Part 1179

A certain number of the English cities "occupy a privileged position, under the title of 'municipal boroughs.' These alone are municipal corporations, enjoying a considerable degree of autonomy by virtue of charters of incorporation granted in the pleasure of the crown. … The other cities have as such no legal existence: they are simply geographical units. In past times the privilege of incorporation was often granted to wretched little hamlets. But whether they were once of consequence or not, the municipal corporations degenerated everywhere into corrupt oligarchies. The municipal reform of 1835 destroyed these hereditary cliques and extended the municipal franchise to all the inhabitants who paid the poor tax as occupants of realty. {3659} But in doing this … it was expressly provided in the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 that the electoral franchise in the municipal boroughs should belong to male persons only. Before long the unorganized condition of the larger towns that were not municipal boroughs received the attention of Parliament. It did not grant them communal autonomy,—there could be no question of that,—but conceded special powers to establish sanitary systems and to undertake works of public utility such as lighting, paving, sewerage, etc. The special acts passed for these purposes from time to time, as the necessity for them arose, were consolidated and made general in two statutes: the Public Health Act of 1848, for a class of towns designated as 'local government districts,' and the Commissioners' Clauses Act of 1847, for the cities described as 'improvement commissions districts.' These acts gave to these urban agglomerations an incipient municipal organization, by establishing boards of health in some, and in others commissions to direct the public works. In both these classes of 'nascent, half-developed municipalities,' which had scarcely emerged from the parochial phase of local self-government, the authorities—i. e. the members of the boards of health and the commissioners—were elected, as in the parishes, by the rate-payers without distinction of sex. As these cities enlarged and developed, they were admitted to the honor of municipal incorporation. But since the Municipal Corporations Act limited the franchise to men, it resulted that while the city which was promoted to the rank of municipal borough saw its rights increased, a part of its inhabitants—the women—saw theirs suppressed. This anomaly gave the advocates of woman suffrage a chance to demand that the ballot be granted to women in the municipal boroughs. In 1869 Mr. Jacob Bright introduced such a measure in the House of Commons, and it was adopted almost without discussion. … But when the English legislator placed the administration of the 'nascent, half-developed municipalities'—which were only temporarily such and which might become cities of the first rank—on the same plane, as far as the suffrage of women was concerned, with the government of the parishes, he substituted a fluctuating for a permanent test, and as a result wiped out his own line of demarcation. When this fact was brought out, Parliament could not but recognize and bow to it. This recognition was decisive: it resulted in the overthrow of the electoral barriers against women in the entire domain of local self-government. The clause which, upon the proposal of Mr. Jacob Bright, was inserted in section 9 of the municipal act of 1869, found its way into the revised municipal act of 1882. Section 63 of this latter act reads: 'For all purposes connected with and having reference to the right to vote at municipal elections, words importing in this act the masculine gender include women.' This clause gave women the ballot in the municipal boroughs, but did not make them eligible to office. And as the general qualification for municipal suffrage is the occupancy by the elector in his own name of a house subject to the poor tax, the law includes independent women only, not married women. … When in 1881 the municipal suffrage was extended to women in Scotland, the question whether the separated woman could vote was decided in her favor. But of course this does not change the position of married women in England. A year after the introduction of the municipal suffrage of women they obtained (in 1870) the school vote also, in connection with the establishment of the existing system of primary instruction. … It still remained for women to make their way into the local government of the county; but county government, although representative, was not elective. In 1888 county councils were established, chosen by the ratepayers. The analogy of the municipal councils demanded that women should be included among the electors of the new local assemblies. Accordingly the Local Government Act of 1888 admits women to the electorate in England, and the act of 1889 gives them the same right in Scotland. … In Sweden local self-government is exercised in first instance, in the city and country communes, by the tax-payers in general assembly, or town meeting, where their votes are reckoned in proportion to the taxes paid, according to a graded scale, just as in the English vestries. In the cities with a population above 3,000 the taxpayers elect a communal council. … In the full assemblies of the communes that have no councils, and in the elections at which councillors are chosen, unmarried women have the same right of participation as men. … The next higher instance of local self-government consists of provincial councils (landstings). All the municipal electors, women not excepted, vote for the members of these councils. … In Norway women have no share in local government, except in the school administration. … In Denmark women are entirely excluded from local government; but they have been admitted to it in one Danish dependency—Iceland. … Finland, which was attached to Sweden for centuries before it fell under the sway of Russia, is still influenced by the movement of legislation in the former mother-country. … The law of February 6, 1865, concerning the rural communes, admitted women to communal rights under almost the same conditions as in Sweden. … The law of April 14, 1856, concerning the organization of the rural communes in the six eastern provinces of the kingdom of Prussia (section 6), as well as the analogous law of March 19, 1856, for the province of Westphalia (section 15), provide that persons of female sex who possess real property carrying with it the right to vote shall be represented—the married women by their husbands, the single women by electors of the male sex. A similar provision was adopted for the province of Schleswig-Holstein, after its annexation by Prussia (law of September 22, 1867, section 11). But in the Rhine province, where the administrative and the private law still show deep traces of the French influence, women are expressly excluded from the communal franchise. … In Saxony women are admitted to the communal vote in the country districts on the same terms as men. … Eligibility to communal office is denied to women in all the countries enumerated above. In Austria, as one consequence of the revolutionary movement of 1848, the legislator endeavored to infuse fresh life into the localities by giving a liberal organization to the rural communes. The law of 1849 granted communal rights to all persons paying taxes on realty and industrial enterprises, and also to various classes of 'capacities'—ministers of religion, university graduates, school principals and teachers of the higher grades, etc. {3660} Among the electors of the first and most important group, based wholly upon property, were included women, minors, soldiers in active service and some other classes of persons who, as a rule, were excluded from suffrage, on condition that their votes be cast through representatives. … The Russian village community, the mir, which has come down across the centuries into our own time with very few changes in its primitive organization, is a typical example of rudimentary local self-government, where all who have an interest, not excepting the women, have a right to be heard in the common assemblies. … In the Dominion of Canada local suffrage has only recently been granted to women. The first law regulating this matter was passed in the province of Ontario (Upper Canada) in 1884. This law has served as an example, and in part also as a model, for the other provinces. The electoral rights granted to women by the legislation of the province of Ontario may be grouped under four heads: (a) participation in municipal elections, (b) participation in municipal referenda, (c) participation in school-board elections, and (d) eligibility to office. All unmarried women and widows twenty-one years of age, subjects of her Majesty and paying municipal taxes on real property or income, may vote in municipal elections. … Finally, all taxpayers resident in the school district are recognized by the laws of 1885 and 1887 as eligible to the office of school trustee. … Female suffrage does not exist in the great French-speaking province of Quebec (Lower Canada), in New Brunswick or in Prince Edward Island. … In almost all the continental [Australasian] colonies the municipal suffrage rests upon the same basis as does the parish franchise of the mother-country, i. e. the possession or occupation of real property. … [In the United States] several States have granted to women simply the right of being elected to school offices, provided always that they possess the qualifications prescribed for men. The question is thus decided in California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. … At the present time the system of granting to women both rights—eligibility and suffrage—in school matters has been adopted in the following states besides Massachusetts: Colorado, North and South Dakota, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin and the territory of Arizona. Of course to this list must be added Wyoming, where women vote at all elections, and Kansas, where they possess complete local suffrage. Finally, Kentucky and Nebraska admit women only to the school franchise, and that only under special conditions."

