ing of its male residents, fully one-third
of whom are of foreign birth. _Second_--They are held
amenable to laws they have had no share in making and in
which they are forbidden a voice--laws which touch all their
most vital interests of education, industry, children,
property, life and liberty. _Third_--While compelled to bear
the burdens and suffer the penalties of government, they are
debarred the honors and emoluments of civil service, and the
control of offices in the righteous discharge of whose
duties their interest is equal to that of men.
_Fourth_--They are taxed without their consent to sustain
men in office who enact laws directly opposing their
interests, and inasmuch as the State of New York pays
one-sixth the taxes of the United States, its women feel the
arm of oppression--like Briareus with his hundred
hands--touching and crushing them with its burdens.
_Fifth_--They are under the power of an autocrat whose
salary they must pay, but who, in opposition to the will of
the people--as recently shown in the passage of the School
bill by the legislature--has by his veto denied them all
official authority in the control of the public schools, and
this despite the fact of there being 3,670 more girls of
school age than boys, and 14,819 more women than men
teaching in the State. _Sixth_--Under pretence of regulating
public morals, women of the _femme de pave_ class, many of
whom have been driven to this mode of life as a livelihood,
are subjected to more oppressive laws than their partners in
vice. _Seventh_--The laws treat married women as criminals
by taking from them all legal control of their children,
while those born outside of marriage belong absolutely to
the mothers. _Eighth_--They forbid the mother's inheritance
of property from her children in case the father is living,
thus making her of no consideration in the eyes of those to
whom she has given birth. _Ninth_--They give the husband
control of the common property--allow him to spend the whole
personal estate in riotous living, or even to sell the home
over his wife's head, subject only to her thir