as given on the petitions for Municipal and
License Suffrage. Mr. Bowditch, Lucy Stone, Mr. Blackwell, Mrs. Howe
and Mrs. Cheney spoke for Municipal Suffrage and Miss Elizabeth S.
Tobey for License Suffrage. Mr. Brandeis made an argument as attorney
for the remonstrants. Charles Carleton Coffin, A. A. Miner, D. D.,
Mrs. Claflin, the Rev. Ada C. Bowles and Miss Cora Scott Pond replied
for the petitioners.

On February 20 and 25 hearings were given on the petitions for six
bills drawn by Mr. Sewall: 1. To give mothers the equal care, custody
and education of their minor children. 2. To give married women a
right to appoint guardians for their minor children by will. 3. To
repeal the act of 1887 limiting the inheritance of personal property.
4. To regulate and equalize the descent of personal property between
husband and wife. 5. To equalize curtesy and dower and the descent of
real estate between husband and wife. 6. To enable husbands and wives
to make gifts, contracts and conveyances directly with one another,
and to authorize suits between them.

Addresses in support of the petitions were made by Mr. Sewall, Mrs.
Howe, Mrs. Stone, Mr. Blackwell, the Hon. George A. O. Ernst, Miss
Robinson, George H. Fall and others. All these measures were refused.
Several new statutes for the better protection of women were passed
this year, however, at the instance of Mr. Sewall, among them one
providing severe penalties for any person who should aid in sending a
woman as inmate or servant to a house of ill fame; one prohibiting
railroads from requiring women or children to ride in smoking cars;
one providing that women arrested should be placed in charge of police
matrons.

On April 23 Municipal Suffrage was defeated in the House, 50 yeas, 121
nays. License Suffrage, after a prolonged contest, passed by 118 yeas,
110 nays, and was defeated in the Senate, 20 yeas, 19 nays.

_1889_--At the hearing of January 31 the attendance was larger than
ever before. Prof. W. H. Carruth, Franklyn Howland and the Rev. J. W.
Hamilton (afterwards Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church) were
added to the usual list of speakers.

On February 4 a hearing was granted to the W. C. T. U. for Municipal
Suffrage, and on February 8 one was given to the remonstrants. The
Hon. John M. Ropes, the Rev. Charles B. Rice, the Rev. Dr. Dexter of
the _Congregationalist_ and Arthur Lord spoke in the negative. They
said they were employed as counsel by the remons