Colonies and the United States.

Mrs. Pankhurst spoke for the Women's Social and Political Union, the
militant organisation of which most of the others were half afraid.
She urged on its behalf that the women of the country should be
enfranchised during that very year, either by a clause in the Plural
Voting Bill then before Parliament, or by a separate measure. Assuring
the Prime Minister that the members of the Union believed that no
business could be more pressing than this, she stated calmly and firmly
that a growing number of them felt the question of Votes for Women so
deeply that they were prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice for it life
itself, or what was perhaps even harder, the means by which they lived.
She appealed to the Government to make such sacrifices needless by
doing this long-delayed act of justice to women without delay.

Now that the women had all clearly and carefully laid their case before
him, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman rose to reply. He began as though he
had been an earnest and convinced supporter of the Women's cause and
dwelt at length not only upon the benefits which the franchise would
confer upon them, but also on the enthusiasm which they had shown in
working for it, their fitness to exercise it and the good work which
they had already done in public affairs. Then, after a long pause, he
said: "That is where you and I are all agreed. It has been very nice
and pleasant hitherto, but now we come to the question of what I can
say to you, not as expressing my own individual convictions, but as
speaking for others, and I have only one thing to preach to you and
that is the virtue of patience." With hurried hesitating accents he
explained that there were members of his Cabinet who were opposed to
the principle of giving votes to women, and that, therefore, he must
conclude by saying, "It would never do for me to make any statement
or pledge under these circumstances." Poor blundering old man, if he
really spoke truthfully to the deputation, one may well pity him in
that invidious and humiliating position.

During Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's last words there had been a
strange silence amongst the women, and as he resumed his seat a low
murmur of disappointment ran through the room. Mr. Keir Hardie had
been asked by those in charge of the arrangements to move the vote of
thanks to the Prime Minister for having received the Deputation, and,
though he now performed this duty with characteristic graciousness
of manner, he plainly said that all present must have suffered great
disappointment on hearing the Prime Minister's concluding statement.
Nevertheless, they were glad to learn that the leaders of the two
great political parties in the House of Commons were now personally
committed to the question, by Mr. Balfour, a statement he had made in
the House a few evenings before and the Prime Minister by what he had
said that afternoon. "With agreement between the leaders of the two
great historic parties," Mr. Hardie said gravely, "and with the support
of the other sections of the House, it surely does not pass the wit of
statesmanship to find ways and means for the enfranchisement of the
women of England before this Parliament comes to a close." At this
point Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman turned and looked at Mr. Keir Hardie
and solemnly shook his head.

After the resolution had been seconded Mrs. Elmy, whose name had not
been placed upon the authorised list of speakers, interposed, saying
that she had worked in the cause of Women's Suffrage since October,
1865, and that during that period she had seen the men voters of the
country increased from less than 700,000 to more than 7,000,000. When
the Reform Act of 1884 had been under consideration, women Suffragists
had been full of hope, but Mr. Gladstone had refused point blank to
give them the franchise. No Parliament had ever offered a greater
insult to womanhood than the Parliament of that year, for it had
actually taken six or seven divisions on the point as to whether a
criminal should continue to be disfranchised for more than a year
after his release from prison, but only one division had been taken
to decide that English women should not exercise the vote. Every year
it had become more and more difficult to remedy the injustices under
which women suffered. "If I were to tell you of the work of the last
twenty years of my life," she said, "it would be one long story of the
necessity for the immediate enfranchisement of women."

The vote of thanks to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was then carried
with feeble spiritless clapping and some hisses. Then the Prime
Minister made his reply, but he did not in any way strengthen his
previous declaration and ended by saying that what women had to do
was "to go on converting the country." As he concluded Annie Kenney
suddenly rose up and cried, "Sir, we are not satisfied, and the
agitation will go on."

Then we dispersed to meet again at three o'clock in Trafalgar Square.
No better meeting place could have been chosen, for it was here in
Trafalgar Square, that Edmund Beales and the other leaders of the
Reform movement had spoken when the Hyde Park gates had been closed
against them by the authorities on that historic 23rd of July, 1866,
on which the Park railings were pulled down and the blow struck which
won the Parliamentary vote for the working men in the towns. It was
here, too, that in February, 1886, John Burns had made that speech to
the starving unemployed men of his own class which caused him to suffer
a month's imprisonment and made him a famous man, and it was here in
Trafalgar Square on the 5th of November, 1887, that, in taking part in
the Demonstration against the imprisonment of O'Brien and the other
Irish leaders, poor Alfred Linnell had been trampled to death by the
horses of the police.

On this ground, consecrate to the discontented and the oppressed, under
that tall column topped by the statue of the fighting Nelson and on
that wide plinth, flanked by the four crouching lions, the first big
open-air Women's Suffrage meeting in London was held. By three o'clock
more than 7,000 people had assembled. I well remember every detail of
the scene. In my mind's eye I can clearly see the Chairman, my mother,
with her pale face, her quiet dark clothes, her manner, calm as it
always is on great occasions, and her quiet-sounding but far-reaching
voice with its plaintive minor chords. I can see beside her the
strangely diverse group of speakers: Theresa Billington in her bright
blue dress, strongly built and up-standing, her bare head crowned with
those brown coils of wonderfully abundant hair. I see Keir Hardie, in
his rough brown homespun jacket, with his deep-set, honest eyes, and
his face full of human kindness, framed by the halo of his silver hair.
Then Mrs. Elmy, fragile, delicate, and wonderfully sweet, with her face
looking like a tiny bit of finely modelled, finely tinted porcelain,
her shining dark-brown eyes and her long grey curls. Standing very
close to her is Annie Kenney, whose soft bright hair falls loosely from
her vivid sensitive face, and hangs down her back in a long plait,
just as she wore it in the cotton mill. Over her head she wears a grey
shawl as she did in Lancashire, and pinned to her white blouse is a
brilliant red rosette, showing her to be one of the marshals of the
procession, whilst her dark-blue serge skirt just shows the steel tips
of her clogs. How beautiful they are, these two women, as hand clasped
in hand they stand before us!--one rich in the mellow sweetness of a
ripe old age which crowns a life of long toil for the common good; the
other filled with the ardour of a chivalrous youth; both dedicated to a
great reform. But now, Annie Kenney speaks. She stands out, a striking,
almost startling, figure, against the blackened stone-work of the
plinth and speaks with a voice that cries out for the lost childhood,
blighted hopes and weary, overburdened lives of the women workers whom
she knows so well.

[Illustration: First Women's Suffrage Demonstration ever held in
Trafalgar Square, May 19th, 1906. Mr. Keir Hardie speaking: Mrs.
Pankhurst and Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy in centre of the platform]

FOOTNOTES:

[6] From the first, the London papers and especially the newly
inaugurated _Daily Mirror_, had been somewhat interested in our unusual
methods of propaganda. It was just at this time that the _Daily Mail_
began to call us "Suffragettes" in order to distinguish between us and
the members of the older Suffrage Society who had always been called
"Suffragists," and who strongly objected to our tactics.

                               CHAPTER V

                          MAY TO AUGUST, 1906

DEPUTATIONS TO MR. ASQUITH AT CAVENDISH SQUARE; WOMEN ARRESTED
AND IMPRISONED; THE BY-ELECTIONS AT COCKERMOUTH; ADOPTION OF THE
ANTI-GOVERNMENT POLICY.

As Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had told the deputation that he could
not do anything for us because some members of his Cabinet were opposed
to Women's Suffrage, we determined to bring special pressure to bear
upon the hostile Ministers, the most notorious of whom was Mr. Asquith,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Strangely enough, just as we had
decided upon this course of action, we were virtually advised to adopt
it by no less a person than Mr. Lloyd George, at that time, President
of the Board of Trade. When interrupted by Suffragettes in Liverpool
Mr. George claimed the sympathy of the audience on the ground that he
himself was a believer in Votes for Women, and said: "Why do they not
go for their enemies? Why do they not go for their greatest enemy?" At
once there was a cry of "Asquith! Asquith!" from all parts of the hall,
and as Mr. Lloyd George made no attempt to repudiate the suggestion
that he had referred to Mr. Asquith, it was very generally assumed that
he had done so. An opportunity to "go for" Mr. Asquith soon presented
itself on the occasion of his speaking at Northampton on June 14th.
A few days before the meeting, Theresa Billington and Annie Kenney
visited the town and in a series of open-air meetings took the people
of the place entirely into their confidence, with the result that Mr.
Asquith was welcomed not by cheering but by hooting crowds.

During the meeting and at the end of his speech Mr. Asquith was
questioned by several women, all of whom were ejected with the greatest
violence, whilst the audience broke into the now familiar turmoil. The
cowardly and unnecessary brutality shown to them by the stewards at
recent Liberal meetings, had by this time aroused great indignation
amongst the women. Theresa Billington, who was of strong and vigorous
physique and whose instinct, like that of every man, was to strike back
if she were hit, had come to feel that she could no longer quietly
endure the disgraceful treatment to which she had been subjected on
several occasions. To this meeting therefore, she had gone armed with a
dogwhip, the weapon she felt most suitable to employ against cowardly
men. Her intention was not to use it if she were merely dragged out of
the meeting, just as a man might have been, but only if her assailants
should seek to take advantage of the fact that she was a woman and
should behave in a peculiarly objectionable way.[7] Therefore, when
the stewards had torn down her hair and treated her with every form of
indignity and violence, not merely in dragging her from the hall but
outside in the corridors as well, she had pulled out her whip and made
a fairly free use of it.

