CHAPTER XXXVIII.. Pennsylvania.

PENNSYLVANIA.

Carrie Burnham--The Canon and Civil Law the Source of Woman's Degradation--Women Sold with Cattle in 1768--Women Arrested in Pittsburgh--Mrs. McManus--Opposition to Women in the Colleges and Hospitals; John W. Forney Vindicates their Rights--Ann Preston--Women in Dentistry--James Truman's Letter--Swarthmore College--Suffrage Association Formed in 1866, in Philadelphia--John K. Wildman's Letter--Judge William S. Pierce--The Citizens' Suffrage Association, 333 Walnut Street, Edward M. Davis, President--Petitions to the Legislature--Constitutional Convention, 1873--Bishop Simpson, Mary Grew, Sarah C. Hallowell, Matilda Hindman, Mrs. Stanton, Address the Convention--Messrs. Broomall and Campbell Debate With the Opposition--Amendment Making Women Eligible to School Offices--Two Women Elected to Philadelphia School Board, 1874--The Wages of Married Women Protected--J. Edgar Thomson's Will--Literary Women as Editors--The Rev. Knox Little--Anne E. McDowell--Women as Physicians in Insane Asylums--The Fourteenth Amendment Resolution, 1881--Ex-Governor Hoyt's Lecture on Wyoming.

In the demand for the right of suffrage, women are constantly asked by the opposition if they cannot trust their own fathers, husbands and brothers to legislate for them. The answer to this question may be found in an able digest of the old common laws and the Revised Statutes of Pennsylvania, prepared by Carrie S. Burnham of Pennsylvania. A careful perusal of this paper will show the relative position of man and woman to be that of sovereign and subject.

To get at the real sentiments of a people in regard to the true status of woman we must read the canon and civil laws that form the basic principles of their religion and government. We must not trust to the feelings and actions of the best men towards the individual women whom they may chance to love and respect. The chivalry and courtesy that the few command through their beauty, wealth and position, are one thing; but justice, equality, liberty for the multitude, are quite another. And when the few, through misfortune, are made to feel the iron teeth of the law, they regret that they had not used their power to secure permanent protection under just laws, rather than to have trusted the transient favors of individuals to shield them in life's emergencies.

The law securing to married women the right to property, inherited by will or bequest, passed the legislature of Pennsylvania, and was approved by the governor April 11, 1848, just five days after a similar law had been passed in New York. Judge Bovier was the mover for the Pennsylvania Married Women's Property Law. His feelings had been so often outraged with the misery caused by men marrying women for their property, that he was bound the law should be repealed. He prevailed on several young Quakers who had rich sisters, to run for the legislature. They were elected and did their duty. Judge Bovier was a descendent of the Waldenses, a society of French Quakers who fled to the mountains from persecution. Their descendants are still living in France.

The disabilities and degradation that women suffer to-day grow out of the spirit of laws that date from a time when women were viewed in the light of beasts of burden. Scarce a century has passed since women were sold in this country with cattle. In the Pennsylvania Gazette for January 7, 1768, is the following advertisement:

TO BE SEEN.--At the Crooked Billet, near the Court-house, Philadelphia (Price Three Pence), A Two Year Old Hogg, 12 Hands high, and in length 16 Feet; thought to be the largest of its Kind ever seen in America.

In the same paper of the following week occurs this yet more extraordinary announcement:

TO BE SOLD.--A Healthy Young Dutch Woman, fit for town or country business; about 18 years old; can spin well; she speaks good English, and has about five years to serve. Inquire at James Der Kinderen's, Strawberry alley.

In one century of growth a woman's sewing machine was better protected than the woman herself under the old common law:

AN ACT to exempt Sewing Machines belonging to Seamstresses in this Commonwealth from levy and sale on execution or distress for rent: