towns in 1879-80, about 5,000 women became registered voters.

[138] Lucretia P. Hale, Abby W. May, Lucia M. Peabody, Mary J. S.
Blake, Kate G. Wells, Lucretia Crocker.

[139] This act, so brief and so _expressive_, is worthy to be
remembered. It simply reads: "_Be it enacted, etc., as follows_:

SEC. 1. No person shall be deemed ineligible to serve upon a school
committee by reason of sex.

SEC. 2. This act shall take effect upon its passage. (_Approved
June 30, 1874._)

By force of habit, the legislature said not a word in the law about
_women_. There are now (1885) 102 women members of school-boards in
Massachusetts.

[140] See "Women under the law of Massachusetts," Henry H. Sprague.
Boston: W. B. Clarke & Carruth.

[141] The authority for this old "thumb" tradition, that "a man had
the right to whip his wife with a stick no bigger than his thumb,"
is found in an early edition of _Phillip's Evidence_. That book was
authority in English common law and in it Phillips is quoted as
saying, that according to the law of his day a husband "might
lawfully chastise his wife with a reasonable weapon, as a
_broomstick_," adding, however, "but if he use an unreasonable
weapon, such as an iron bar, and death ensue, it would be
murder."--[Chamberlin, p. 818.

[142] In an old will, made a hundred and fifty years ago, a husband
of large means bequeathed to his "dearly beloved wife" $50 and a
new suit of clothes, with the injunction that she should return to
her original, or family home. And with this small sum, as her share
of his property, he returned her to her parents.

[143] The little actual gain in votes since 1874, in favor of
municipal or general suffrage for women, might cause the careless
observer to draw the inference that no great progress had been made
in legislative sentiment during all these years. In 1870 the vote
in the House of Representatives on the General Woman Suffrage Bill
was 133 to 68. In 1885 the bill giving municipal suffrage was
defeated in the House by a vote of 130 to 61. But this is not a
true index of the progress of public opinion.

[144] Mrs. Ellen M. Richards was the first woman who entered.

[145] The Harvard Annex, so called, began its seventh year with
sixty-five young ladies enrolled for study. The enrollment for the
preceding six years was as follows: First year, 29: second, 47;
third 40; fourth, 39; fifth, 49, sixth, 55. Some of the students
come from distant places, but a ma