ism and
ridicule. The Washington _Sunday Morning Herald_ wittily reported[166]
this trial in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.

On July 21st, 1871, Ellen Rand Van Valkenburg, of Santa Cruz,
California, having applied for registration and been refused, brought
suit against Albert Brown, of Brown County, who acted as Register upon
this occasion. Although later suits exceeded this in interest it was
notable for being the first decision under the new amendments.[167]

September 16, 1871, suit was brought by Carrie S. Burnham, an
unmarried woman, residing in Philadelphia. She was duly assessed by
the canvassers of the Fourteenth Ward of that city as a resident of
the Eleventh Election District of that ward. Two days afterwards she
paid her tax, and her name was registered on the canvassers' printed
list of legal voters in that division. Having complied with all the
laws regulating suffrage in Pennsylvania, she presented her ballot in
legal form at the proper time and place at the general election, but
her vote was refused. Her argument in the Court of Common Pleas and
the opinion of the judge, will be given in the Pennsylvania chapter.

Mrs. Catharine V. Waite, of Illinois, also instituted suit for the
refusal of her vote proffered in the fall of 1871, and received an
adverse decision, a report of which will be found in the Illinois
chapter.

Two years previous to these suits for the recognition of the political
rights of women a contest of a different character was commenced in
Illinois. Mrs. Myra Bradwell, editor of the Chicago _Legal News_, in
September, 1869, having passed the examination, and received the
required certificate of qualification, applied for admission to the
bar of that State, which was refused by its Supreme court, on the
ground that she was a woman. She made this denial of her civil rights
a test case by bringing a writ of error against the State of Illinois
in the Supreme Court of the United States. We copy from the _Legal
News_ of February 5, 1870:

A WOMAN CAN NOT PRACTICE LAW OR HOLD ANY OFFICE IN ILLINOIS.

_Full Report of the Proceedings in the Supreme Court upon the
Application of Myra Bradwell to be admitted to the Bar._

LICENSING ATTORNEYS.--The following extract from rule 76 shows
what is required by the Supreme Court of applicants for admission
to the bar:

_Ordered_, That rules 69 and 70 be rescinded, and applicants
f