“... the present position of women in regard to the various franchises is anomalous and contradictory, unworthy of that great growth of freedom which the nineteenth century has given to men, and degenerate as regards the position which women held in the days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. Freedom for women has not broadened down ‘from precedent to precedent.’ Rather has it suffered by unnecessary legislative interference. Every woman, except the Queen, is, politically, non-existent. It was not always so. Restrictions unknown to our ancient constitution have crept in.... Chief Justice Lee is reported to have cited a case (in a manuscript collection of Hakewell’s), Catherine _v._ Surrey, in which it was expressly decided, that a _feme sole_, if she has a freehold, may vote for members of Parliament; and a further one (from the same collection), Holt _v._ Lyle, in which it was decided, that a _feme sole_ householder may claim a voice for Parliament men; but, if married, her husband must vote for her; whilst Justice Page declared, ‘I see no disability in a woman from voting for a Parliament man.’ So closely, in the minds of our Judges, were the local and Parliamentary franchises bound up, that a question as to the rights of women in local voting seemed to involve considerations as to their right to vote for Parliament men. “Yet, even in the matter of these local franchises, women have suffered, and do suffer, from legislative tinkering and sex-biassed decisions in our law courts. “Down to 1835, women, possessing the qualifications which entitled men to vote, voted freely in municipal elections, and in some important cities, such as London and Edinburgh, the civic rights even of married women, possessing a separate qualification from the husband, were well established. The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, however (passed by the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne), was framed upon the evil precedent of the Reform Act of 1832, and by the use of the words ‘male persons,’ in treating of the franchises under it, disfranchised every woman in the boroughs to which it applied, and this disfranchisement lasted for thirty-four years.