inent, to defend our
own cause in the Senate chamber, before their joint Committee and
such of the General Assembly and of the public, as might choose
to come and listen. From the reports of the numerous
letter-writers who were present, I will place one extract only
upon record.

"The Senate chamber was filled to overflowing to hear Mrs. Jones,
Cutler, and Gage, and hundreds went away for want of a place to
stand. Columbus has seldom seen so refined and intelligent an
audience as that which gathered round those earnest women, who
had none of the charm of youth or beauty to challenge admiration,
but whose heads were already sprinkled with the frosts of life's
winter. Earnest, truthful, womanly, richly cultivated by the
experiences of practical life, those women, mothers, and two of
them grandmothers, pleaded for the right of woman to the fruit of
her own genius, labor, or skill, and for the mother her right to
be the joint guardian of her own offspring. I wish I could give
you even the faintest idea of the brilliancy of the scene, or the
splendor of the triumph achieved over the legions of prejudice,
the cohorts of injustice, and the old national guard of hoary
conservatism. If the triumph of a prima donna is something to
boast, what was the triumph of these toil-worn women, when not
only the members of the Committee, but Senators and Members of
the House, crowded around them with congratulations and
assurances that their able and earnest arguments had fully
prevailed, and the prayers of their petitioners must be granted."

The address of the first speaker was a written argument on legal
rights. It was solicited by members of the General Assembly for
publication, and distributed over the State at their expense.

The change in public sentiment, the marked favor with which our
cause began to be regarded in the judicial and legislative
departments, encouraged us to hope that if equal and exact
justice were not established, which we could hardly expect, we
should at least obtain legal equality in many particulars. The
Senate committee soon reported a bill, drafted by one of their
number--Judge Key--and fully endorsed by all the judges of the
Supreme Court, securing to the married woman the use of her real
estate, and the avails of her own s