Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/925

834 tion for the county of Suffolk, Sir Simonds d'Ewes being high-sheriff:

Who, as soon as he had notice thereof, sent to forbid the same, conceiving it a matter verie unworthy of anie gentleman, and most dishonourable in such an election to make use of their voices, although in law they might have been allowed.

The spirit of the Puritans was not favorable to woman's equality; but, though disused, the right was never absolutely taken away by law. In a celebrated trial, Olive vs. Ingram (reign of George II.) the chief-justice gave it as his opinion that "a person paying scot and lot," and therefore qualified to vote, was a description which included women; and all the writs of election down to the time of William IV. were made to "persons" who were freeholders. However, for all purposes of political life this right was as good as dead, being absolutely forgotten. But still the local franchises remained. We have no data to determine whether these were as completely neglected as the parliamentary franchise. Parishioners voted for overseers of the poor and for other local boards; and women were never legally disqualified from voting in these elections. The lowest period in the condition of women appears to have been reached at the end of the last century, though they were not then indifferent to politics. "You cannot," says Miss Edgeworth's Lady Davenant, "satisfy yourself with the common namby-pamby phrase, ' Ladies have nothing to do with politics.'  Female influence must exist on political subjects as well as on all others; but this influence should always be domestic not public; the customs of society have so ruled it." This sentence exactly represented ordinary English feeling. It was never considered derogatory to an English lady to take an active part in elections, provided she did so for some member of her family; but of direct responsibility she had none.

In the ferment of opinion which preceded the great Reform bill, woman's claim to participate in it was never heard. The new franchises which were then for the first time created applied exclusively to male persons, but in the old franchises continuing in force, the word "person "alone is strictly used. Mr. Sidney Smith said:

In reserving and keeping alive the qualifications in existence before those itself created, this statute falls back exactly to the accustomed phraseology of the earlier acts. Whenever it confers a new right it restricts it to every male person. Whenever it perpetuates existing fran-