Mary A. Brigham had
been the speakers at the hearing in behalf of this measure. All the
other petitions were refused.

_1885_--On Municipal Suffrage and the submission of a constitutional
amendment a hearing was given February 17. As usual the Green Room was
crowded. There were before the committee petitions for suffrage with
16,113 signatures, and petitions against it with 285. The speakers in
favor were the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Mrs. Cheney, Lucy Stone, Mr.
Blackwell, Mr. Bowditch, William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., Miss Eastman,
Mrs. Adelaide A. Claflin, Mrs. Abby M. Gannett and Miss Lelia J.
Robinson. The opposition was conducted by Mr. Brandeis and the
speakers were Judge Francis C. Lowell, Mrs. Gannett Wells, Thomas
Weston, Jr., Henry Parkman and the Rev. Brooke Hereford, lately from
England, with letters from President L. Clark Seelye of Smith College,
Miss Mary E. Dewey and Mr. Sayward. The committee reported in favor of
Municipal Suffrage with only one dissenting. The House on May 4
rejected the bill by 61 yeas, 131 nays.

While the women sat in the gallery waiting for the measure to be
discussed, the bill proposing to limit the working day for women and
children to ten hours was "guyed, laughed at and voted down amid
ridicule and uproar." This Legislature also refused the petition of
Mr. Sewall and others for one or more women on every Board of
Overseers of the Poor; for the better protection of wives; for the
submission of a constitutional amendment granting women full suffrage;
and for the amendment of the school suffrage law to make it as easy
for women as for men to register. (See Suffrage.)

_1886_--At the hearing, January 28, a letter was read from the Hon.
Josiah G. Abbott, and addresses were made by Mr. Garrison, Lucy Stone,
Mr. Blackwell, Mrs. Cheney, Mrs. Eliza Trask Hill, the Rev. Ada C.
Bowles, Mrs. Shattuck, Mrs. Robinson, Miss Eastman and Mrs. Claflin.
The remonstrants' hearing had been appointed for January 29. Their
attorney, E. N. Hill, tried at the last moment to get a postponement
but failed. The leaders of the "antis" declined to speak but several
of the rank and file appeared and made the usual objections. The
committee reported in favor of Municipal Suffrage. It was discussed in
the House April 14, about the same number speaking on each side, and
defeated by 77 yeas, 132 nays, the most favorable vote since 1879.

On May 20, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, representatives of
the