sole traders, without responsibility for the husband's debts. Two
more States passed statutes allowing women to practise law. In 1890
one other State forbids drinks to be served by either women or
children under eighteen.

In 1893 there was much legislation concerning the powers of the mother
over the children, and the liability of the husband to support both
wife and children under penalty as for the crime of desertion. This
legislation has now become pretty general throughout the country; that
is, it is made a criminal offence for a man to desert his wife or
children, or, being able, to fail to support them. One State declared
the husband and wife joint guardians of the children. In 1894 one
State prohibited marriage between first cousins, and one between uncle
and niece. One declared that marriage removed nonage. One made it a
misdemeanor for a married man to make an offer of marriage. The laws
for support of wife and children continue, and there were laws passed
giving alimony to the wife, even in case the divorce were for her
fault. One State made both husband and wife competent witnesses
against each other in either civil or criminal cases. One found it
necessary to declare that a woman might practise medicine, and another
that she might be a guardian; the statute in both cases would seem to
have been unnecessary. Two States provided that she might not serve
liquor in saloons or restaurants, the statute already referred
to. Louisiana adopted the intelligent statute, already mentioned,
permitting the right of suffrage to women in cases of votes on loans
or taxes by cities, counties, or towns; and Utah first enacted the
much-mooted statute that female school-teachers should be paid like
wages as males for the same services. It would be most interesting
to hear how this statute, which was passed in 1896, turned out to
work.[1] One State provided that women might be masters in chancery,
and another carried out the idea of equality by enacting that women
should no longer be excepted in the laws against tramps and vagrants.
Constitutional amendments proposing women's suffrage were defeated
this year (1895) in no less than nine States. Connecticut passed a law
that no man or woman should marry who was epileptic or imbecile, if
the wife be under forty-five, and another State for the first time
awards divorce to the husband for cruelty or indignities suffered at
the hands of the wife, while another State still repeals alt