The general trend of events now made us feel the necessity of securing
a personal interview with Mr. Asquith, and we therefore wrote asking
him to receive us. He replied that his rule was not to receive any
deputation unconnected with his office of Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and we then wrote as follows:--

 TO THE RIGHT HON. H. H. ASQUITH, CHANCELLOR OF
 THE EXCHEQUER.

 _Sir_:

 I am instructed by my Committee to say that the subject of the
 enfranchisement of women, which they desire to lay before you, is
 intimately bound up with the duties of your office. Upon no member
 of the Cabinet have women greater claims than upon the Chancellor
 of the Exchequer. Your Budget is estimated on a system of taxation
 which includes women. Women not being exempt from taxation have a
 right to claim from you a hearing. Women are told that you are mainly
 responsible for the refusal of the Prime Minister to deal with their
 claim. But being convinced of the justice of giving votes to women
 they renew their request that you receive a deputation on an early
 date in order that their case may be presented to you.

 Faithfully yours,

 E. SYLVIA PANKHURST.

 Hon. Sec. of the London Committee of the Women's Social and Political
 Union 45, Park Walk, Chelsea, S.W.

Mr. Asquith returned no answer to this our second letter, and
therefore, without making any further attempt to obtain his consent, we
wrote to him saying that a small deputation would call at his house,
No. 20 Cavendish Square, on the morning of Tuesday, June 19th. On the
appointed day the women arrived just before 10 o'clock in the morning,
but, early as it was, they were told that Mr. Asquith had already gone
to the Treasury. They thereupon decided that half their number should
wait on the doorstep and that the other half should go to look for
him. Those who went to the Treasury were told that Mr. Asquith had not
arrived, and those who remained on guard at his house were equally
unsuccessful, for whilst they had been standing there waiting, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer had escaped through the back door in a
closed motor car.

Our determination to meet Mr. Asquith face to face was still strong,
and after our failure to see him on the Tuesday we at once wrote to say
that we were sending a larger deputation to interview him in two days'
time. We had now three flourishing branches of the Union in London,
one in the centre and two in the East End, and some thirty or forty
representatives, partly drawn from these branches and partly from our
central Committee, formed the deputation.

Carrying little white Votes-for-Women flags and headed by Theresa
Billington, some thirty of the East End members marched off in
procession for Mr. Asquith's house; but on arriving at the edge of
Cavendish Square, they were met by a strong force of police who told
them that they must at once turn back. The poor women stood still
in affright, but would not turn. Then the police fell upon them and
began to strike and push them and to snatch their flags away. Theresa
Billington tried in vain to prevent this violence, "We will go
forward," she cried. "You shall not hit our women like that," but a
policeman struck her in the face with his fist and another pinioned her
arms. Then she was seized by the throat and forced against the railings
until, as was described by an onlooker, "she became blue in the face."
She struggled as hard as she could to free herself but was dragged away
to the police station with the East End workers following in her train.

Immediately afterwards Annie Kenney, with a number of others, most
of whom were members of our Committee, came into the Square. Annie
knew nothing of what had taken place and, preoccupied and intent on
her mission, she walked quickly across the road, but, as she mounted
the steps of Mr. Asquith's house and stretched out her hand to ring
his bell, a policeman seized her roughly by the arm and she found
herself under arrest. Following this, Mrs. Knight, one of the East End
workers, who, because she suffered from hip disease had felt that she
could not walk in the procession, came into the Square and crossed the
road. On seeing none of the other women she concluded that they had
already gone into Mr. Asquith's house. She intended to join them but,
just as she was about to step on to the pavement opposite No. 20, she
was roughly pushed off the curb-stone by a policeman and arrested as
soon as she attempted to take another step forward. Mrs. Sparborough,
a respectable elderly woman dressed with scrupulous neatness in worn
black garments, who by the work of her needle supported herself and her
aged husband, stood watching this scene in deep distress. Noticing that
two maid servants and some ladies at the window of Mr. Asquith's house
were laughing and clapping their hands, she turned to them protesting
gravely: "Oh, don't do that. Oh, don't do that. It is a serious matter.
That is how _the soldiers were sent to Featherstone_."[8] A policeman
immediately pounced upon her and dragged her away.

At the police court afterwards Theresa Billington, on being charged
with an assault upon the police, refused either to give evidence or to
call witnesses in her defence, saying that she objected to being tried
by a court composed entirely of men and under laws in the framing of
which men alone had been consulted. Her plea was abruptly swept aside
and she was ordered to pay a fine of £10 or in default to go to prison
for two months.[9]

Miss Billington chose imprisonment, but her resolution was balked by
"an anonymous reader of the _Daily Mirror_," who handed the amount of
her fine to the Governor of Holloway Gaol.[10]

The charges of disorderly conduct against the other three women were
adjourned until July 14th.

Every charge against the prisoners, except that of being in Cavendish
Square with the object of seeing Mr. Asquith broke down, but Mr. Paul
Taylor, the magistrate, who seemed quite incapable even of trying to
understand their motives, decided that they had created an obstruction
and ordered them to enter into their own recognisances in the sum of
£50 and to find one surety for the same amount, to be of good behaviour
and to keep the peace for twelve months. In the event of their not
finding such sureties and consenting to be so bound over he ordered
that they should be sent to prison for six weeks.

To agree to be bound over to keep the peace would have been both an
admission of wrongdoing and a promise to refrain from similar methods
of agitation. Rather than this Annie Kenney preferred to suffer a
second imprisonment and the other women, though they had but recently
joined the Union and though many friends urged that they had already
done good work and might now fairly return to their homes, decided that
they too would go to gaol.

In the meantime there were stirring doings in Manchester. On June 23rd
there had been a great Liberal Demonstration at the Zoological Gardens,
Belle View, on the outskirts of the town, where Mr. Lloyd George,
Mr. John Burns and Mr. Churchill had been the principal speakers.
Representatives of the Women's Social and Political Union had been
present to question the Cabinet Minister and had been thrown out as
soon as they had raised their voices. In the scuffle Mr. Morrissey, a
Liverpool city councillor, intervened to protect his wife from the
violence of the stewards and was very roughly used. As the Suffragettes
were flung by the stewards into the public road outside they were
ordered to move on by the police and because Mr. Morrissey, whose leg
had been seriously injured by his assailants, was unable to walk away,
he was arrested. Seeing this my youngest sister, Adela, then scarcely
out of her teens, and only about five feet in height, expostulated
with one of the constables and in doing so laid her hand upon his
arm, saying, "Surely you can see that Mr. Morrissey cannot walk!" But
at that she was accused of attempting to effect a rescue, and was
also taken into custody. The councillor's wife and a friend, who both
offered similar protests, were treated in the same way. The case of
these four people came up in Manchester simultaneously with that of
Annie Kenney and her comrades in London, with the result that Adela was
committed to prison for a week on refusing to pay a fine[11] of five
shillings and costs whilst Mrs. Morrissey and Mrs. Mitchell on refusing
to be bound over to keep the peace were imprisoned for three days. Of
course this punishment was for daring to urge an unwelcome question
upon Members of the Government, but as this was not a punishable act
the charges of disorderly conduct outside in the road had been trumped
up.

The question of these trials was raised in the House of Commons by
Mr. Keir Hardie, who declared that it was stretching the law too
far to forbid a deputation to approach a private house. He also
pointed out that Mr. James Kendall, one of the magistrates who had
tried the case of the Manchester Suffragettes, and had been Chief
Steward at the Liberal meeting from which they had been ejected, Mr.
Cremer and Mr. Maddison both delivered vindictive speeches against
the Suffragettes, the former describing the sentence passed upon them
as "extremely lenient" and the latter referring to them as "female
hooligans." The more sensational and less reputable of the newspapers
adopted a similar line speaking of the women as "Kenney," "Knight"
and "Sparborough," calling them "mock martyrs" and "martyrettes" and
publishing hideous and libellous drawings of them. Even the staider and
more serious periodicals gave one-sided and biassed accounts of what
had taken place, rebuking the Suffragettes for what they termed their
"disgraceful behaviour," telling them that they were "ruining" their
cause, and urging them to save it by returning to "Constitutional" and
"orderly" methods of propaganda.

The following interesting and valuable letter to the press from Mr.
T. D. Benson, the Treasurer of the Independent Labour Party cleverly
exposed the hypocrisy of these strictures:--

 _Dear Sir_:

 Having had, through illness, plenty of time on my hands this last
 week, I have made a calculation of the number of years which the lady
 Suffragettes have put back their movement. I find that it amounts to
 somewhat about 235 years. The realisation therefore, of their aims is,
 according to this mode of chronology, as far off in the future as the
 Plague and the Fire of London are in the past. Nevertheless, I shall
 not be surprised if they succeed within the next twelve months, or two
 or three years at the most.

