It is a remarkable fact that American constitutional law is still unsettled as to the constitutional equality of women with men, so far as liability to restrictive legislation is concerned. The few judicial utterances on the subject are conflicting. Illinois in the first case of Ritchie _v._ The People[60] made no distinction between men and women with reference to personal rights and the freedom of contract. New York is quite explicit: “Under our laws men and women now stand alike in their constitutional rights, and there is no warrant for making any discrimination between them with respect to the liberty of person, or of contract.”[61] On the other hand the supreme court of Nebraska, in sustaining the ten-hour law, frankly speaks of women as wards of the state, and the passage in question is quoted with apparent approval by the supreme court of Oregon; and the Supreme Court of the United States, instead of planting its decision squarely upon the facts presented in the brief for the state of Oregon, mingles considerations drawn from physical conditions with others resting upon the general status of the female sex in such a way as to give an apparent preponderance to the latter. The court, speaking through Mr. Justice Brewer, said: Still, again, history discloses the fact that woman has always been dependent upon man. He established his control at the outset by superior physical strength, and this control in various forms, with diminishing intensity, has continued to the present. As minors, though not to the same extent, she has been looked upon in the courts as needing especial care that her rights may be preserved. Education was long denied her, and while now the doors of the school room are opened and her opportunities for acquiring knowledge are great, yet even with that and the consequent increase of capacity for business affairs, it is still true that in the struggle for subsistence she is not an equal competitor with her brother. Though limitations upon personal and contractual rights may be removed by legislation, there is that in her disposition and habits of life which will operate against a full assertion of those rights. She will still be where some legislation to protect her seems necessary to secure a real equality of right. Doubtless there are individual exceptions, and there are many respects in which she has an advantage over him; but looking at it from the viewpoint of the effort to maintain an independent position in life, she is not upon an equality. Differentiated by these matters from the other sex, she is properly placed in a class by herself, and legislation designed for her protection may be sustained, even when like legislation is not necessary for men and could not be sustained. It is impossible to close one’s eyes to the fact that she still looks to her brother and depends upon him. Even though all restrictions on political, personal and contractual rights were taken away, and she