Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1170

 for all the ills that afflict society, but I give you in entire candor my impressions of it from my observations in this State.

In 1889, after women in Wyoming had very generally exercised the full suffrage since 1869, Mrs. Clara B. Colby, editor of the Woman's Tribune, Washington, D. C., compiled a report from the census statistics. Those relating to crime, insanity and divorce were as follows:

The population of the United States has increased in the last decade 24.6 per cent. That of Wyoming has increased 127.9 per cent. But while the number of criminals in the whole United States has increased 40.3 — an alarming ratio far beyond the increase of population — notwithstanding the immense increase of population in Wyoming, the number of criminals has not increased at all, but there has been a relative decrease, which shows a law-abiding community and a constantly improving condition of the public morals. In 1870 there were confined in the jails and prisons of Wyoming 74 criminals, 72 men and 2 women. The census of 1880 shows the same number of criminals, 74, as against an average number of criminals in the other Western States of 645. This remarkable fact is made more interesting because the 74 in 1890 are all men, and thus the scarecrow of the vicious women in politics disappears. Wyoming being the only State in which the per cent. of criminal women has decreased, it is evident that the morals of the female part of the population improve with the exercise of the right of suffrage.

There were 189,503 insane in the United States, but there were but three insane persons in Wyoming in 1880, all men. The preponderance of insanity among married women is usually attributed to the monotony of their lives, and since this is much relieved by their participation in politics we should naturally expect to find, as a physical effect, a decreased proportion of insane women where woman suffrage prevails.

From 1870 to 1880 the rate of divorce increased in the United States 79.4 per cent., three times the ratio of the increase of population, and in the group of Western States, omitting Wyoming, it increased 436.7 per cent., almost four times the average increase of population, while in Wyoming the average increase in divorce was less than 50 per cent. of that of the population.

Compare Wyoming with a typical Eastern State — Connecticut — the latter has one insane person to every 363 of the population, Wyoming has one to every 1,497. Nor is this wholly a difference of East and West, for Idaho, its neighbor, shows one insane to every 1,029. Especially would voting seem to increase the intelligence of women, for in Connecticut there are over seven-tenths as many female idiots as there are male idiots, while in Wyoming there are only four-tenths as many.

Woman suffrage may have played no part in these statistics, but if they had shown an increase of crime, insanity and divorce, it certainly would have been held responsible by the world at large.

The History is indebted to [sic]Atorney-General John C. Davies for most of the information on School Suffrage contained in the New York chapter, and also for the opinion which follows herewith on the right of women in that State to hold office.

By the Consolidated School Law it is provided, as regarding School Commissioners, that "No person shall be deemed ineligible to such office by reason of sex, who has the other qualifications as herewith provided; "