 Of course, when men wanted the franchise, they did not behave in
 the unruly manner of our feminine friends. They were perfectly
 constitutional in their agitation. In Bristol I find they only burnt
 the Mansion House, the Custom House, the Bishop's Palace, the Excise
 Office, three prisons, four toll-houses, and forty-two private
 dwellings and warehouses, and all in a perfectly constitutional and
 respectable manner. Numerous constitutional fires took place in the
 neighbourhoods of Bedford, Cambridge, Canterbury and Devizes. Four men
 were respectably hanged at Bristol and three in Nottingham. The Bishop
 of Lichfield was nearly killed, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was
 insulted, spat upon, and with great difficulty rescued from amongst
 the yells and execrations of a violent and angry mob. The Suffragists
 in those days had a constitutional weakness for Bishops, and a savage
 vandalism towards cathedrals and bishops' palaces. A general strike
 was proposed, and secret arming and drilling commenced in most of the
 great Chartist centres. Wales broke out even into active rebellion,
 and nine men were condemned to death. At London, Bradford, York,
 Sheffield, Liverpool, Chester, Taunton, Durham and many other towns
 long sentences of penal servitude were passed. In this way the males
 set a splendid example of constitutional methods in agitating for the
 franchise. I think we are well qualified to advise the Suffragettes to
 follow our example, to be respectable and peaceful in their methods
 like we were, and then they will have our sympathy and support.

 Yours truly,

 T. D. BENSON.

 "The Downs,"
 Prestwich,
 July 3rd, 1906.

The day after the trial Mrs. Pethick Lawrence received from Annie
Kenney a little note hastily scribbled in pencil and posted by some
kind-hearted person just as she was being taken away from the Police
Court cell. "I am writing this," it read, "before going in the van. I
am very happy and I shall keep up and be brave and true, and when I
come out I shall be fully prepared to do anything the Union asks of me."

As yet most of us knew little of the interior of a prison, but, on
those burning July days, we knew enough to think with sorrow and
anxiety of our comrades shut away from the beauty of the summer in the
heat of their small, stifling cells. We heard with joy that they were
happy and contented to suffer imprisonment for the women's cause.

And now it seemed to us as though the spirit of revolt against
oppression were flowing onward and spreading, like some great tide
to all the womanhood of the world. We read of that wonderful Marie
Spiridonova, the Russian girl who after enduring the most incredible
and unspeakable torture and dying in the agony of her wounds, was yet
upborne by the greatness of the cause for which she suffered, and cried
with her last breath, "Mother, I die of joy." The movement towards
liberty then springing up amongst the women of the Far East also
inspired us. We read of the words of one of the Korean women leaders
who said:--

 The women of our country are the most pitiable of all civilised
 humanity.... They are enclosed like prisoners, bottled up like fish.
 But we must remember that after the cock crows the dawn comes, and
 after work there is reward. Should we but put forth together our
 feeble efforts a way will be found of accomplishing our object and
 women will gradually be able to stand in the shining light of the sun
 and to breathe the sweet heavenly air freely and happily.

News of the Women's cry for freedom came to us from North, South,
East and West, and we felt ourselves part of a Universal movement. We
were keyed up to any sacrifice. We felt that the fate of other women
depended upon us. We knew that our battle to overcome the first and
greatest barrier--to obtain political liberty--was to be a sharp one.
We hoped it would be short. We heard that on June 14th, but a month
before our women had gone to prison, the women of Finland had gained
their vote. We believed then that the franchise would be won for
British women within a few months' time.

Very soon after Annie Kenney, Mrs. Knight and Mrs. Sparborough had
gone to prison, another opportunity occurred for our Union to strike
a blow at the Government, for it was announced that there was to be
a by-election; this time at Cockermouth. Christabel was at first the
only member of the Union free to take part in the Election. She at
once introduced an entirely new departure in electioneering tactics
by hiring a stall in the market-place, where she sold Votes-for-Women
literature. When, by this means she had collected a sufficient crowd
around her, she mounted a stool and addressed the people, explaining to
the electors that she wished them to vote against the Liberal candidate
in order to show the Government that they did not approve of its
refusal to give votes to women. After a time other women joined her and
the little band of Suffragettes made a considerable impression upon the
people of Cockermouth, who had heard of the imprisonments in London
and Manchester and who were deeply moved by learning that women were
prepared thus to fight and to suffer for their cause. When on August
3rd, the poll was declared, it was found that the Liberals had lost
the seat which had long been held for them by Sir Wilfred Lawson, and
that Sir John Randles, the Unionist candidate had been returned by a
majority of 690. The figures being:

 Sir John Randles (U)        4,593
 Hon. F. Guest (L)           3,903
 Robert Smillie (Lab.)       1,436

The Votes at the General Election had been:

 Sir W. Lawson (L)           5,439
 Sir J. Randles (U)          4,784

Probably because the Liberal nominee against whom she was working
had been returned to Parliament, and also because she had been
single-handed, Mrs. Drummond's campaign at Eye had passed almost
unnoticed outside the constituency itself. At Cockermouth, on the other
hand, the Liberal had been defeated, and so it naturally followed that
all the influences that had led to his defeat were carefully analysed
by the politicians and the Press. Some of the members of the Women's
Social and Political Union had formerly been Liberals and though the
Liberal leaders steadfastly declared that the action of women could
make no possible difference to the situation, they were very deeply
incensed by the thought that women should dare to put the question of
their own enfranchisement before every other consideration and, instead
of seeking to win the Government's favour as they had done in the
past, should prefer attempting to force those in power to attend to
their claims.

To a man the politicians were surprised. "Who would have dreamt,"
they said, "that women could be so selfish?" Though their candidate,
Mr. Robert Smillie, had not been attacked, the Labour men were also
discontented, for there were Labour women in the Women's Social and
Political Union, and they considered that these particular women ought
to have been working directly for the Labour Party and not to have been
subordinating its interests to the getting of votes for themselves. The
Conservatives meanwhile said very little about the matter, for their
candidate had won and having, therefore, no reason to be aggrieved,
they contented themselves with declaring that a glorious victory had
been won for the cause of Tariff Reform.

So much for the politicians. The Party-following Press, with scarcely
an exception, had been unanimous from the very first in their hostility
to the Women's Social and Political Union and its methods. Now, as
before, they either shook their heads at us, expressing sorrow and
regret that we should place ourselves in opposition to the "forces of
progress," or merely professed amusement that we should be so foolish
and conceited as to think that anything that we could say or do would
influence elections.

Timid and half-hearted friends of the Suffrage movement also condemned
the new by-election policy on the ground that it was unwise for women
to thus oppose the Government that had the power, if it wished, to
give them what they asked. All this, of course, was to be expected,
and so was comparatively easy to meet--it is what every true reformer
has had to face. But even amongst some of those who had been hitherto
the warmest supporters of the Suffragettes and all that they had
done, there was much heart-searching and heart-burning because of the
independent by-election policy, and it was felt by these that a mistake
was being made in thus holding aloof from Men's party organisations and
counting as nought the opinions of private Members of Parliament. The
W. S. P. U. pointed out to them that a large majority of the private
Members in the House of Commons had long been pledged to give their
support to Women's Suffrage but that these pledges had been useless.
This was due in the first place to the fact that private Members had
little power to carry their pledges into effect because practically all
the time at the disposal of Parliament was taken up by the Government,
and that, as had been done on the 29th of April, a few obstructionists
could easily block the question unless the party in power were prepared
to find further time for it. Besides this, private members had over and
over again shown that they would willingly break the pledges they had
made to women at the bidding of their party leaders.

But these explanations failed to reassure many faint-hearted doubters,
for though they agreed that in theory the independent policy was well
enough, they felt convinced that in practice it was doomed to fail.
They freely admitted that the women, by their clever speeches and the
undeniable justice of their cause, would be almost certain to convince
the electors that they were in the right, but they urged that the
British elector was a hard-headed individual, who could never be
induced to throw aside his party politics and to cast his vote on this
one issue alone, especially as this issue was a women's question that
did not directly affect him.

So these critics agreed that the policy would "be possible with an
electorate of heroes, but not with average men." For this reason it
must fail.

But in spite of these gloomy predictions the Women's Social
and Political Union held to its course, and did not swerve one
hair's-breadth from the plan of campaign that it had laid down.

An anti-Government election policy has frequently been employed by
men politicians; notably by the Irish under Parnell. In the course of
the agitation for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, Mrs.
Josephine Butler and her colleagues fought the Government at many
by-elections, but with that exception an anti-Government by-election
policy had never been adopted by women. In following it out now, when
many members, even of our own Committee doubted its wisdom, and few
were really enthusiastic in its favour, Christabel Pankhurst, its
originator in this case, gave evidence of that keen political insight
and that indomitable courage and determination which are so essential
to real leadership, and which have since enabled her to steer the
Suffragette ship through so many dangerous shoals and quicksands.

On August 14th the three Suffragettes, "Mr. Asquith's Prisoners,"
as they had been called, were released from Holloway. They were all
cheerfully and bravely uncomplaining. Mrs. Knight and Annie Kenney
were both white and feeble-looking but only spoke of their anxiety to
be of service to the cause, whilst Mrs. Sparborough, though she had
got rheumatism through being made to scrub the stone floor of her cell
without a kneeler, made light of the imprisonment, saying that she had
felt peaceful and happy and had sung hymns to herself to drive her
loneliness away.

