ened the women with arrest when
they refused to pay both. In some towns they have been treated with
great indignity, as if they were doing an unlawful act. In one town
the women were actually required to pay a poll-tax the second year,
in spite of the clause in the law that a female citizen who has
paid a State or county tax within two years shall have the right to
vote. The town assessor, whose duty it was to inform the women on
this point of the law when asked concerning the matter, _willfully_
withheld the desired information, saying he "did not know," though
he afterwards said that he _did_ know, but intended to let the
women "find out for themselves." This assessor forgot that the
women, as legal voters, had a right to ask for this information,
and that by virtue of his official position he was legally obliged
to answer. In another town two ladies who were property tax-payers
were made to pay the two dollars poll-tax, and the record of this
still stands on the town books. Some ladies were frightened and
paid the tax under protest; others ran the risk. Here is a letter
addressed to a lady 83 years of age:

MALDEN, Dec. 2, 1879.

HARRIET HANSON: There is a balance of ninety cents due on your
poll-tax of 1879, duly assessed upon you. Payment of the same is
hereby demanded, and if not paid within fourteen days from this
date, with twenty cents for the summons, the collector is
required to proceed forthwith to collect the same in manner
provided by law.

THEODORE N. FOGUE, _Collector_.

Mrs. Hanson paid no attention to the summons, and that was the end
of it.

In 1881, under the amended act the poll-tax was reduced to fifty
cents, and the property tax-paying women (who are not required to
pay a poll-tax) are no longer obliged to make a return of property
exempt from taxation, as was required under the original statute.
Though some of the disabilities were removed, yet the privileges
are no greater; and it is for members of school-committees and for
nothing else, that the women of this State can vote. This is hardly
worthy to be called "school suffrage"! It is to be regretted that a
better test than that of school-committee suffrage, could not have
been given to the women of the State, so that the issue of what
under the circumstances cannot be called a fair trial of their
desire to vote, might be more nearly what t