y each a fine of
twenty-five dollars and the costs of the prosecution; but the sentence
was revoked and an unconditional pardon given them by President Grant,
in an order dated March 3, 1874. Miss Anthony was forced to pay her
fine, in spite of an appeal to Congress.

Such were the stirring times when the agitation for women's rights was
first brought to the fore as a national issue. Within a few years,
various States, like New York and Kansas, put the question of equal
suffrage for women before its voters; they in general rejected the
measure. At present there are four States which give women complete
suffrage and right to vote on all questions with the same privileges as
men, viz., Wyoming (1869), Colorado (1893), Utah (1896), and Idaho
(1896). In 1838 Kentucky gave school suffrage to widows with children
of school age; in 1861 Kansas gave it to all women. School suffrage was
granted all women in 1875 by Michigan and Minnesota, in 1876 by
Colorado, in 1878 by New Hampshire and Oregon, in 1879 by Massachusetts,
in 1880 by New York and Vermont, in 1883 by Nebraska, in 1887 by North
and South Dakota, Montana, Arizona, and New Jersey. Kansas gave
municipal suffrage in 1887; and Montana gave tax-paying women the right
to vote upon all questions submitted to the tax-payers. In 1891 Illinois
granted school suffrage, as did Connecticut in 1893. Iowa gave bond
suffrage in 1894. In 1898 Minnesota gave women the right to vote for
library trustees, Delaware gave school suffrage to tax-paying women, and
Louisiana gave tax-paying women the right to vote upon all questions
submitted to the tax-payers. Wisconsin gave school suffrage in 1900. In
1901 New York gave tax-paying women in all towns and villages of the
State the right to vote on questions of local taxation; and the Kansas
Legislature voted down almost unanimously a proposal to repeal municipal
suffrage. In 1903 Kansas gave bond suffrage; and in 1907 the new State
of Oklahoma continued school suffrage. In 1908 Michigan gave all women
who pay taxes the right to vote upon questions of local taxation and the
granting of franchises.

The history of the "age of legal consent" has an importance which
through prudery and a wilful ignorance of facts the public has never
fully realised. I shall have considerable to say of it later. It will
suffice for the moment to remark that until the decade preceding 1898
the old Common Law period of ten, sometimes twelve, years was the basis
of