he first, is certainly one of the longest that have yet
been written on the subject. It remained at the time unanswered, and
when its author married Godwin she herself seems to have lost interest
in the controversy. Nevertheless, little has been added since to the
ideas there put forward, save, indeed, for the vote. It is a somewhat
curious fact that in all Miss Wolstonecraft's great magazine of
grievances and demands for remedying legislation, there is not a
single word said about votes by women, or there being such a thing as
the right to the ballot.

[Footnote 1: In the trial of Mary Heelers for bigamy (2 State Trials,
498) as late as 1663 the chief justice said, 'If guilty, she must die;
a woman hath no clergy.' Yet Mary wrote to her husband, in court,
"Nay, my lord, 'tis not amiss, before we part, to have a kiss!" She
was acquitted.]

The industrial condition of the sex in American cities may be summed
up with the general phrase "absolute equality of opportunity," with
a certain amount of special protection. Women are nearly universally
required to be given seats in factories and stores, and the laws
specially protecting their periods of employment have just been
sustained as constitutional in the States of Illinois and Oregon and
the Supreme Court of the United States. On the other hand, we are far
behind European countries in legislation to protect their health or
sanitary conditions. The most radical effort at legislation ever made
was undoubtedly that Connecticut bill forbidding employment of married
women in factories, which, however, did not become a law. The
recent reports of Laura Scott to the American Association for Labor
Legislation, on Child Labor, 1910, and the Employment of Women, 1909,
have already been referred to. From the former, which appeared as we
are going to press, we learn that there are prohibited occupations
to children in all the States without exception--a statement which
certainly would not have been true some years since. These prohibited
groups of employment are generally, to male and female, dangerous
machinery and mines, and to females also saloons; and there is nearly
universally a limitation of all labor to above the age of twelve
or fourteen for all purposes, and to above fourteen or sixteen
for educational purposes, besides which there is a very general
prohibition of acrobatic or theatrical performances. Girls are
sometimes forbidden to sell newspapers or deliver messages for