_M. Ostrogorski, Local Woman Suffrage (Political Science Quarterly, December, 1891)._

"In three Territories … the right of voting at legislative elections was given by the legislature of the Territory, and in one of these, Wyoming, it was retained when the Territory received Statehood in 1890. In Utah it was abolished by a Federal statute, because thought to be exercised by the Mormon wives at the bidding of their polygamous husbands, and thus to strengthen the polygamic party. In Washington Territory the law which conferred it in 1883 was declared invalid by the courts in 1887, because its nature had not been properly described in the title, was re-enacted immediately afterwards, and was in 1888 again declared invalid by the United States Territorial Court, on the ground that the Act of Congress organizing the Territorial legislature did not empower it to extend the suffrage to women. In enacting their State Constitution (1889) the people of Washington pronounced against female suffrage by a majority of two to one; and a good authority declared to me that most of the women were well pleased to lose the privilege. In 1893 the legislature of Colorado submitted to the voters (in virtue of a provision in the Constitution) a law extending full franchise for all purposes to women, and it was carried by a majority of 6,347. … In Michigan in 1893, women received the suffrage in all municipal elections. In Michigan, however, the law has since been declared unconstitutional. … In Connecticut, the latest State which has extended school suffrage to women (1893), it would appear that the women have not, so far, shown much eagerness to be registered. However, while the advanced women leaders and Prohibitionists started a campaign among the women voters, the husbands and brothers of conservative proclivities urged their wives and sisters to register, and not without success. In Wyoming (while it was still a Territory) women served as jurors for some months till the judges discovered that they were not entitled by law to do so, and in Washington (while a Territory) they served from 1884 to 1887, when the legislature, in regranting the right of voting, omitted to grant the duty or privilege of jury service. … As respects the suffrage in Wyoming, the evidence I have collected privately is conflicting. … No opposition was offered in the Convention of 1889, which drafted the present Constitution, to the enactment of woman suffrage for all purposes. The opinion of the people at large was not duly ascertained, because the question was not separately submitted to them at the polls, but there can be little doubt that it would have been favourable. … The whole proceedings of the Convention of 1889 leave the impression that the equal suffrage in force since 1869 had worked fairly, and the summing up of the case by a thoughtful and dispassionate British observer (Mr. H. Plunkett) is to the same effect."

