day practice, and the fact that they are women seems to have been almost lost sight of, so far as their practice as lawyers is con cerned; and this, we think, is as it should be. So far as they are concerned, the law has been a success with them, far beyond the average of their brethren of the profes sion, taken as a whole." Elsewhere in his letter Mr. Lutes mentions his three daugh ters, the two eldest of whom (aged fourteen and twelve, respectively) are in attendance at Heidelberg University, at Tiffin, taking the full classical course, for which they were prepared under Mrs. Lutes's instruction, as she never permitted them to enter the pub lic schools. Thus it is apparent that in attending to her large practice this able lawyer has not neglected her children. Another woman, Miss Edith Sams, stud ied in Miss Cronise's office two years, and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of Ohio in 1881, standing third in a class of twenty-six, and then practised for a while in partnership with Miss Cronise, until 1883, when she married C. A. Seiders, Esq., an attorney, and removed with him to Paulding, Ohio, where she has been since in partnership with him, though for the past few years, owing to domestic duties, she tins not been in active practice. She writes that she took up law as a life work, and expects to resume it actively in the future. There was also a Miss Agnes Scott who read law with Miss Cronise for two years and who seemed very determined to gain admission to the bar, concerning which some question was raised, but after securing admission her ambition seemed to be grati fied, and she has disappeared from public life. Still another woman is practising law in Ohio, — Mrs. Spargo Fraser, of Cleveland. She studied in an office, and was admitted to the bar in 1885, and has been in steady practice since. The first woman to be admitted to the bar in Wisconsin was Miss Lavinia Goodell, of Janesville, who was admitted to the Cir
cuit Court of Rock County and began prac tice, but the following year she was refused admission to the Supreme Court of the same State.1 The decision in this case did ChiefJustice Ryan little credit, for he allowed him self to depart from the legal point at issue to discuss the question of " Woman's Sphere" from a standpoint of domestic economy quite out of his proper sphere as a judge on the bench. The Legislature promptly passed a law allowing the admission of women, and Miss Goodell was admitted under it, though Judge Ryan dissented even from this decision. She was an able lawyer, and did good work until her death in 1880 from sciatic rheuma tism. At the time of her death I cut the following clipping from the " Independent :" "The Chicago Journal says the early death of Miss Lavinia Goodell, the Wisconsin lawyer, sug gests the query whether women are able to en dure the hard usage and severe mental application incidental to a legal professional career. Miss Goodell was forty-one years of age. Henry Armitt Brown, the noted young lawyer of Philadelphia, died recently at thirty-two. We would like to suggest the query whether men are able to endure the hard usage, etc. One swallow does not make a summer." In the same Wisconsin city of Janesville, Miss Angie J. King began to study law in 1871, was admitted to the bar of the Circuit Court in 1879, and was in partnership with Miss Goodell until the latter's death, since which time Miss King has continued in steady active general practice alone, succeed ing, as she writes me, far beyond her most sanguine expectations, retaining all her old patrons and gaining new ones every year. Another woman lawyer, Miss Kate H. Pier, of Milwaukee, is one of a family of lawyers Her father, Col. C. K. Pier, is an attorney of long standing, and Mrs. Pier and their daughter Kate graduated from the Law Department of the University of Wisconsin in 1887, and were admitted to the State and Federal Courts. All three practise together, 1 Re Goodell, 39 Wis. 232.
