I infer, without being able to say how the fact is, that the votes given by women, as mentioned in the newspapers, were given at municipal elections merely, and that the cases decided by the Court of Common Pleas relate to elections for members of Parliament.

Another objection is, that the right to hold office must attend the right to vote, and that women are not qualified to discharge the duties of responsible offices.

I beg leave to answer this objection by asking one or more questions.  How many of the male bipeds who do our voting are qualified to hold high offices?  How many of the large class to whom the right of voting is supposed to have been secured by the fifteenth amendment, are qualified to hold office?

Whenever the qualifications of persons to discharge the duties of responsible offices is made the test of their right to vote, and we are to have a competitive examination on that subject, open to all claimants, my client will be content to enter the lists, and take her chances among the candidates for such honors.

But the practice of the world, and our own practice, give the lie to this objection.  Compare the administration of female sovereigns of great kingdoms, from Semiramis to Victoria, with the average administration of male sovereigns, and which will suffer by the comparison?  How often have mothers governed large kingdoms, as regents, during the minority of their sons, and governed them well?  Such offices as the “sovereigns” who rule them in this country have allowed women to hold (they having no voice on the subject), they have discharged the duties of with ever increasing satisfaction to the public; and Congress has lately passed an act, making the official bonds of married women valid, so that they could be appointed to the office of postmaster.

The case of Olive vs.  Ingraham (7 Modern Rep. 263) was an action brought to try the title to an office.  On the death of the sexton of the parish of St. Butolph, the place was to be filled by election, the voters being the housekeepers who “paid Scot and lot” in the parish.  The widow of the deceased sexton (Sarah Bly) entered the lists against Olive, the plaintiff in the suit, and received 169 indisputable votes, and 40 votes given by women who were “housekeepers, and paid to church and poor.”  The plaintiff had 174 indisputable votes, and 22 votes given by such women as voted for Mrs. Bly.  Mrs. Bly was declared elected.  The action was brought to test two questions:  1.  Whether women were legal voters; and 2.  Whether a woman was capable of holding the office.  The case was four times argued in the King’s Bench, and all the judges delivered opinions, holding that the women were competent voters; that the widow was properly elected, and could hold the office.

In the course of the discussion it was shown that women had held many offices, those of constable, church warden, overseer of the poor, keeper of the “gate house” (a public prison), governess of a house of correction, keeper of castles, sheriffs of counties, and high constable of England.