Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/767

 tary guardian was created by an act of Charles II, and adopted as a part of the laws of Maryland. It gives the father power, by deed or will, to dispose of the custody and tuition of his infant children up to the age of twenty-one, or until the marriage of the daughters. It gives him custody of their persons and all their real and personal estate, not only such as comes from his family, but all they may acquire of any person soever, even from the family of the mother. The guardian is placed in loco parentis and his rights are generally regarded as paramount.

For non-support of the family the husband may be fined $100 or imprisoned in the House of Correction not exceeding one year, or both, at discretion of the court. (1896.)

Wife-beaters are punished by flogging or imprisonment.

In 1899 women succeeded in having the "age of protection" for girls raised from 14 to 16 years, with penalty ranging from death to imprisonment in the penitentiary for eighteen months.

Employers are compelled to provide seats for female employes. Children under twelve can not work in factories. Women or

girls may not be employed as waiters in any place of amusement.


 * Women have no form of suffrage.


 * The State librarian is a woman, who has filled the position most satisfactorily for a number of years and through her care valuable documents relating to colonial times have been saved from destruction and classified. A leading paper of Baltimore said that these had been allowed to remain in the cellar of the State House for years, and would have been ruined but for the new system of public housekeeping inaugurated by the womanly element.

Women physicians have been placed in charge of women patients at one State insane asylum.

Police matrons are employed at all the station houses in Baltimore. During the past two years women have been placed on its jail boards and on the boards of most of its charitable and reformatory institutions. By the recommendation of two mayors they have been put on the school board. They have applied for positions on the street-cleaning board but without success.

Women are doing efficient work on the jail and almshouse boards of Harford County and the school boards of Montgomery.