And now great meetings of welcome to the prisoners were being held in
London and Provincial campaigns were being organised in various parts
of the country. Everywhere that the fiery torch of zeal and enthusiasm
was carried there was warm sympathy from the masses of the people and
the slumbering desire for enfranchisement amongst all classes of women
began to awake. Mrs. Lawrence was holding a series of fine meetings in
Yorkshire. Annie Kenney, after addressing vast and enthusiastic crowds
in Lancashire, made her way up to Scotland and with Theresa Billington
went on to Mr. Asquith's constituency of East Fife. Aroused by their
speeches the women here demanded that The Chancellor of the Exchequer
should receive them in deputation. He judged it wisest to consent, but
protected himself from meeting the two ex-prisoners by stipulating that
only residents in the constituency should be present. In his reply to
this deputation he declared himself to be still an opponent of their
cause. "Then there is no hope for women?" asked one of them; but he
only answered "Women must work out their own salvation."

In Wales the flag of the W. S. P. U. was being hoisted by Mary
Gawthorpe,[12] another new recruit, a winsome, merry little creature,
with bright hair and laughing hazel eyes, a face fresh and sweet as a
flower, the dainty ways of a little bird, and having with all so shrewd
a tongue and so sparkling a fund of repartee, that she held dumb with
astonished admiration, vast crowds of big, slow-thinking workmen and
succeeded in winning to good-tempered appreciation the stubbornest
opponents. Whilst she was in his constituency, it was announced that
Mr. Samuel Evans who had "talked out" the Votes-for-Women resolution
on the twenty-ninth of April, and who was now appointed a Law Officer
of the Crown, was coming to speak to his constituents. Miss Gawthorpe
determined to talk him out as he had "talked out" the Women's
resolution. She therefore attended two of his meetings and at the first
of these was dragged out by the stewards, but at the second a strong
force of men gathered round to protect her and insisted that she should
be heard. The Chairman then tried to checkmate her by playing the Welsh
National Anthem, but little Mary won all hearts by leading off the
singing, and so poor a figure did Mr. Samuel Evans cut that Mrs. Evans
was said to have declared that next time there was a Women's Suffrage
debate in the House of Commons she should keep her husband at home.

In London the work was being organised by Christabel, who amongst other
things was conducting an active campaign in Battersea, the constituency
represented by Mr. John Burns, the President of the Local Government
Board. The income of the Union was still very small, and everything had
to be done with the strictest possible economy. The money for meetings
in halls was only forthcoming on very special occasions, and wherever
possible the expenses of printing and advertising were curtailed. A
large number of meetings were held at street corners, with a chair
borrowed from a neighbouring shop as platform, and, in order to collect
a crowd, my sister started the custom of ringing a large muffin bell.
One of those who had been greatly impressed by the work of our Union
was Miss Elizabeth Robins, the novelist, whose impressions of these
early days of the movement are so graphically described in her novel,
_The Convert_.

The following extract from this book is a very truthful picture of a
typical Battersea meeting:

 In Battersea you go into some modest little restaurant, and you
 say, "Will you lend me a chair?" This is a surprise for the
 restaurateur.... Ernestine carries the chair into the road and plants
 it in front of the fire station. Usually there are two or three
 helpers. Sometimes Ernestine if you please, carries the meeting
 entirely on her own shoulders--those same shoulders being about so
 wide. Yes, she is quite a little thing. If there are helpers she
 sends them up and down the street sowing a fresh crop of handbills.
 When Ernestine is ready to begin she stands on that chair in the open
 street and, as if she were doing the most natural thing in the world,
 she begins ringing that dinner bell. Naturally people stop and stare
 and draw nearer. Ernestine tells me that Battersea has got so used now
 to the ding-dong and to associating it with "our meetings," that as
 far off as they hear it the inhabitants say, "It's the Suffragettes,
 come along." And from one street and another the people emerge
 laughing and running. Of course, as soon as there is a little crowd
 that attracts some more, and so the snowball grows.... Last night
 she was wonderful.... When she wound up "The motion is carried; the
 meeting is over!" and climbed down off her perch, the mob cheered
 and pressed round her so close that I had to give up trying to join
 her. I extricated myself and crossed the street. She is so little
 that unless she is on a chair she is swallowed up. For a long time I
 could not see her. I did not know whether she was taking the names
 and addresses of the people who wanted to join the Union, or whether
 she had slipped away and gone home, till I saw practically the whole
 crowd moving off with her up the street. I followed for some distance
 on the off side. She went calmly on her way--a tiny figure in a long
 grey coat between two "helpers," a Lancashire cotton spinner and the
 Cockney working-woman and that immense tail of boys and men (and a
 few women) all following after--quite quiet and well-behaved--just
 following because it didn't occur to them to do anything else. In
 a way she was still exercising her hold over her meeting. I saw
 presently there was one person in front of her; a great big fellow who
 looked like a carter. He was carrying home the chair.... Oh, if you
 could only see her! Trudging along, apparently quite oblivious of her
 quaint following, dinner bell in one hand, leather case piled high
 with leaflets on the other arm. Some of the leaflets sliding off and
 tumbling onto the pavement. Then dozens of hands helped her to recover
 her property....

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Out of all the many hundreds of women who have taken part in the
militant Suffrage movement, and in spite of the many kinds of violence
to which they have been subjected, only three women upon three single
occasions, have ever made use of any weapon to protect themselves from
their assailants.

[8] Some years before a trades dispute had taken place at Featherstone
in the course of which Mr. Asquith was said to have ordered that the
military should be called out, and as a result the soldiers had fired
upon the workingmen who were on strike. In consequence of this Mr.
Asquith became so unpopular that he was frequently assailed at Public
Meetings by the cry of "Featherstone Asquith, the Assassin." Mrs.
Sparborough, like many other persons had of course read of this.

[9] On a protest being raised in the House, this sentence was
afterwards reduced by half.

[10] In the case of Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney, the Governor
of Strangeways had refused money tendered to him by outsiders, saying
that he was not authorised to accept a fine paid in this way, but now
the Governor of Holloway, after consultation with the Home Office
accepted the fine, and told Miss Billington that she must leave the
prison.

[11] Mr. Morrissey, who could not afford to leave his business, was
regretfully obliged to pay his fine.

[12] Mary Gawthorpe had become a pupil teacher at the age of
thirteen and had worked for her living from that time. Amongst other
distinctions, she had taken a first class King's Scholarship. She had
represented the Leeds Labour Church on the Local Labour Representation
Committee. She had been a member of the Leeds Committee for the Feeding
of School Children, and the Leeds Committee of the National Union
of Teachers. In 1906 she had been elected as Labour delegate to the
University Extension Committee, she was Vice-President of the Leeds
Independent Labour Party and Secretary to the Women's Labour League.

                              CHAPTER VI

                       OCTOBER TO NOVEMBER, 1906

A PROTEST MEETING IN THE LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. ELEVEN WOMEN
GO TO PRISON. WHAT IT IS LIKE IN HOLLOWAY GAOL.

On October 3rd, 1906, Parliament re-assembled for the Autumn session.
A large number of our women made their way to the House of Commons on
that day, but the Government had again given orders that only twenty
women at a time were to be allowed in the Lobby. All women of the
working class were rigorously excluded. My mother and Mrs. Pethick
Lawrence were amongst those who succeeded in gaining an entrance. They
at once sent in for the Chief Liberal Whip and requested him to ask the
Prime Minister, on their behalf, whether he proposed to do anything
to enfranchise the women of the country during the session, either by
including the registration of qualified women in the provisions of the
Plural Voting Bill then before the House, or by any other means. The
Liberal Whip soon returned with a refusal from the Government to hold
out the very faintest hope that the vote would be given women at any
time during their term of office.

On hearing this, Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence returned
to their comrades and consulted with them. The women had received a
direct rebuff, and they felt that they must now act in such a way as
to prove that the Suffragettes would no longer quietly submit to this
perpetual ignoring of their claims. They therefore decided to hold a
meeting of protest, not outside in the street, but just there, in the
Lobby of the House of Commons--of all places the most effective one for
women to choose for a meeting, because the nearest within their reach
to that legislative Chamber which had so frequently refused to grant
them the franchise. Once made, the resolution was acted upon without
delay. Mary Gawthorpe mounted one of the settees close to the statue
of Sir Stafford Northcote and began to address the crowd of visitors
who were waiting to interview various Members of Parliament. The other
women closed up around her, but in the twinkling of an eye dozens of
policemen sprang forward, tore the tiny creature from her post and
swiftly rushed her out of the Lobby. Instantly Mrs. Despard, a sister
of General French, a tall, ascetic-looking, grey-haired figure, stepped
into the breach; but she also was roughly dragged away. Then followed
Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, a daughter of Richard Cobden, and many others,
but each in her turn was thrust outside and the order was given to
clear the Lobby. Mrs. Pankhurst was thrown to the ground in the outer
entrance hall and many of the women, thinking that she was seriously
hurt, closed round her refusing to leave her side. Crowds were now
collecting in the roadway and the women who had been flung out of the
House attempted to address them but were hurled away.

