on Miss Frances E. Willard, president of the National Woman's
Christian Temperance Union, and Miss Belle Kearney, a noted lecturer
from Mississippi, aroused considerable enthusiasm in various places by
pleas for woman suffrage in their temperance addresses. Miss Lewis has
spoken in a number of towns and at the State Normal School. No
organized work has been done, however, and but little public interest
is felt.

LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND LAWS: Early in February, 1895, as a result of
the suffrage meeting held in Asheville, a bill was presented in the
Legislature to place women on school boards. Mrs. Lillie Devereux
Blake of New York, a native of North Carolina, addressed the
legislators in its behalf and upon the rights of women. The bill
provoked a hot discussion but was defeated. It is impossible to obtain
a record of the vote.

In 1897 a bill to permit women to serve as notaries public
was defeated in the House on the ground that it would be
unconstitutional, as this is a State office. The same year a bill
providing for the appointment of women physicians in the State insane
asylums was referred to a committee and never reported.

Bills also have been presented for full suffrage and suffrage for
tax-paying women, but none has been acted upon. Several Acts have been
passed prohibiting employers from working women in the chain gangs on
the public roads in different counties.[401]

The most unjust discriminations against women in the property laws
were removed by the Constitutional Convention of 1868. Since then a
married woman may acquire and hold real estate and have the enjoyment
of its income and profits in her own separate right, and she may
dispose of it by will subject to the husband's curtesy (the life use
of the whole); but she can not sell any of it without his consent. The
husband can not sell his real estate so as to cut off the dower of the
wife (the life use of one-third) without her consent.

The code of 1883 stipulates that if the husband receives the income of
the wife's separate property and she offers no objection, he can not
be made liable to account for his use of it for more than one year
previous to the date of the complaint or of her death. By an act of
1889, the husband is required to list the property of the wife "in his
control."

Both dower and curtesy obtain. If there are neither descendants nor
kindred the widow is heir of the entire estate. If there are not more
than two children, and