tten
consent, which must be registered in the office of the clerk of
the county in which she resides, she may become a free-trader
with all the rights of a man, her husband having no claim to her
gains and not being responsible for any debt which she may
contract. By giving this written consent her husband virtually
places her in the position of an unmarried woman, as far as her
property is concerned.

In 1881, finding that a widow had no right to appoint a guardian
for her children by "letters testamentary," I, through my son,
William E. Clarke, who was then senator for this county in our
State legislature, succeeded in getting this law so changed that
she now has the same rights as a man. In cases of divorce or
separation while the children are under age, it is discretionary
with the judge to give the children to either parent; but public
sentiment always gives them to the mother while young.

As a rule the women of the South are better educated than the
men, the boys being put to work while the girls are at school.
The girls are not trained to work in any way, and very few, as
yet, see the necessity of being regularly trained to do anything
by which they may make a living except as teachers. Our
public-school system requires a course through the normal school
for all teachers. Mixed schools are not popular with us, but we
have been forced into them by the public-graded-school tax, which
has crushed out our private schools. I am now, and have been for
the past two years, making an effort to have women on our
school-boards, and a female as well as a male principal for every
mixed public school, on the ground that mothers have as much
right to a voice in the education of their daughters as fathers
have in that of their sons. We have female teachers in our public
schools but not as principals, and the pay of the women is,
regardless of the quality of their work, always considerably less
than that of men.

Our Supreme Court granted a license to Miss Tabitha A. Holton to
practice law, and there is no legal impediment in the way of one
doing so. The same is true of the medical profession. Dr. Susan
Dimock was a North Carolinian by birth and on her application
for admission to the State Medical Society was unanimously
elected a member