The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1881-07-21
WToming Women.

An Albany lecturer recently spoke as
follows concerning elections in WyOm-
ing:
The elections, though sometimes
closely contested and very animated,
are entirely peaceful and orderly. A
ladv no more hears low language or
meets rough treatment at the polls than
she does in her home. Some ladies
stay about the polls and electiOneeF for
votes, and no one finds fault with this.
At the election for delegate to Congress
Mrs. COrbett, wife of the successful can
didate, handsome young bride Of q
few months, went from house to house
in Cheyenne and sent out carriages
and wagons many miles into the cOun-
try to bring the women to the polls.
Mr.. COrbett owed his election largely
to the efforts Of his wife and the women
whose aid she enlisted. No one found
any fault with her; every one felt her
action to be necessary and creditable.
Plucky? Rather. There are no cow
ards among these women. The most
refined and stylish Of them can drive
or ride the ranch horses and ponies,
and are capital shots with pistols or
Winchester rifles. They think nothing
Of riding out, carrying 9 rife and
shooting a prairie wolf, a bear or q
mountain lion. When the hostile In
dians were roaming the country the
women who lived st lonely ranches,
where they often had to be left alone
for some time, talked freely about the
matter, but showed no fear. One WO-
man that l know kept her doors and
windows fastened and her rifle within
reach, but expressed no dread and
kept on with her usual work. One
night she heard q great noise in her
corral (cattle-pen), and in the morn
ing found the Indians had been there
and stolen three or four horses and
kline, but they did not 60 near the
house. They had heard how well she
could shoot, In Cheyenne there are
many colored people. and the colOred
servant girls vote the same as their
mistresses, and are often brought to
the polls in the same carriages. When
I lived at Chugwater Station, on the
road to the Black Hills, about fifty miles
north Of Cheyenne, the poll for that
district was about q mile south Of Us on
that road. We were all wanted to vote
to help elect Frank Hamilton, from
Baltimore, q horseback reporter from
the Cheyenne papers, justice Of the
peace. So they took an Old-fashiOned
Rocky Mountain stage-coach that was
standing disused at the public ranch
(taVern), loaded in twelve or fifteen
men who worked about the ranch,
three ladies and the colOred servant
girl, put to the coach a pair OF wild
horses, they wanted to break in, har-
messed two Well-brOken horses before
them. put the ranch in charge Of 8
young colOred man from Baltimore
who had not lived in the Territory
long enough to be a voter, and away
we bOwled down the road together to
the poll and voted. The wagons were
bringing women TO the poll for thirty
miles around, and in the evening the
people from the poll came up to the
public ranch and had grand supper
and dance in honor Of Frank Hamil-
IONS election.
WOmen's pay in Wyoming is as good
as mems, or better.
In Cheyenne tie waiter girls and
chsmbermaids get - to $50 8 month,
while mems pay in different employ
ments is $18 to S25.
At Chugwater Station, where I kept
the public ranch, collected the Black
Hills stage fares and acted as pOstmas-
ter, 1 received $35 to $50 q month, and
the stage drivers, whose work is at
times very hard, as they have to drive
through in the face Of wind, rain, hail
or snow, told me they did not get as
much as /.