sary. There were but nine noes.

After the clerk had read the bill in the Assembly, Speaker Husted
said: "If there is no objection this bill will go at once to the third
reading." Wm. F. Sheehan, the leading opponent of woman suffrage, was
asleep at the time and so it was thus ordered. Mrs. Howell continued
her efforts, but the measure was defeated--48 ayes, 68 noes--by a
moneyed influence from New York City, after nearly enough votes to
carry it had been promised.

A bill providing police matrons in cities, with the exception of New
York and Brooklyn, was secured from this Legislature. It had been
passed in 1882, but not signed by Gov. Alonzo B. Cornell; passed again
in the Assembly in 1883, but defeated in the Senate by the Police
Department of New York City. The bill was finally secured by the
Woman's Prison Association, but it was not made mandatory and no
attention was paid to it by the city authorities.

A bill was presented this year to relieve women from the death
penalty, on the ground that since they had not the full privileges of
men they should not suffer equal punishment. The measure was ably
supported, but failed to pass.

In 1888 the Municipal Suffrage Bill was presented in the Senate by
Charles Coggeshall, and in the Assembly by Danforth E. Ainsworth. A
hearing in the Senate Chamber on February 15 was addressed by Mrs.
Blake, Mrs. Rogers and the Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer of Rhode Island.
The bill was lost in the Senate by a tie vote, 15 ayes, 15 noes; in
the House by 48 ayes, 61 noes.

Laws were enacted at this session providing that there shall be women
physicians in all State insane asylums where women are patients; and
also that there shall be at least one woman trustee in all public
institutions where women are placed as patients, paupers or criminals.

In 1889 the Municipal Suffrage Bill was again presented in the
Assembly by Mr. Ainsworth, but it was lost by 56 ayes, 43 noes, not a
constitutional majority.

In 1890 the Municipal Suffrage Bill was presented by Speaker Husted,
but was defeated by 47 ayes, 52 noes.

In 1891 no legislative work was attempted beyond the efforts toward
securing a representation of women in the Constitutional Convention,
which it was supposed would be held at an early date.

In 1892 an act was passed to enable women to vote for County School
Commissioners, which received the signature of Gov. Roswell P. Flower.

This year a Police Matron Bill was obtained which