intended that they should. The word "citizen," in the statute
under which this application is made, is but a repetition of the
word originally adopted with a view of excluding aliens, before
the statute of 1852, c. 154, allowed those aliens to be admitted
to the bar who had made the preliminary declaration of intention
to become citizens. Rev. Sts., c. 88, Sec. 19. Gen. Sts., c. 121, Sec.
28.

The reenactment of the act relating to the admission of attorneys
in the same words without more so far as relates to the personal
qualifications of the applicant, since other statutes have
expressly modified the legal rights and capacity of women in
other important respects, tends rather to refute than to advance
the theory that the legislature intended that these words should
comprehend women. No inference of an intention of the legislature
to include women in the statutes concerning the admission of
attorneys can be drawn from the mere omission of the word "male."
The only statute to which we have referred, in which that word is
inserted, is the statute concerning the qualifications of voters
in town affairs, which, following the language of the article of
the constitution that defines the qualifications of voters for
governor, lieutenant-governor, senators and representatives,
speaks of "every male citizen of twenty-one years of age," etc.
Gen. Sts. c. 18, Sec. 19. Const. Mass. Amendments, art. 3. Words
which taken by themselves would be equally applicable to women
and to men are constantly used in the constitution and statutes,
in speaking of offices which it could not be contended, in the
present state of law, that women were capable of holding.

The Courts of the commonwealth have not assumed by their rules to
admit to the bar any class of persons not within the apparent
intent of the legislature as manifested in the statutes. The word
"persons," in the latest rule of Court upon the subject, was the
word used in the rule of 1810 and in the statutes of 1785 and
1836, at times when no one contemplated the possibility of a
woman's being admitted to practice as an attorney. 121 Mass. 600.
6. Mass. 382. St. 1785, c. 23. Rev. St. c. 18, 20. Gen. Sts. c.
121, Sec. 29. The United States Court of Claims, at December term,
1873, on full consideration,