_J. Bryce, The American Commonwealth (3d edition), chapter 96 (volume 2)._

"No complete and reliable statistics have ever been obtained of the number of women who register and vote on school questions. This varies greatly in different localities, and in the same localities in different years. With women, as with men, the questions connected with the schools do not suffice to bring out many voters as a rule. Those few who have voted hitherto have been of more than average character and ability, and influenced wholly by public spirit. But comparatively few, even of suffragists, have as yet availed themselves of the privilege. To secure any general participation of women in elections, a wider range of subjects must be thrown open to them. Wherever, as in Kansas, party issues and moral questions are involved, the women show a greater interest. In several States, as in Kansas, Iowa, and Rhode Island, prohibition amendments are said to have been carried by the efforts of women-workers at the polls, although not themselves voters."

_The Nation, April 28, 1887, page 362._

{3661}

WOOL, General John E.: In the war of 1812.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

WOOD'S HALFPENCE.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1722-1724.

WOOLLY-HEADS, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850.

WOOLSACK, The.

"Perhaps you have noticed, when paying a visit to the House of Lords in holiday time, a comfortable kind of ottoman in front of the throne. This is the Woolsack, the seat of the Lord Chancellor [who presides in the House of Lords]. In the reign of Elizabeth an Act of Parliament was passed to prevent the exportation of wool, and to keep in mind this source of our national wealth, woolsacks were placed in the House of Lords, whereon the judges sat."

_A. C. Ewald, The Crown and its Advisers, lecture 3._

WORCESTER, Marquis of, The inventions of.

See STEAM ENGINE.

WORCESTER, Battle of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1651 (AUGUST).

WORDE, Wynkyn de, The Press of.

See PRINTING &c.: A. D. 1476-1491.

WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, The.

See CHICAGO: A. D. 1892-1893.

[Transcriber's note] See _C. D. Arnold and H. D. Higinbotham, Official Views Of The World's Columbian Exposition https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22847_

WORLD'S FAIR, The First.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1851.

WORMS.

"Worms (Wormatia) (Borbetomagus), situated on the left bank of the Rhine, existed long before the Roman conquest, and is supposed to have been founded by the Celts, under the name of Borbetomagus. … In the 4th and 5th centuries it was a flourishing town in the possession of the Burgundians. Under their King Gundahar, the vicinity of Worms was the scene of the popular legend handed down in the romantic poem known as the Nibelungen-lied. In 496, by the victory of Tolbiacum, it formed a part of the empire of Clovis."

_W. J. Wyatt, History of Prussia, volume 2, page 447._

WORMS: A. D.406. Destruction by the Germans.

See GAUL: A. D. 406-409.

WORMS: A. D. 1521. The Imperial Diet. Luther's summons and appearance.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1522.

WORMS: A. D. 1713. Taken by the French.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

WORMS: A. D. 1743. Treaty between Austria, Sardinia and England.

See ITALY: A. D. 1743; and AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744.

WORMS: A. D. 1792. Occupied by the French Revolutionary Army.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).

WORMS, Concordat of(1122).

See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122.

WÖRTH, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).

WRANGLERS, Senior.

