Lansingburgh Tax- Payers.
441
making, after her husband and other engineers had for weeks puzzled their brains over the difficulties.
When Frank Leslie died, his printing-house was involved, and Mrs. Leslie undertook to reedeem it, which she did, and in a very short time. Speaking of it she says:
"I had the property in reach, and the assignees were ready to turn it over to me, but to get it, it was necessary for me to raise $50,000, I borrowed it from a woman. How happy I was when she signed the check, and how beautiful it seemed to me to see one woman helping another. I borrowed the money in June, and was to make the first payment of $5,000, on the 1st of November. On the 29th of October I paid the $50,000 with interest. From June to the 29th of October, I made $50,000 clear. I had also to pay $30,000 to the creditors who did not come under the contract. While I was paying this $80,000 of my husband's debts, I spent but $30 for myself, except for my board. I lived in a little attic room, without a carpet, and the window was so high that I could not get a glimpse of the sky unless I stood on a chair and looked out. When I had paid the debts and raised a monument to my husband, then I said to myself, 'now for a great big pair of diamond earrings, and away I went to Europe, and here are the diamonds." The diamonds are perfect matches, twenty-seven carats in weight, and are nearly as large as nickles.
In Lansingburgh the women tax-payers offered their ballots and were repulsed, as follows:
September 2, 1885, the special election of the taxable inhabitants of the village of Lansingburgh took place, to vote upon a proposition to raise by tax the sum of $15,000 for water-works purposes. The measure was voted by 102 for it to 46 against. But a small amount of interest was manifested in the election. Several women tax-payers offered their votes, but the inspectors would not receive them, and the matter will be contested in the courts. The call for the election asked for an expression from "the taxable inhabitants," and women tax-payers in the "burgh claim under the law their rights must be recognized. Lansingburgh inspectors have on numerous occasions refused to receive the ballots thus tendered, and the women have lost patience. They are to employ the best of counsel and settle the question at as early a day as possible. Women pay tax upon $367,394 of the property within the village boundaries, and they believe that they, to the number of 317 at least, are entitled to votes on all questions involving a monetary expenditure. In Saratoga, Clinton, and a number of other places in this State, where elections in relation to waterworks have taken place, it has been held by legal authority that women property owners have a right to vote, and they have voted accordingly the same as other tax-payers.
In regard to recent efforts to secure legislation favorable to women, Mr. Wilcox writes:
The impression that the School Act, passed in 1880, did not apply to Cities, led to the introduction by the Hon. Charles S. Baker of Rochester, of a bill covering cities. A test vote showed the Assembly practically unanimous for it, but it was referred to the Judiciary Committee to examine its constitutionality. The chairman, Hon. Geo. L. Ferry, and other members,