Annie Kenney, who had scarcely recovered from the effects of her last
imprisonment, had been told by the Committee that she must not take any
part in the demonstration for fear that she should be again arrested.
She agreed to run no risks, but she could not keep entirely away from
the scene of action and, standing on the other side of the road, was
now watching to see what might befall her comrades. In the midst of
the struggle she noticed that Mrs. Pethick Lawrence was being roughly
handled, and impulsively ran forward to ask her if she were hurt. Being
already well known to the police, she was immediately arrested. Mrs.
Lawrence was greatly distressed and cried out, "You shall not take this
girl; she has done nothing." But the only result of her protest was
that she herself was also taken into custody. Before long seven women
had shared the same fate, including Miss Irene Miller, my sister Adela
Pankhurst, and Mrs. How Martyn, B.Sc., who had recently become Honorary
Secretary of the London Committee of the Women's Social and Political
Union.[13]

Meanwhile, some of the poor women who had marched from the East End and
who had been denied admission to the Lobby, were resting their tired
limbs on the stone benches in the long entrance hall, and after Mrs.
Cobden Sanderson had made her attempt to speak and had been hustled
away, she seated herself quietly beside these women and began to talk
with them. Shortly afterwards a young policeman came up and abruptly
ordered her away and, as she did not go he seized her and dragged her
to the police station.

The next morning the women were brought up at Rochester Row Police
Court before Mr. Horace Smith. Mrs. Cobden Sanderson's sisters, Mrs.
Cobden Unwin and Mrs. Cobden Sickert and several friends and relatives
of the other women, had come early in order that they might be sure
of obtaining a seat in Court. Whilst another trial was in progress
the Usher had asked them to leave the Court for the present in order
to make room for other people, saying, "You shall be allowed in again
when your own case comes on." They at once acceded to his request, but
were prevented from returning and were subsequently told that no women
would be allowed to enter. Some twenty or thirty of us had by this time
congregated in the large entrance hall, but, though men were constantly
passing in and out of the Court where the trial was taking place,
admittance was denied to us. Many of us wished to testify as witnesses,
but we were told that we could not go into the Court, and were taken
into a side room, where an attempt was made to lock us in. To prevent
this, we insisted upon standing in the doorway.

In the meantime the case against the ten Suffragists was being hurried
through. They were all put into the dock together. After the police
evidence had been heard against them, Mrs. Cobden Sanderson asked leave
to make a statement. You must not picture her to yourself as being
either big-boned, plain-looking and aggressive and wearing "mannish"
clothes, or as emotional and overstrung. On the contrary, she is just
what Reynolds, Hoppner, Sir Henry Raeburn, or Romney with his softest
and tenderest touch, would have loved to paint. Not very tall, she is
comfortably and firmly knit and as she walks she puts her foot down
quite firmly, in a dignified and stately way. She is always dressed
in low-toned greys and lilacs, and her clothes are gracefully and
delicately wrought, with all sorts of tiny tuckings and finishings
which give a suggestion of daintiest detail without any loss of
simplicity or breadth. She has a shower of hair like spun silver that
crinkles itself in the most original and charming way, and which she
binds around with broad ribbon, lest its loose falling strands should
mar the neatness of her aspect. Her cheeks are tinged with the soft
dull rose that one sees in pastel, and her eyes have the most genial
and benevolent glance.

Speaking now to the Magistrate, she said, quite quietly, that she had
gone to the House of Commons to demand the vote; that so long as women
were deprived of citizen rights and had, therefore, no constitutional
means of obtaining redress, they had a right to be heard in the House
of Commons itself. She wished to take the whole responsibility of
the demonstration upon her own shoulders. "If anyone is guilty," she
said, "it is I. I was arrested as one of the ringleaders, and being
the eldest of these, I was most responsible." Then she quoted in her
defence the words of Mr. John Burns, who was now the President of the
Local Government Board and who, in circumstances similar to those in
which she was placed, had said, "I am a rebel because I am an outlaw. I
am a law-breaker because I desire to be a law-maker."

At this point the Magistrate, who had repeatedly interrupted her,
refused to hear any more, or to allow any statement at all from the
other prisoners, although in doing so, he was disregarding every legal
precedent. He said that each of the ten defendants must enter into
her own recognisances to keep the peace for six months and must find
a surety for her good behaviour in £10, and that if she failed to do
this, she must go to prison for two months in the second division. The
women at once protested against this mockery of a trial, and raising a
banner bearing the words "Women should vote for the laws they obey and
the taxes they pay" declared that they would not leave the dock until
they had been allowed the right to which all prisoners were entitled,
namely that of making a statement in their own defence. But Mr. Horace
Smith cared nothing for the justice of what they said; he merely called
the police and the women were forcibly removed.

The Police Court authorities now announced to those of us who were
waiting in the witness room that the case was over and that our friends
had been taken to Holloway. I can scarcely express our feelings of
indignation. It seemed, indeed, terrible that ten upright, earnest
women should have been thus hustled off to prison, without a word from
their friends, after a trial lasting less than half an hour.

Some protesting, others filled with silent consternation, the women
turned to go, but I, myself, felt that I could not leave without a
single word of rebuke to those who had conducted the proceedings
against us so shamefully. I therefore returned to the door of the inner
court and asked to be admitted. "It is all over," said the doorkeepers,
"there is nothing to interest you now;" but I walked quickly past them
and entered the court. It was quite a small room; one could easily
make oneself heard without raising one's voice, and as shortly as I
could, I told the magistrate how women had been refused admittance
whilst the trial was in progress, and how some who had actually taken
their seats had been tricked into leaving. I pointed out to him that as
it was customary to allow the general public, and especially friends of
the prisoners, to be present in court, it was grossly unfair to refuse
to do so in this case, and likely to destroy confidence in the justice
of the trial. I was explaining that even the women who had wished to
testify as voluntary witnesses had been kept out of the court, when the
magistrate interrupted me saying, "There is no truth in any of your
statements. The court was crowded."

I was then seized by two policemen, dragged across the outer lobby and
flung into the street. Here a great mass of people had assembled and
I felt that I ought not to go away without telling them something of
the cause for which we were fighting and of the very scanty justice
which had been doled out to our women. I tried to speak to them,
though I had been rendered almost breathless by the violent manner of
my ejection, and only to those who were near me could I make myself
heard. In a moment, I hardly knew how or why, I was again seized by
the policeman and dragged back into the court house. Soon afterwards
I found myself in the dock before Mr. Horace Smith, and was charged
with causing an obstruction and with the use of violent and abusive
language. I protested against the latter half of the charge and it was
immediately withdrawn. At greater length than on the first occasion, I
was then able to describe all that had happened within the precincts
of the court. Many of our friends and members, on hearing that all was
not over, had returned and from amongst them I called as witnesses to
the truth of my statement, Mrs. Cobden Unwin, Mrs. Cobden Sickert and a
number of other ladies, but their testimony was ignored and I was found
guilty and sentenced either to pay a fine of £1 or to undergo fourteen
days' imprisonment in the third and lowest class. Of course I chose the
latter alternative, and was taken to join my comrades in the cells. But
now, instead of being ordered away as before, our friends were allowed
to come up and bring us lunch and talk to us for a little while.

The police court cells were small and dark, furnished only with a
wooden seat fastened to the wall and a sanitary convenience. The walls
were whitewashed, the floors were of stone, and each of the cells
opened into a long stone passage, whose barred windows overlooked
the courtyard, beyond which we could see through gaps in the prison
buildings, the crowds of people who were assembled in the street
beyond. We were not shut up in the cells but allowed to move about from
one to another, or to stand in the passage, at the end of which were
several stone steps leading up to a strongly-fastened iron gate. This
passage, though dimly lit, was lighter than the cells and seemed to us
less insanitary, and so as we had many hours to wait before we were
to be taken to Holloway in the prison van, "Black Maria," we seated
ourselves together on the stone steps. Someone had brought with her a
volume of Browning, and Mrs. Lawrence read aloud to us from those of
the poems which seemed to apply to our own case.

All too soon the order came for us to go down to the van and, one by
one, as our names were called, we walked across the yard, climbed
the steps and took our places separately in one of the twelve little
compartments which it contained. I was one of the two last to enter,
and I had, therefore, a little more of the fresh air than most of the
others, and from the small barred window of my compartment, I could see
the burly form of the guarding policeman who stood in the passageway
between us and, when he moved from time to time, could see past him and
out the barred window in the door of the van to the streets through
which we drove.

How long the way seemed to Holloway, as the springless van rattled
over the stones and constantly bumped us against the narrow wooden
pens in which we sat! As it passed down the poor streets, the people
cheered--they always cheer the prison van. It was evening when we
arrived at our destination, and the darkness was closing in. As we
passed in single file through the great gates, we found ourselves
at the end of a long corridor with cubicles on either side. A woman
officer in holland dress, with a dark blue bonnet, with hanging strings
on her head and with a bundle of keys and chains jangling at her waist,
called out our names and the length of our sentences and locked each
of us separately into one of the cubicles, which were about four feet
square and quite dark. In the door of each cubicle was a little round
glass spy-hole, which might be closed by a metal flap on the outside.
Mine had been left open by mistake, and through it I could see a little
of what was going on outside.

Once we had been locked away, the wardress came from door to door,
taking down further particulars as to the profession, religion,
and so on, of each prisoner--there were many beside ourselves--and
asking if we and they could read and write and sew. Meanwhile the
prisoners called to each other over the tops of the cubicles in loud,
high-pitched voices. Every now and then the officer protested, but
still the noise continued. Soon another van load of prisoners arrived
and the cubicles being filled, several women together were put into
the same compartment,--sometimes as many as five in one of those tiny
places! It was very cold, and the stone floor made one's feet colder
still, yet for a long time--until I was so tired that I could no longer
stand--I was afraid to sit down because, in the darkness, one could not
see whether, as one feared, everything might be covered with vermin.

