sor had left their names off the tax-roll. Judge Theodore W. Dwight, president of the Columbia Law School, pronounced women tax-payers entitled to vote under the general water-works act, and therefore that the election-officials violated the law in refusing to accept the votes of the women whose names were omitted from the assessors’ tax-list.
In 1879, there was a report of the committee to allow widows an active voice in the settlement of the family estate and to have the sole guardianship of minor children. A petition in favor of the bill had upon it the names of such well-known men as Peter Cooper, George William Curtis, Henry Bergh and J. W. Simonton. ;
September 13, 1879, Mrs. MacDonald of Boston argued her own case before the United States Circuit Court in New York city, in a patent suit. It was a marked event in court circles, she being the first lady pleader that ever appeared in that court, and the second woman who ever argued a case in this State. Anne Bradstreet was for years a marked character in Albany courts, but her claims for justice were regarded as an amusing lunacy.
In 1880, Governor Cornell appointed Miss Carpenter on the State Board of Charities.
In the suit of Mr. Edward Jones to recover $860 which he alleged he had loaned to the Rev. Anna Oliver for the Willoughby Avenue Methodist Episcopal ‘Church, Brooklyn, of which she was pastor, a verdict for the defendant was rendered. Miss Oliver addressed the following letter to the court:
Gentlemen :—Thanking you for the politeness, the courtesy, the chivalry even, that has been shown me to-day, allow me to make of you the following request: Please sit down at your earliest leisure, and endeavor to realize in imagination how you would feel if you were sued by a woman, and the case was brought before a court composed entirely of women; the judge a woman; every member of the jury a woman; women to read the oath to you, and hold the Bible, and every lawyer a woman. Further, your case to be tried under laws framed entirely by women, in which neither you nor any man had ever been allowed a voice. Somewhat as you would feel under such circumstances, you may be assured, on reading this, I have felt during the trial to-day. Perhaps the women would be lenient to you (the sexes do favor each other), but would you be satisfied? Would you feel that such an arrangement was exactly the just and fair thing? If you would not, I ask you on the principle of the Golden Rule, to use your influence for the enfranchisement of women.
New York, 1881.Mrs. Roebling, wife of the engineer in charge of the construction of the marvelous Brooklyn bridge, made the patterns for various necessary shapes of iron and steel such as no mills were
