demand
for the protection of one-half the people of the city, who paid
fully half the indirect taxes as well as a fair proportion of the
direct taxes. Finally, it was proposed to the comptroller that the
bill should be withdrawn if he would recommend the appointment of
police-matrons in the city departments. This was not accepted. The
Committee on Cities gave a hearing to Mrs. Blake, and reported
unanimously in favor of the bill. Public sentiment supported the
measure, the press generally advocated it, and the Assembly passed
the bill by a vote of 96 to 7; but it failed to receive the
signature of the governor,--a most striking proof of the need of
the ballot for women; since, friendly as he was to woman's
enfranchisement, when he found the police department, with its
thousands of attaches, _all with votes_ in their hands, opposed,
Governor Cornell was found wanting in courage and conscience to
sign this bill for women who had no votes.[244] The next year
application was again made to the city authorities for the
appointment of matrons, but they refused to act. The bill was
reintroduced in the legislature, passed by a large majority in the
Assembly, but defeated in the Senate by the adverse report of the
Committee on Cities. A mass-meeting to discuss this question of
police-matrons was held in Steinway Hall, March 1, at which the
speakers[B] all urged such appointments.

During the winter of 1882 an effort was made in New York city to
secure the enforcement of the law enacted by the previous
legislature, which provided that seats should be furnished for the
"shop-girls." Mrs. Emma Gates Conkling caused the arrest of certain
prominent shop-keepers on the charge of not complying with the law,
but on coming to trial the suits were withdrawn on the promise of
the delinquents to give seats to their employes.

During the winter of 1882 agitation for the higher education of
women was renewed, and a society organized by some of the most
influential ladies in the city. They rolled up a petition of 1,200,
asking that Columbia College be opened to women. President Barnard
had recommended this in his reports for three years. The agitation
culminated in a grand meeting[245] in the new Union League Theater.
Parke Godwin of the _Evening Post_ presided. The audience was
chiefly composed of fashionable ladies, whose equipages filled
Thirty-eighth street blocks away, yet not a woman sat on the
platform; not a woman's voice was heard;