imitation or exclusion, but it was not done. Not only
so, but a clause omitted in the revision of 1866 was restored,
providing that no "person" not regularly admitted should act as
an attorney--a term which necessarily included women, and the
insertion of which made it necessary, if the word "persons" as
used in the first part of the statute should be held not to
include women, to give two entirely different meanings to the
same word where occurring twice in the same statute and with
regard to the same subject matter.

The object of a revision of statutes is, that there may be such
changes made in them as the changes in political and social
matters may demand, and where no changes are made it is to be
presumed that the legislature is satisfied with it in its present
form. And where some changes are made in a particular statute,
and other parts of it are left unchanged, there is the more
reason for the inference from this evidence that the matter of
changing the statute was especially considered, that the parts
unchanged express the legislative will of to-day, rather than
that of perhaps a hundred years ago, when it was originally
enacted.

But this statute, in the revision of 1875, is placed immediately
after another with regard to the appointment of commissioners of
the Superior Court, the necessary construction of which, we
think, throws light upon the construction of the statute in
question. That act was passed in 1855, after women had begun,
with general acceptance, to occupy a greatly enlarged field of
industry and some professional and even public positions; and it
has been held by the Superior Court, very properly we think, as
applying to women, a woman having three years ago been appointed
commissioner under it. Its language is as follows: "The Superior
Court in any county may appoint any number of persons in such
county to be commissioners of the Superior Court, who, when
sworn, may sign writs and subpoenas, take recognizances,
administer oaths and take depositions and the acknowledgement of
deeds, and shall hold office for two years from their
appointment." Here the very language is used which is used in the
statute with regard to attorneys. In one it is, "any number of
persons," in the other, "such persons as are qualified."