At Oxford and Cambridge Universities, "by a strange relic of the logical and disputatory studies of the Middle Ages, the candidates for University honors maintained in public some mathematical thesis, about which they disputed in Latin, never, as it may be supposed, of the best. To keep up the illusion of the monkish time, and the seven liberal arts, a little metaphysics and a good deal of theology were thrown in at the time of the examination; but the real business of the 'schools' at Cambridge was mathematics. The disputing, however, was so important a part of the performances that the first division of those to whom were awarded honors were called by distinction,'the wranglers'; and the head man—the proud recipient of all the glory which at the end of a four years' course the ancient University showered on the son she possessed most distinguished in her favorite studies—was called the senior wrangler. In process of time, the disputations and Latin were all done away with. An examination from printed papers was made the test. Yet, still, every year, at the end of the arduous eight days' trial, the undergraduate who takes his bachelor's degree in virtue of passing the best examination in mathematics, is called the senior wrangler; and attains the proudest position that Cambridge has to bestow."

_W. Everett, On the Cam, lecture 2._

WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS. WRIT OF MAINPRISE. WRIT DE HOMINE REPLEGIANDO.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1679.

WRITS OF ASSISTANCE.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1761; and MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1761.

WROXETER, Origin of.

See URICONIUM.

WÜRTEMBERG: Start--------

WÜRTEMBERG: Early Suevic population.

See SUEVI.

WÜRTEMBERG: Founding of the Dukedom.

"Conrad of Beutelsbach, the first of this family that appears upon record, got the County of Würtemberg from the Emperor Henry IV. in 1103, and was succeeded by his son Ulrick I. as Count of Würtemberg, in 1120. Henry, the fourteenth in lineal descent from Ulrick, was made Duke of Würtemberg in 1519. Frederick II., and eighth Duke of Würtemberg, succeeded his father in 1797, and was proclaimed King of Würtemberg in 1805."

_Sir A. Halliday, Annals of the House of Hanover, volume 1, page 430._

WÜRTEMBERG: A. D. 1801-1803. Acquisition of territory under the Treaty of Luneville.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

WÜRTEMBERG: A. D. 1805-1806. Aggrandized by Napoleon. Created a Kingdom. Joined to the Confederation of the Rhine.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806; and 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).

WÜRTEMBERG: A. D. 1809. Incorporation of the rights and revenues of the Teutonic Order with the Kingdom.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

WÜRTEMBERG: A. D. 1813. Abandonment of the Rhenish Confederacy and the French Alliance.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

WÜRTEMBERG: A. D. 1816. Accession to the Holy Alliance.

See HOLY ALLIANCE.

WÜRTEMBERG: A. D. 1866. The Seven Weeks War. Indemnity to Prussia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

WÜRTEMBERG: A. D. 1870-1871. Treaty of union with the Germanic Confederation, soon transformed into the German Empire.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1870 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER); and 1871.

WÜRTEMBERG: End--------

WÜRTZBURG, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

WUZEER, VIZIR.

See OUDE; and VIZIR.

WYANDOT CONSTITUTION, The.

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

WYANDOTS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HURONS OR WYANDOTS.

{3662}

WYAT'S INSURRECTION.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1554.

WYCLIF'S REFORMATION.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1360-1414; BOHEMIA: A. D. 1405-1415, and BEGUINES.

WYOMING: The Name.

"Wyoming is a corruption of the name given to the locality by the Indians. They called it 'Maughwauwame.' The word is compounded of 'maughwau,' large, and 'wame,' plains. The name, then, signifies 'The Large Plains.' The Delawares pronounced the first syllable short, and the German missionaries, in order to come as near as possible to the Indian pronunciation wrote the name M'chweuwami. The early settlers, finding it difficult to pronounce the word correctly, spoke it Wauwaumie, then Wiawumie, then Wiomic, and, finally, Wyoming,"

_G. Peck, Wyoming: Its History &c., chapter 1._

WYOMING (State): A. D. 1803. Eastern portion embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

WYOMING (State): A. D. 1890. Admission to the Union as a State.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 1889-1890.

WYOMING (Valley): A. D. 1753-1799. Connecticut claims and settlements. The Pennamite and Yankee War.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1753-1799.

WYOMING (Valley): A. D. 1755. The Grasshopper War of the Delaware and Shawanese tribes of American Indians.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHAWANESE.

WYOMING (Valley): A. D. 1778. The Tory and Indian invasion and massacre. Its misrepresentation by historians and poets.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (JULY).

X.

X, Y, Z, CORRESPONDENCE, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1797-1799.

XENOPHON'S RETREAT.

See PERSIA: B. C. 401-400.

XERES DE LA FRONTERA, Battle of (A. D. 711).

See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713.

XERXES.

See PERSIA: B. C, 486-405, and GREECE: B. C. 480-479.

Y.

YAKOOB BEG, The Dominion of.