After waiting a long time, the prisoners were sent to see the doctor,
and we Suffragists stood waiting in a line together. The wardress
passed constantly up and down our ranks saying, "All of you unfasten
your chests." When at last we got into the doctor's room, he either
asked us no questions, or said in a mechanical way, "Are you all
right?" then he touched us quickly with his stethoscope and we passed
back to our cubicles.

After another long wait we were sent to change our clothes. In a large
room, lined with shelves, with two or three wardresses hovering about,
and one seated at a table, we were told to undress, three or four
at a time, and given a short cotton chemise to put on after we had
removed our own clothes. Then we were ordered to hand over our clothes,
hats, dresses, boots and all together, which were roughly tied up in
bundles and placed upon the shelves. Then, barefooted, and wearing
only the chemise, we were made to march across to the officer at the
table. The officer now told us to deliver to her our money, jewellery,
hair pins and hair combs. She gave us back the hair pins and kept
everything else, taking down particulars of these and entering them in
a book. At the same time she again asked us our names, ages, and the
other particulars which we had now given so often. After this we were
searched; the officer first telling us to put up our arms, and then
feeling us all over and examining our hair to see that we had nothing
concealed about us. A wardress then led us through a doorway into the
dimly lit bath room.

The baths were separated from each other by partitions, and from the
rest of the room by a half door which had no fastening and over which
the wardress could look. The baths were of black iron, covered with an
old and very dingy coat of white paint, which had worn off in patches
and the woodwork which enclosed them was stained and worn. I shrank
from entering the bath, but I was shivering with cold, and though I
feared it was not clean, there was something comforting about the
feel of the warm water. Presently the wardress hung some towels and
underclothing over the top of the wooden door, and told me to dress as
quickly as I could. I hastened to obey her, and found that the clothes,
which were badly sewn and badly cut, were of coarse calico and harsh
woollen stuff, and that there were innumerable strings to fasten around
one's waist. A strange-looking pair of corsets was supplied to each
of us, but these we were not obliged to wear unless we wished. The
stockings were of harsh thick wool, and had been badly darned. They
were black with red stripes going around the legs, and as they were
very wide, and there were no garters or suspenders to keep them up,
they were constantly slipping down and wrinkling around one's ankles.

On opening my door I found that outside all was hurry and confusion.
In the dim light the women were scrambling for the dresses, which were
lying in big heaps on the floor. The skirts of these dresses, like the
petticoats--of which there were three--were of the same width at both
top and bottom and they were gathered into wide bands which, though
fastened with tapes were not made to draw up, and had to be overlapped
in the most clumsy fashion in order to make them fit any but the very
stoutest women. The bodices were so strangely cut that even when worn
by very thin people they seemed bound to gape in front, especially as
they were fastened with only one button at the neck. My bodice, the
only one I could manage to get hold of, had several large rents, which
had been roughly cobbled together with black cotton.[14] Every article
of clothing was conspicuously stamped with the broad arrow, which was
painted black on light garments, and white on those which were dark.

I had scarcely fastened my dress when somebody called out to us all:
"Look sharp and put on your shoes." These we had to take for ourselves
from where they were bundled together on a wooden rack. None of them
seemed to be in pairs and they were heavy and clumsy, with leather
laces that, when one attempted to tie them, broke easily in the hand.
Lastly, white cotton caps fastened under the chin with strings and
stamped in black with the broad arrow, and the blue and white check
aprons and handkerchiefs, both of which looked like dusters,[15] were
given to us and we were led off on a long journey to the cells.

It seemed a sort of skeleton building that we were taken through--the
strangest place in which I had ever been. In every great oblong ward
or block through which we passed, though there were many stories,
one could see right down to the basement and up to the lofty roof.
The stone floors of the corridors lined the walls all the way round,
jutting out at the junctions of the stories like shelves some nine
or ten feet apart, being protected on the outer edge by an iron wire
trellis work four or five feet high, and having on the wall side rows
and rows and rows of numbered doors studded with nails. The various
stories were connected by flights of iron steps bordered by iron
trellis work, and reaching in slanting lines from corridor to corridor.
All the walls and doors were painted stone colour and all the iron work
was painted black.

We clattered up those seemingly endless flights and shuffled along
those mazy corridors in our heavy shoes and at last stopped at a small
office, rather like one of the pay desks which one sees in drapers'
shops, where our names and the length of our sentences and all the
various other particulars were verified once more, and the sheets for
the bed, a Bible and a number of other little books with black shiny
bindings, were given out to us. Annie Kenney had told us that a tooth
brush would be given to us if we asked for it, but that if we neglected
to do this, nothing would be said about it, and we might not be allowed
to have it later. As we waited in line I noticed that the other women
were eating chunks of brown bread,[16] but, though by this time I was
very hungry, none had been given to me. I asked Mrs. Baldock, who
stood next to me, where she had got her bread, and she told me that
one of the wardresses had given it to her, and seeing that I had been
overlooked, she broke off half her own small loaf and gave it to me.
These were the last words I was to have with my fellow prisoners, for,
whilst they had been put into the second class, I had been sentenced to
the third, and even in chapel they were hidden from me by a buttress.

After another long march through the prison corridors, a wardress, with
her jangling keys, unlocked a number of heavy iron doors and having
ordered each of us to enter one of them separately, shut them behind
us again with a loud bang. I now found myself in a small whitewashed
cell twelve or thirteen feet long by seven feet wide, and about nine
feet high. The floor was of stone. The window, which was high up near
the ceiling had many little panes, enclosed in a heavy iron frame-work
and guarded by strong iron bars outside. The iron door was studded
with nails and its round eye-like spy-hole was now covered on the
outside. On the left-hand side of the door was a small recess, some
four feet from the ground, in which, behind a pane of thick opaque
glass was a flickering gas jet which cast a dim light into the cell.
Under this recess was a small wooden shelf, somewhere about fourteen
or fifteen inches square, which I afterwards learnt was called the
table, and opposite this was a wooden stool. By the window, set into
the corner of the room, was another shelf about three feet six inches
high, with one about six inches from the floor immediately under it.
The lower shelf was for the mattress and bedding. The upper one held a
wooden spoon, a pint pot of block tin stamped with the broad arrow, a
wooden saltcellar, a small piece of hard yellow soap, a red card case
containing some prison rules and a card on which was printed a morning
and an evening prayer, a small oval hair brush without a handle, like a
good-sized nail brush, and a comb between three and four inches long.
On this shelf I was afterwards told to place my books and tooth brush.
These things had all to be kept in certain never varying positions. On
the floor, leaning against the wall under the window, were arranged
a number of utensils made of block tin, these being a plate, a small
water can holding about three pints of water, a tiny shallow wash-basin
less than a foot in diameter, and a small slop-pail with a lid. Two
little round brushes, in shape rather like those we use for brushing
clothes with, which were intended for sweeping the floor, a little tin
dust pan, and a piece of bath-brick wrapped in some rags for cleaning
the tins. These also were all placed in an order which, as I soon
learnt, was never to be changed. A small towel and a smaller table
cloth, both of them resembling dish cloths, hung on a nail. Propped
against the right-hand wall was the plank bed, with the pillow balanced
on top. The bed is, I think, two feet six inches in width, and when in
position for sleeping is raised up by two cross pieces to about two
inches from the floor.

As I was examining in wonder all these various things, a wardress
opened the door and said sharply, "What, have you not made your bed
yet? The light will be put out soon. You had better make haste!"
"Please can I have a nightdress?"[17] I asked, but she answered "No."
Then the iron door banged and I was left alone for the night.

After eating my little piece of bread, I did as I was told and tried to
sleep. But sleep is one of the hardest things to obtain in Holloway.
The bed is so hard, the blankets and sheets are scarcely wide enough
to cover one, and the pillow, filled with a kind of herb, seems as if
it were made of stone. The window is not made to open. The system of
ventilation is exceedingly bad, and though one is usually cold at night
one always suffers terribly from the want of air.

I learnt next day that we were as yet only in the admission cells,
and as everyone was too busy to set us to work we had nothing to do
but examine our books. These I found, in addition to the prayer book,
consisted of a Bible, a hymn book, a tract called "The Narrow Way,"
which was intended to show how easy it is to fall into temptation, and
a little book on health and cleanliness, which described the way in
which human beings are gradually poisoned when they were not able to
get enough fresh air.

The following day we were removed to the cells which we were to occupy
during the remainder of our imprisonment. Many of the ordinary cells
are exactly like the reception cells, but the cell into which I was now
put was smaller, but better lit than the reception cell, for it had a
larger window and there was a small electric light bulb attached to the
wall instead of the recessed gas jet. Hanging on a nail in the wall was
a large round badge made of yellow cloth bearing the number of the cell
and the letter and the number of its block in the prison. I was told to
attach this badge to a button on my bodice, and henceforth, like the
other prisoners, I was called by the number of my cell, which happened
to be twelve.

Suppose yourself to be one of the Third Class prisoners. Like them you
will follow the same routine. Each morning whilst it is still quite
dark you will be awakened by the tramp of heavy feet and the ringing
of bells; then the light is turned on. You wash in the tiny basin and
dress hurriedly. Soon you hear the rattle of keys and the noise of
iron doors. The sound comes nearer and nearer until it reaches your
own door. The wardress flings it open and orders sharply, "Empty your
slops, 12!" You hasten to do so, and return at the word of command.

