Yet they are treated in a more lively manner in the pages of _The Times_. Mr. Coleridge, Q.C., and Dr. Pankhurst appeared on behalf of the women, Mr. Mellish against. Miss Becker, the woman’s champion, was present, and many other ladies. Mr. Coleridge stated that there were 5,347 women duly registered in the town of Manchester, qualified _except by sex_ to be electors. The Chief-Justice asked him if he had found any cases of women exercising political privileges before then? He said he had not![18] But he added that the Statute for the County Courts _might_ have included both sexes. The Chief-Justice interpolated, “The Common Law existed before the Statute Law. There is no trace, so far as I know, of women having been admitted to the assemblies of the wise men of the land!”[19] (Laughter.) Mr. Coleridge gave the examples of the Countess of Westmoreland voting by attorney and Mrs. Copley signing the indenture. Justice Willes interposed, “She might have been a returning officer, which office she unquestionably might fill!”[20] Mr. Coleridge then quoted Luders as to the women burgesses of Lyme Regis; the Statute of Henry VI., which limited suitors to forty shilling freeholders and the citizen burgesses, as all being enacted of “chusers” or “electors” in common terms. Hallam (ch. xiii.), states that “all Householders paying Scot and Lot, and Local Rates, voted for members of Parliament.” Women could be freeholders, householders, citizens, burgesses, suitors, taxpayers, therefore they could vote. It is true that the Reform Bill of 1832 read these as only applied to “male persons,” but the Bill of 1867 used the term “man,” while Lord Romilly’s Act had decided the term “man” should include woman, unless where it was otherwise expressly stated. It was not “otherwise expressly stated” in the Statute of 1867. There was no legal restraint against women voting, and he quoted the case of Holt _v._ Lyle, which affirmed that a _feme sole_ had a right to vote for a Parliament man. Footnote 18: _See_ Ante to the contrary p. 64. Footnote 19: P. 10. Footnote 20: P. 70.