The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-10-17
WHAT ALLIED The WOMEN 2
Many Registered, But Few Voted In
Connecticut.
An Unexplained Featuvc OF the Recent
Town school Elections.

State was the small vote cast by women.
No one il quite able to reconcile the mes-
greness OF the result with the grand and
gorgeous promise given by the number Of
those who registered. All the year wo.
men had been busy getting themselves
mace voters In gay little whiriwind Of
zeal and ent thusiusm; but when eleotion
day arrived just simply didn't vote. On
ly now and then a woman went within
gunshot OF the polls at the election this
week. Now the men folk OF this un-
yielding and conservative old common
wealth, whose assent to the project OF wo-
man suffrage In the field OF school matters
had fairly been wrung from them, who
had actually been to the expense and pains
OF providing = brand-new and distinct
woman's ballot box at all the polling
booths-newiy painted, too, and sticky
with varnish--well, the disgruntled men
folk would like to know just what's to
pay that the women folk wouldn't buck
le down to their privilege and vote.
In most OF the towns the FURNISHED wo-
mans ballot box was left stranded all
day alone on the farther verge Of the
polls, lonesome, pitiful. lugubrious look
ing and its coffin-like polish was not
Scared by contact with single set OF
pink-tipped feminine fingers. Also the
door OF the Punch and Judy yellow cot
ton booth reserved for women voters
creaked not once on it's hinges, as q, rule,
at most polling places, while the nnascu-
| line creature who presided at the female
box nodded and fell asleep at intervals,
and dies buzzsd in and out OF its ballot
crevice.
days act, sits dead easy earned, my days
pay. but derned ef taint lonesome tryiD
ter ketch the female vote. No danger OF
any body stealing this box" be added,
giving IT a thump on the bottom, "for
ther haint nothin' in 1t but flies"
In this town the women had been won
derfully spry ell the year getting them
selves registered, and in such fret about
it were they, most of the time, SO impa-
tient to get their names on the registry
list early, that women in diamonds and
furbelows fairly trot on the laggard heels
OF the daughters OF toll in their deter
mined advance upon the polite and ener-
getic town clerk. Hence that official, by
virtue OF necessity, regulated the femi-
nine attack on his desk according to the
rules Of O semi-militsry alignment, and
received them then, point blank, ir solid
single column, rustliDg past him with
flushed faces, all day, and sometimes all
the evening. And now the iuexplicable
contrsstI' So eager then, and now so in
different at the polls. The whole num-
Der OF women voters that are duly regis
tered in the town of Hartford is 1901, and
of that number exactly 323 exercised the
privilege of franchise In the little town
election. Yet the Hartford women did
bravely, In a numerical sense, and were
ms multitude, when compared with their
enfranchsed sisters of other towns in the
State. The total vote OF the town, exclu'
sive OF the woman vote, that was cas-,
Monday was s1O7. 1t was the men, i,
need hardly be added, not the women,
who elected the able Mrs. Elizabeth ID.
Bacon a member Of the Hartford Higl
School Committee.
women voted and nine in Windsor. In
the populous city OF Waterbury the wo
men relatively did very well indeed, cast
ing not fewer than 500 votes, but else
where the woman vote in Connection
this time was practically a dismal failure
In Toland County, a straight-laced-old
fashioned agricultural region, among tall
rugged hills, and with no considerabl,
towns, the woman vote was In effect nil
since in pine-tenths of the towns not I,
woman voted. Only one OF the town
noted, that OF Hebron, reported any wo
men registered; there are seven in He
bron. Middlesex County, comprising tn
rural hill towns in the lower Connection
Valley, reports very similar condition il
respect OF its female vote, since in mos
towns the registry lists contained tn
names of no female elections. In Chat b
am there are 80 women registered, ant
only eight OF them appeared at its ?olls
in Chester nine voted. In the rest o
the towns no woman vote was cast
Iitchfield County also recorded an ex
tremely meagre woman vote. In fact,
is the uniform story throughout the Stat
that city women exercised the right o
suffrage in a spiritless and indifferen
way, II at all, while their more conserve
tive sisters OF the county towns substan
TALLY gave no heed to it whatever. II
quaint old agricultural windbam Coun
ty, the woman vote averaged from tw
or three to 80 or 60 to town, the Revo
lutionary town OF Windham itself record
ing a vote OF 80 out OF a registry total o
1877. In the large mill town OF Putnam
only IL women voted, although its popu
lation is composed largely OF French-Ca
nsdians and Irish, who, 1t was argue
by the A. p. A. all along, would b
prompt to avail themselves of The priv
lege OF the suffrage.
In the city OF Norwich, where ther
had been a large registration OF women
less than a score of women voted, Will
/ ID