d recorder of deeds, remembering the limited
number of industrial occupations open to women, and seeing no
reason why they could not perform the work of that office,
resolved to try the experiment. A room was fitted up for the
special use of women, a number of whom gladly accepted the
proffered positions and received the same pay per folio as that
earned by men. The experiment proved entirely satisfactory, Major
Brockway having officially testified in regard to woman's
especial fitness for the work.

There was an attempt this year to get a law licensing houses of
ill-fame in Chicago, and an immense petition was rolled up and
presented to the legislature by ladies who desired to defeat the
proposed enactment. They carried their point by as neat a flank
movement as Sherman ever executed. A quiet move to Springfield
with a petition signed by thousands of the best men and women of
the city, and our enemies found themselves checkmated before the
game had fairly begun.

February 13, 14, 1872, the State Association held its annual
meeting at Bloomington, with large and interested audiences.[363]
March 28 Mrs. Jane Graham Jones secured a hearing before the
legislature for Miss Anthony, who made one of her most convincing
arguments, and had in her audience nearly every member of that
body who voted for what was termed the Alta Hulett bill.

To Myra Bradwell and Alta C. Hulett belongs the credit of a long
and persevering struggle to open the legal profession to women.
The latter succeeded at last in slipping the bolt which had
barred woman from her right to practice law. We take the
following statement in regard to Miss Hulett's experience from
the "Women of the Century":

At the age of seventeen, Miss Alta Hulett entered the law
office of Mr. Lathrop, of Rockford, as a student, and after
a few months' study passed the required examination, and
sent her credentials to the Supreme Court, which, instead of
granting or refusing her plea for admission, ignored it
altogether. Myra Bradwell, the successful editor of the
_Legal News_, had just been denied admission. Her case,
stated in brief, is this: Mrs. Bradwell made application
for a license to practice law. The court refused it on the
ground