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 by women. In Scotland the application of a woman to become a law agent was rejected on this ground.

Women at the present time have a share in local government considerably more restricted than that enjoyed by men. In borough and county council elections they may vote as occupiers, though not as owners. Marriage is a disqualification, in consequence of the decision in Regina v. Harrald, 1871, and although the Married Women's Property Act of 1882 has placed married women in respect of their property and freedom of contract virtually in the same position as single women, this old decision given before the Act is still in force, no attempt having ever been made to get it overruled. The Local Government Act of 1894 empowered married women as well as single women to vote as parochial electors, subject to this restriction—that husband and wife cannot vote in respect of the same qualification. In Ireland and Scotland and in the County of London, however, married women can vote in every local election, the Acts which regulate local government in those places making provision for this, but no married woman may qualify jointly with her husband.

Seats on local authorities are denied to women, save in the case of Boards of Guardians and of Rural and Urban District Councils. School Boards and the London Vestries, to both of which women were eligible, have disappeared, and the authorities which now perform the work of these old bodies are closed to women. The new Education Act provides