Then, just as you have been shown, you roll your bed. The first sheet
is folded in four, then spread out on the floor, and rolled up from one
end, tightly, like a sausage. The second sheet is rolled round it, and
round this, one by one, the blankets and quilt. You must be careful to
do this very neatly or you are certain to be reprimanded.

Next clean your tins. You have three pieces of rag with which to do
this. Two of them are frayed scraps of brown serge, like your dress,
and the other is a piece of white calico. These rags were probably not
new and fresh when you came here, but had been well used by previous
occupants of the cell. Folded up in these rags you will find a piece
of bath-brick. You have been told to rub this bath-brick on the stone
floor until you have scoured off a quantity of its dust. Then you take
one of the brown rags and soap this on the yellow cake which you use
for your own face. Then with the soapy rag you rub over one of the
tins, and this done, dip the rag into the brick-dust which is lying on
the floor and rub it on to the soapy tin. Then you rub it again with
the second brown rag and polish with the white calico one that remains.
You must be sure to make all the tins very bright.

Presently the door opens and shuts again. Someone has left you a pail
of water; with it you must scrub the stool, bed and table, and wash
the shelves. Then scrub the floor. All this ought to be done before
breakfast, but unless you are already experienced in such matters it
will take you very much longer.

Before you have done your task there comes again the jangling of keys
and clanging of iron doors. Then, "Where's your pint, 12?" You hand it
out, spread your little cloth and set your plate ready. Your pint pot
is filled with gruel (oatmeal and water without any seasoning), and six
ounces of bread are thrust upon your plate. Then the door closes. Now
eat your breakfast, and then, if your cleaning is done, begin to sew.
Perhaps it is a sheet you have to do. Of these, with hem top and bottom
and mid-seam, the minimum quantity which you must finish, as you will
learn from your "Labour Card" is 15 per week.

At half past eight it is time for chapel. The officer watches you take
your place in line amongst the other women. They all wear numbered
badges like yours, and are dressed as you are. A few, very few, four
or five perhaps, out of all the hundreds in the Third Division, wear
red stars on caps and sleeves. This is to show that they are first
offenders who have previously borne a good character and have someone
to testify to that fact. Every now and then the wardress cries out that
someone is speaking, and as you march along there is a running fire
of criticism and rebuke. "Tie up your cap string, 27. You look like a
cinder-picker. You must learn to dress decently here." "Hold up your
head, number 30." "Hurry up, 23." In the chapel it is your turn. "Don't
look about you, 12." In comes the clergyman. He reads the lessons and
all sing and pray together.

Can they be really criminals, all these poor, sad-faced women? How soft
their hearts are! How easily they are moved! If there is a word in the
services which touches the experience of their lives, they are in tears
at once. Anything about children, home, affection, a word of pity for
the sinner, or of striving to do better,--any of these things they feel
deeply. Singing and the sound of the organ make them cry. Many of them
are old, with shrunken cheeks and scant white hair. Few seem young.
All are anxious and careworn. They are broken down by poverty, sorrow
and overwork. Think of them going back to sit, each in her lonely cell,
to brood for hours on the causes which brought her here, wondering
what is happening to those she loves outside, tortured, perhaps, by
the thought that she is needed there. How can these women bear the
slow-going, lonely hours? Now go back to your cell with their faces in
your eyes.

At twelve o'clock comes dinner. A pint of oatmeal porridge and six
ounces of bread three days a week, six ounces of suet pudding and six
ounces of bread two days a week, and on two other days eight ounces of
potatoes and six ounces of bread.

After dinner you will leave your cell no more that day, except to fetch
water between two and three o'clock, unless it be one of the three days
a week on which you are sent to exercise. In that case, having chosen
one for yourself from a bundle of drab-coloured capes, and having
fastened your badge to it, you follow the other women outside. There,
all march slowly round in single file with a distance of three or four
yards between each prisoner. Two of the very oldest women, who can only
totter along, go up and down at one side, passing and repassing each
other.

If you came into the prison on Wednesday, the first day for you to
exercise will be Saturday. How long it seems since you were last in
the outside world, since you saw the sky and the sunshine and felt the
pure fresh air against your cheek! How vividly everything strikes you
now. Every detail stands out in your mind with never-to-be-forgotten
clearness. Perhaps it is a showery Autumn day. The blue sky is flecked
with quickly driving clouds. The sun shines brightly and lights up
the puddles on the ground and the raindrops still hanging from the
eaves and window ledges. The wind comes in little playful gusts. The
free pigeons are flying about in happy confidence. You notice every
variation in their glossy plumage. Some are grey with purple throats,
some have black markings on their wings, some are a pale brown colour,
some nearly white; one is a deep purple, almost black, with shining
white bars on his wings and tail. All are varied--no two are alike. The
gaunt prison buildings surround everything, but in all this shimmering
brightness, in this sweet, free air, they have lost for the moment
their gloomy terror.

Now, your eye lights on your fellow prisoners. You are brought back to
the dreary truth of prison life. With measured tread, and dull listless
step, they shuffle on. Their heads are bent, their eyes cast down. They
do not see the sun and the brightness, the precious sky or the hovering
birds. They do not even see the ground at their feet, for they pass
over sunk stones, through wet and mud, though there be dry ground on
either side. The prison system has eaten into their hearts. They have
lost hope, and the sight of nature has no power to make them glad. It
may be that when next you walk with them you will feel as they do.
These gloomy overshadowing walls and the remembrance of your narrow
cell, with its endless twilight and dreary, useless tasks may have
filled your mind and driven away all other thoughts.

Once inside, the last break in the day will be supper at five o'clock
(like breakfast, six ounces of bread and a pint of gruel), except that
just before the light goes out at night, comes a noisy knocking at
every door, and the cry, "Are you all right?" Then darkness, a long,
sleepless night, and the awakening to another day like yesterday and
like to-morrow.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] The Secretarial duties had now increased so greatly that no one
person could cope with them without giving the whole of her time to the
work. As I was unable to do this, I had been obliged to resign.

[14] Some days afterwards it was condemned and I had a somewhat better
one given to me.

[15] We afterwards learnt that one clean handkerchief was supplied each
week. We had no pockets to keep them in.

[16] Each prisoner, on the day of entering is according to prison rules
to be given a supper consisting of six ounces of meat and one pint of
cocoa.

[17] Since this time night dresses have been introduced into Holloway,
and are given to Suffragettes, and, let us hope, to other prisoners.

                              CHAPTER VII

                   NOVEMBER, 1906, TO FEBRUARY, 1907

FURTHER ARRESTS. THE "MUD MARCH."

Whilst their comrades were in Holloway, the W. S. P. U. members were
putting forth redoubled efforts to press forward the work outside. A
manifesto explaining the objects of our movement and calling upon the
women of the country to stand by those who had gone to prison and to
fight with them to secure enfranchisement was posted upon the walls
and circulated broadcast as a leaflet. This appeal met with a far
readier response than any that had yet been made. Amongst people of all
parties, there was a growing feeling that the imprisoned Suffragettes
should receive the treatment due to political offenders. The Liberals,
large numbers of whom knew her personally, found an especial difficulty
in reconciling themselves to the idea that Richard Cobden's daughter
should be thrown into prison and treated by a Liberal government as
though she had been a drunkard or a pickpocket. Mr. Keir Hardie, Lord
Robert Cecil and others, raised the matter in the House of Commons,
and drew comparisons between our lot and that of the Jameson raiders,
Mr. W. T. Stead and others who had been imprisoned for political
reasons. In reply to this, Mr. Gladstone, the Home Secretary, began by
saying that he had no power to take action. On October 28th, however,
Mrs. Pethick Lawrence left Holloway owing to serious illness. On the
following day, Mrs. Montefiore was also released for the same reason,
and a day or two afterwards it became known that Mrs. How Martyn and
Mrs. Baldock had been removed to the prison hospital. Protests against
the treatment of the Suffragettes daily became more and more insistent,
and at last, on October 31st, Mr. Herbert Gladstone changed his mind
and ordered,[18] or as he put it, "intimated his desire" that the
Suffrage prisoners should be transferred to the first class.

On the eighth day of our imprisonment my cell door was flung open
suddenly and the Matron announced that an order had come from the Home
Office to say that I was to be transferred to the first class. I was
then hurriedly bustled out of my cell and a few minutes afterwards as,
in charge of a wardress, I was staggering along the passage carrying my
brush and comb, the sheets that I was hemming, and all my bed linen, I
met my comrades going in the same direction.

We were ushered into a row of rather dark cells adjoining each other
in an old part of the prison, which is chiefly occupied by prisoners
on remand who have not yet been tried. These women, we were horrified
to find, are treated exactly like second class prisoners, except that
their dress is blue instead of green, and that some to whom permission
has been given are allowed to wear their own clothes, and to have
food sent in to them at their own expense. We were now offered the
same privileges, but these we declined. On consulting the prison
rules, however, I found that first class misdemeanants are entitled to
exercise their profession whilst in prison, if their doing so does not
interfere with the ordinary prison regulations. I therefore applied to
the Governor to be allowed to have pen, pencils, ink and paper, and
after a day's waiting my request was granted. For me prison had now
lost the worst of its terrors because I had congenial work to do.

