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She is one of the invisibles.
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long enough in New York to attend your meeting of Woman's Rights. I herewith inclose you $20 to help the cause along. Francis Jackson.
Hon. Erastus D. Culver, of Brooklyn, New York, being present among that portion of the audience seated upon the platform, was recognized and loudly called for, and came forward in response to the call, and spoke as follows:
Mrs. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:—They used to have, in old times, in the country where I was brought up, a minister, who, after delivering his sermon, would call upon some brother to get up and make the application. Now, I want to give you an application of what I have heard to-night, and there seems to be a sort of providence in it. This very day, since I opened my court this morning, three cases have come in review before me, each one of them directly connected with the subject matter of this evening's deliberations, and with the law which has been alluded to to-night. The first was the case of a woman who had brought a suit, in conjunction with her husband (as she had to do, as the law was) against the city of Brooklyn, for personal injuries, received by falling into a hole; and on the first trial, it was found very difficult to make out the case, because we were obliged to exclude the woman as a witness. If her husband had fallen into that hole, and hurt his side, making him a cripple for life, he might have brought a suit, and he would have been by law a competent witness: but his wife was not; and as he was not with her at the time of the accident, of course he could not testify. To-day the case came on again, and they were making a very poor show at proving the accident, when the lawyer for the lady said, "I will offer the lady as a witness." The other lawyer started up (he is an old fogy, who does not keep up with the times) and said, "She is a party out of sight in law; in law, she is one of the invisibles"; when, to my great surprise and joy (for I had lost track of it myself) the lady's lawyer pulled out from his pocket a slip from a newspaper, which contained the noble law of the 20th of March, 1860, and that law says that "any married woman may bring and maintain an action in her own name for damages against any person or body corporate for any injury to her person or character." That obviated the difficulty. The law was handed to the opposite lawyer, and when he had read it through, with a frown on his face, he said, ill-naturedly, "If your honor please, it is so; they have emancipated the women from all obligations to their husbands." Now, just look at that old presumption of the law, that a married woman could not tell the truth, even in a matter about which she knew better than any one else, on the ground that she was a feme covert, and was nil—nothing!
That was one case. Another was that of a woman who made a bitter complaint against her husband, saying that he had become a drunkard, and was squandering her estate, and threatened to take their two children away. I signed the writ, and the husband and two children were brought in. He addressed the Court in his own defence, and I have not heard such eloquence in court for many a year. He told how he
