from "The Gender-Neutral Pronoun: 150 Years Later, Still an Epic Fail" on the Oxford University Press blog

And in 1897 a Charleston, South Carolina, newspaper reports on a Massachusetts law that forbids certain kinds of feathers to be worn in hats, a law presumably aimed at women but which employs a masculine pronoun. This presents a problem for the Boston police commissioner, who insists that the masculine pronoun does not include the feminine: “I don’t believe I could arrest a woman on that law,” he said. “The masculine pronoun does not specifically include the women. The law including both usually says ‘person’ or ‘persons,’ but this one simply says ‘his.’”