y have a right to find a general verdict of guilty
or not guilty, as they shall believe that she has or has not been guilty
of the offense prescribed in the statute.

This certainly makes it clear that the question was not "a pure question
of law," and that there was "something to go to the jury." And this
would be so, even if, as that writer erroneously supposes, Miss Anthony
had openly avowed before the Court that she voted.

But even if this point be wholly laid out of the case, and it had been
conceded that Miss Anthony had knowingly violated the law, if she should
be proved to have voted at all, so that the only questions before the
Court were, first--whether she had voted as charged, and
secondly--whether the law forbade her voting; and if in this state of
the case a hundred witnesses had been brought by the government, to
testify that she had "openly avowed" in their presence that she had
voted, so that practically the question of her having voted was proved
beyond all possible question, still, the judge would have no right to
order a verdict of guilty. The proof that she voted would still be
_evidence_, and _mere evidence_, and a judge has no power whatever to
deal with evidence. He can deal only with the law of the case, and the
jury alone can deal with the facts.

But we will go further than this. We will suppose that in New York, as
in some of the States, a defendant in a criminal case is allowed to
testify, and that Miss Anthony had gone upon the stand as a witness, and
had stated distinctly and unequivocally that she did in fact vote as
charged. We must not forget that, if this had actually occurred, she
would at the same time have stated that she voted in the full belief
that she had a right to vote, and that she was advised by eminent
counsel that she had such right; a state of the case which we have
before referred to as presenting a vital question of fact for the jury,
and which excludes the possibility of the case being legally dealt with
by the judge alone; but this point we are laying out of the case in the
view we are now taking of it. We will suppose that Miss Anthony not only
testified that she voted in fact, but also that she had no belief that
she had any right to vote; making a case where, if the Court should
hold as matter of law that she had no right to vote, there would seem to
be no possible verdict for the jury to bring in but that of "guilty."

Even in this case, which would seem to re