Morning journal and courier., 1881-05-03
How Wyoming Women Vote.
A Lady's Experience at the Poils-The Paradise of fWomen-Better Wages than Mems.
From the Albany Times

Paradise of fvvomen-Bette, Wages than Mems.
 From the Albany Timesl "I do not" said Mrs. Wood, (formerly Mrs Garbey, of Rensselaerville), think anything strange of registering and voting. It Is universal for women where have been living, and is thought much a matter of course for wife to vote as for her husband What do think strange is that the Albany women do not more generally appreciate ard use the school suffrage they have gained, and demand as full political freedom as thelr Wyoming sisters have. Had not been very closely kept at home I would have spent the last month in going about among them and rousing them to register and vote, Many of them do not seem to have proper self-respect; that they are willing to stay dlsfranchlsed. AS rule, husband and wife vote the same way; but when they do not I 1t makes no hard feeling or trouble, for the husbands of Wyoming respect their wives right to act on their own judgment. Polite are freely and commonly discussed in every family, instead of the triHing topics on which so much conversation is spent here. Hence the women understand public affairs much better that they do here, and are able to train their boys and girls to understand them. Husband al,a-zife ofte,S 20 and vote together; but where this cannot be done, the husband votes and then returns and takes care of the house and children while the wife goes to the polls; or the latter gets some neighbor to stay with the children long enough for her to go, vote and re- turn.
 Wyoming was at first 8 wild, half-savage community, but in a few years of woman suffrage 1t has grown civilized very fast. In Cheyenne there is as much fashionable style and education as there Is here. GA lady sit ting by said that Albany dressmaker had lately filled an order from Cheyenne for \ srSr 4 frequent there than here, especially since the women began to sit on juries.
 1.-The elections, though sometimes closely contested and very animated, are entirely peaceful and orderly. lady 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 electioneer for votes, and no one finds fault with this At the election for delegate to Congress, Mrs. Corbett, wife of the successful candi- date, handsome young bride of a few months, went from house to house in Chey- enne, and sent out carriages and wagons many miles into the country to bring the women to the polls. Mir. 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.
 ''Wyoming is largely grazing country, and there are many ranches (farms) with
 
 mostly quite well of, and their wives and daughters have all the comforts of life. The women quite refined as those of the east-if anything, rather more
 "Plucky? Rather. There are no towards among these women the most refined and stylish of them can drive or ride the ranche horses or ponies, and are capital shots with pistols or Winchester rifles They think nothing of riding out, carrying a rifle, and shooting prairie wolf, bear, or moun- tain lion. When the hostile Indians were roaming the country the women who lived at lonely ranches, where they often had to be left alone for some time, talked freely about the matter, but showed no fear One woman that I know kept her doors and windows fastened and her rifles within reach, but expressed no dread, and kept on with her usual work. One night she heard a great noise in her corral (cattle pen), and in the morning found that Indians had been there and stolen three or four horses and Hne, but did not go near the house. They had heard how we'll she could shoot.
 In Cheyenne there are many colored peo- pie, and the colored servant girls vote the same as their mattresses, and are often brought to the polls in the same carriages. When lived at Chugwater station, on the road to the Black Hills, about fifty miles north of Cheyenne, the poll for that district was about mile south of us on that road. We were all wanted to vote to help elect
 
 back reporter for the Cheyenne papers, jus tice of the peace. So they took an old fashioned Rocky Mountain stage coach that was standing disused at the public ranche (tavern), loaded in twelve or fifteen men who worked about the ranche, three ladies and the colored servant girl; put to the coach a pair of wild horses they wanted to break in, harnessed two well-broken horses before them, put the ranche in charge of younyg colored man from Baltimore, who had not lived in the territory long enough to be vo- ter, and away we bowled down the road to- gether 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 ranche and had grand supper and dance in honor of Frank Hamilton's election
 ''Women's pay in Wyoming is as good as mems or better. In Cheyenne the waiter girls and chambermaids get $25 to $50 8 month, while mems pay in different en- ployments is SIS to $25 At Chugwater station, where kept the public ranche, col lected the Black Hills stage fares, and acted as postmaster, received $35 to $50 month; and the stage drivers whose work at times is 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 I.
 'I want to go back, and will as soon as can get the affairs arranged which brought and keep me here. The people there are much more Ir1endly-not so stlH and distant as many are here. There is no social aristoc- racy-people stand on their merits, not on their money or birth, and life is in many ways freer and pleasanter there"
 widow lady who sat by said: 'sWhen Mrs. Wood goes back I shall probably % with her. It seems to be just the place to bring up my children, where my daughters will have as good a chance in life as their brothers"
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