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History of Woman Suffrage.
they have been received. It remains to be seen whether the Republican citizens of the ward will endorse the action of a committee which from mere prejudice can throw off regularly-elected candidates from a ticket.
The ladies were elected, and Mrs. Paist served her term. Mrs. Woelpper died immediately after the election.
Anna McDowell, in the Sunday Republic of April 8, 1877, in a long article shows the necessity of some legal knowledge for women, enough at least to look after their own interests, and not be compelled through their ignorance to trust absolutely to the protection of others. They should be trained to understand that all pecuniary affairs should be placed on a business basis as strictly between themselves and their fathers and brothers as men require in their contracts with each other. After giving many instances in which women have been grossly defrauded by their relatives, she points to the will of the great railroad king of Pennsylvania:
Let us glance for a moment at the will of the late J. Edgar Thomson, than which no more unjust testament was ever offered for probate. This gentleman, the sole object of affection of two most worthy and self-sacrificing sisters, married late in life without making any adequate settlement upon the relatives to whom, in a great measure, he owed his success. He always promised to provide for them amply, saying, repeatedly, in effect, in letters which we have seen, "As my fortune advances so also shall yours; my prosperity will be your prosperity", etc. Oblivious to the ties of nature and affection, however, when he came to make his will he, out of a fortune of two millions, bequeathed to these sisters, during life, an annuity of $1,200 per annum only, leaving the rest of the income of his estate to his wife and her niece, the latter a young lady whom he had previously made independent by his skilful investment of a few thousand dollars left her by her father. Not content with the will which gave her also a large income for life out of Mr. Thomson's estate, this niece of his wife brought suit against the executors to recover bonds found after the death of the testator in an envelope on which her name was written, and through the ruling of Judge Thayer, a relation by marriage to the husband of the lady, the case was decided in her favor, and $100,000 was thus absolutely and permanently taken from the fund designed for the asylum which it was Mr. Thomson's long-cherished desire to found for the benefit and education of orphan girls whose fathers had been or might be killed by accident on the Pennsylvania and other railroads. The injustice of this decision is made manifest when we reflect that the Misses Anna and Adeline Thomson, who worked side by side with their brother as civil engineers in their father's office, and labored, without pay, therein, that Re might be educated and sent abroad further to perfect himself in his profession, were cut off with a comparatively paltry stipend for life, this being still further reduced by the collateral-inheritance tax. As high an authority as Dr. William A. Hammond says that, "for a man to cut off his natural heirs in his will is prima facie evidence of abberation of mind," and we believe this to be true.
Had these sisters [1] been brothers they would have been recognized as partners and had their legal proportion of the accumula-
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- ↑ Their modest home at 114 North Eleventh street has long been a hospitable retreat for reformers, where many of us identified with the suffrage movement have been most courteously entertained Anna and Adeline Thomson after long lives of industry have been, too, the steadfast representatives of great principles in religious and political freedom, always giving freely of their means to the unpopular reforms of their day and generation.—[E. C. S.
