se of Commons in John Stuart Mill and Jacob Bright in
1867-69, and no sooner were their mammoth petitions presented in
parliament than ours were rolled into the halls of congress. At
last we reached the goal, the women of England in 1869 and those of
Wyoming in 1870. But what the former gained in time the latter far
surpassed in privilege. While to the English woman only a limited
suffrage was accorded, in the vast territory of Wyoming, larger
than all Great Britain, all the rights of citizenship were fully
and freely conferred by one act of the legislature--the right to
vote at all elections on all questions and to hold any office in
the gift of the people.

The successive steps by which this was accomplished are given us by
Hon. J. W. Kingman, associate-justice in the territory for several
years:

It is now sixteen years since the act was passed giving women the
right to vote at all elections in this territory, including all
the rights of an elector, with the right to hold office. The
language of the statute is broad, and beyond the reach of
evasion. It is as follows:

That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in
the territory, may, at every election to be holden under the
laws thereof, cast her vote; and her rights to the elective
franchise, and to hold office, shall be the same, under the
election laws of the territory, as those of the electors.

There was no half-way work about it, no quibbling, no grudgingly
parting with political power, no fear of consequences, but a
manly acknowledgment of equal rights and equal privileges, among
all the citizens of the new territory. Nor was this the only act
of that first legislature on the subject of equal rights. They
passed the following:

AN ACT _to protect married women in their separate property,
and the enjoyment of their labor._

SECTION 1. That all the property, both real and personal,
belonging to any married woman as her sole and separate
property, or which any woman hereafter married, owns at the
time of her marriage, or which any married woman during
coverture acquires in good faith from any person other than
her husband, by descent or otherwise, together with all the
rents, issues, increase and profits thereof, shall,
notwithstanding her