied them all official authority in the control of the public schools, and this despite the fact of there being 3,670 more girls of school age than boys, and 14,819 more women than men teaching in the State. Sixth—Under pretence of regulating public morals, women of the femme de pave class, many of whom have been driven to this mode of life as a livelihood, are subjected to more oppressive laws than their partners in vice, Seventh—The laws treat married women as criminals by taking from them all legal control of their children, while those born -outside of marriage belong absolutely to the mothers. Eighth—They forbid the mother's inheritance of property from her children in case the father is living, thus making her of no consideration in the eyes of those to whom she has given birth. Ninth—They give the husband control of the common property—allow him to spend the whole personal estate in riotous living, or even to sell the home over: his wife's head, subject only to her third life-interest in case she survives him. Tenth—They allow the husband to imprison her at his pleasure within his own house, the court sustaining him in this coërcion until the wife "submits herself to her husband's will." Eleventh—They allow the husband while the common property is in his possession, "without even the formality of a legal complaint, the taking of an oath or the filing of a bond for the good faith of his action," to advertise his wife through the public press as a deserter and to forbid her credit. Twelfth—They deny the widow the right of inheritance in the common property that they give the widower, allow her but forty days' residence in the family mansion before paying rent to her husband's heirs, thus treating her as if she were an alien to her own children—set off to her a few paltry articles of household use, close the estate through a process of law, and make the days of her bereavement doubly day of sorrow.
The above laws of marriage, placing irresponsible authority in the hands of the husband, have given him a power of moral coërcion over the wife, making her virtually his slave. Without entering into fuller details of the injustice and oppression of the laws upon all women, married and single, we will sum the whole subject up in the language of the French Woman's Rights League, which characterizes woman's position thus:
In the summer of 1877 another effort was made by women of wealth to be relieved from taxation. Several memorials to that effect were sent to the legislature, one headed by Susan A.
