The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1896-09-10
WOMAN AS A PROWSO.
kate Brownlee Sherwood.


In Ohio the Supreme Court has
decided that women may vote for
school officers. proUided that il
shall not be considered constitu.
tional privilege, but a Legislative
boon. Thus the women of Ohio are
school electors, provided only that
they shall not be considered us hav-
ing constitutional status, which
leads to the remark that there is al
ways proviso where women are
concerned and always will be until
they stand the equals of men under
laws civil as well as divine.
When l was in the Glasgow Mu.
scum, examining the old blue laws
OF the Scottish kirk, | found a de.
cree that women might attend SER
vices III the Cathedral. converted
from papal masses to Calvinistic
pselmody, provided they did not sit
in the seats placed for the men
they were to sit on the floor, or
bring their stools with them. In
Edinburg in the national collection
OF trophies, military and civil. | saw
one OF the very stools permitted by
the kirk the stool that Janet Ged-
des Ito whom n monument has been
erected in the Scottish capital
threw at the Episcopal clergyman
with the remark, TAX We that for
dawring to say mass at my lug"
IL seemed TO me then, az it seems
to me now in looking over the Ohio
decision, that here was proviso
with more spirit in it than it's pro.
iectors anticipated. Like the stool
provided by the kirk for the women
OF Scotland, will be the decision of
the Ohio Court, for the man must
look to his robes who rustles them
iii the ears of women awakened to
their rights and duties. All the
same Ohio women are thankful for
the proviso, and the judges who
made it.
The gravity with which modern
men, who have usurped all law and
authority, pass upon the rights and
privileges of women would be
lauGhable il it was not so presump-
tuous. The Scottish kirk was at
least honest when it built it's chief
seats for men and relegated its wo-
men to the floor but the men now
who assert they would give to wo-
men all the rights and privileges
they enjoy, provided they could be
assured it was not for the physical
and moral ruination of society and
the sex, have no such honest merit.
As reasonable creatures they know
that the women who sit beside them
in the church pews and the enter
tainment hall, who vote at church
teach in the schools, sell
goods in store ard shop, work be-
side them in the factory and carry
off the honors in the universities
and prizes in the saloons, are not
likely to change their morals and
manner the moment they take Il
ballot in their hands.
The worst feature of this sort of
legislation secured by women's work,
IS that when women get il through
hey cannot see it fairly carried out
because they are cut off from Look
ing after it, by the limitations of the
proviso. For instance, the Army
Nurse bill, which the Woman's Re
ief Corps got passed by Congress
Two years ago after an eight years
is proving inadequate be-
cause the men of the Pension office
rule out the regimental nurses, not
withstanding they were paid and
found by the government, because
If a technical difference III their in
luction into service.
As proviso woman has her limi-
tations. Give her the swing of the
,ivil law in the same degree she has
IF the moral code and she will be
found to be as much of success as |
\ conservator of good government
N the State as she has long proved |
herself to be in the church, whether
rs an occupant of n front pew. or
saying. her prayers on the bare
floor.
The Coming Far at Brook Park Lew