We were now able to write and to receive a letter once a fortnight, and
to have books and one newspaper a day sent in by our friends. The food
served out to us was exactly like that of the second class except that
instead of oatmeal gruel, a pint of tea was substituted for breakfast
and a pint of cocoa for supper. As the second class is that into which
the majority of the Suffragettes have been relegated, it is useful to
give the table of dinners here.

_Monday_, 8 oz. haricot beans, 1 oz. fat bacon, 8 oz. potatoes, 6 oz.
bread.

_Tuesday_, 1 pt. soup, 8 oz. potatoes, 6 oz. bread.

_Wednesday_, 8 oz. suet pudding (exactly like that served in the third
class), 6 oz. bread, 8 oz. potatoes.

_Thursday_, 6 oz. bread, 8 oz. potatoes, 3 oz. cooked meat--a kind of
stew.

_Friday_, Soup 1 pt., 6 oz bread, 8 oz. potatoes.

_Saturday_, Suet pudding 8 oz., bread 6 oz., potatoes 8 oz.

_Sunday_, bread 6 oz., potatoes 8 oz., 3 oz. meat "preserved by heat"
_i. e._, some kind of preserved meat slightly warmed.

The soups or meat for each prisoner was served in a cylindrical quart
tin into the top of which, like a lid, was fitted another shallow tin
holding the potatoes. One did not clean these tins oneself as one
did the other utensils, and probably because the kitchen attendants
were overburdened with work, they were always exceedingly dingy and
dirty-looking. Everything was as badly cooked and as uninviting as it
could be. The cocoa, which was quite unlike any cocoa that I have ever
tasted, had little pieces of meat and fat floating about in it. It was
evidently made in the same vessel in which the meat was cooked. To cut
up our meat, in addition to the wooden spoon, which is common to the
second and third classes, we were now provided with "a knife." This
knife was made of tin. It was about four inches in length and Mrs.
Drummond later on aptly described it as being "hemmed" at the edge.
There was no fork.

On November 6th my sentence came to an end, and the newspaper
representatives were all eager to hear from me what the inside of
Holloway was like. I was thus able to make known exactly what the
conditions of imprisonment had been both before and after our transfer
to the first division and to show that even under the new conditions,
the treatment of the Suffragettes was very much more rigorous than
that applied to men political prisoners in this and other countries.

Next day, November 7th, Mr. Keir Hardie introduced a Women's Suffrage
Bill into the House of Commons under "the ten minutes rule." It had
only two chances of passing into law; the first that the Government
should provide time for it and the second that not one single Member
of Parliament should oppose it in any of its stages. The Government
refused to give the time, and the second chance was destroyed by a
Liberal Member, Mr. Julius Bertram.

On November 19th another demonstration was therefore held outside the
House of Commons as a result of which Miss Alice Milne of Manchester
was arrested, and imprisoned for one week. Public sympathy was still
daily turning more and more to the side of the Suffragettes and when
a by-election became necessary at Huddersfield, Mr. Herbert Gladstone
decided to release Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and her colleagues, though
they had served but half their sentences and, on November 24th they
were set free after one month's imprisonment. They were not only
welcomed with enthusiasm by their fellow militant Suffragettes, but a
dinner was given in their honour by the older non-militant Suffragists
at the Savoy Hotel.

Believing that it was to the Huddersfield by-election that they owed
their unexpected freedom, a number of the released prisoners at once
hurried off to the constituency where Mrs. Pankhurst and a band of
other women were strenuously working against the Government and had
already become the most popular people in the election.

Though the train by which the prisoners arrived was more than two hours
late, they were welcomed at the station by cheering crowds, and found
that a great meeting of women, which had been called for the due time
of their arrival, was still patiently waiting to hear them speak.

The three candidates, Liberal, Unionist and Labour were now, because
of its extraordinary popularity, all anxious to be known as supporters
of Women's Suffrage and they went about wearing the white Votes for
Women buttons of the W. S. P. U. Mr. Sherwell, the Liberal, tried to
sidetrack the Suffragettes' appeal to the electors to vote against him
because he was the nominee of the Government, by constantly announcing
that he was in favour of Women's Suffrage, and that the Liberal Party
was the best of all parties for women. The following handbill issued
from his committee rooms:

 "_MEN OF HUDDERSFIELD, DON'T BE MISLED BY SOCIALISTS, SUFFRAGETTES, OR
 TORIES._

 _VOTE FOR SHERWELL._"

Polling took place on November 28th, and when the votes were counted,
it was found that the Liberal poll as recorded at the General Election
had been reduced by 540. The figures were:--

 Arthur Sherwell (L.)       5,762
 T. R. Williams (Lab.)      5,422
 J. Foster Fraser (U.)      4,844
                            _____
     Liberal Majority.        340

At the General Election the figures had been:--

 Sir J. T. Woodhouse (Lib.)      6,302
 T. R. Williams (Lab.)           5,813
 J. Foster Fraser (U.)           4,391
                                 _____
     Liberal Majority              489

Meanwhile the Government had been pushing on with its Bill for the
abolition of plural voting, to which the Women's Social and Political
Union had persistently claimed that a clause providing for the
registration of qualified women voters should be added. When the Bill
reached the Report stage on November 26th, Lord Robert Cecil moved
and Mr. Keir Hardie seconded and Mr. Balfour supported an amendment
to postpone the operation of the Bill until after the next General
Election, unless in the meantime the franchise had been given to women
on the same terms as men. The object was, of course, to call attention
to the need of Votes for Women, and this somewhat round-about way had
been adopted because it was ruled out of order to simply suggest that
votes for Women should be enacted as a part of the Plural Voting Bill.
The amendment was opposed by the Government, and defeated by 278 votes
to 50.

Our Manchester Members were now anxious to organise a protest on
their own account and it was agreed that they should have their way.
Accordingly, on December 13th, a valiant little army of some twenty or
thirty North Country women came down to London and proceeded straight
to Parliament Square, carrying a small wooden packing case which they
set down in the gutter opposite the stranger's entrance. The box was
mounted by Mrs. Jennie Baines of Stockport, a fragile little woman,
who had begun her strenuous life as a Birmingham child home-worker,
rising early in the morning in order to help her mother to stitch hooks
and eyes on to cards before going to school, snatching a few moments
for the same task in the dinner hour and on returning home in the
evening, working far into the night. In her girlhood she had been a
Salvation Army "Captain." Later she had married a journeyman bootmaker,
and though, in addition to caring for her home and her children, she
had been forced to toil in the factory, in order to keep the home
together, she had still managed to work as a Police Court Missionary
and Temperance and Social reformer.

Therefore, it was with the knowledge born of much experience, that
Mrs. Baines now pleaded for the enfranchisement of her sex. Within
a few moments a strong force of police came hurrying up and she was
roughly dragged down and hustled away. Her place was instantly taken by
Mrs. Morrissey of Manchester, whilst the other women linked arms and
pressed closely round to form a guard, but after a short hard struggle
the police broke through, tore the speaker from the box, and made five
arrests. One woman was thrown to the ground and lay unconscious, and
Mrs. August MacDougal, an Australian,[19] knelt on the ground beside
her, raised her head and held a cup of water to her lips. Then a heavy
hand was laid upon Mrs. MacDougal's shoulder and a rough voice ordered
her to go, but she remained to attend to the injured woman. For this
offence she was arrested, whilst Mrs. Knight, the woman who had been
hurt, was removed to Westminster Hospital.

Next day the five women who had been taken into custody were at
Westminster Police Court each ordered by Mr. Horace Smith either to pay
a fine of twenty shillings or to go to prison for fourteen days, in the
first class. They all chose the latter alternative and were taken to
the cells. Two days afterwards some of our members attempted to hold
a meeting in the Strangers' Lobby. As a result of this eleven of them
were sent off to join their comrades in gaol for fourteen days.

Still the Government refused to withdraw their hostility to votes for
women, Parliament remained apathetic, and still the majority of the
general public were content to allow things to remain as they were.
Therefore we felt that yet another protest must be made before the
year 1906 should come to an end, and on December 20th, the eve of
Parliament's rising for the Christmas holidays, Mrs. Drummond, who had
now settled in London, organised a third attack upon the House. Whilst
her followers were attempting to speak in the Lobby, she succeeded
in entering the House unobserved and in making her way by the back
passages to within a few yards of the sacred chamber of debate itself.
Here she was captured by the police, but she resisted their efforts to
remove her with so much spirit that she won the sympathy and admiration
of the constables; one of whom was heard to say, "I wish the members of
Parliament would come here and do their own dirty work!"

Next day as the evening-paper boys were eagerly crying the news
that another five women were gone to join those already in prison
and that twenty-one Suffragettes would now be spending Christmas
there, Parliament rose for the holidays. As the Members left the
House, comrades of the imprisoned women handed each one an envelope
inscribed:--"What a woman really wants for a Christmas box," and within
was a small slip of paper bearing the words, "A vote."

For the first batch of Suffragettes to be released from prison in
January, a Christmas dinner was provided by Mr. and Mrs. Pethick
Lawrence at the Holborn Restaurant, and for Mrs. Drummond and those
of the Suffragettes who were set free later, the first of the public
welcome breakfasts, which have since become an institution, was held
at Anderton's Hotel. The released prisoners were able to tell us that
Christmas day in Holloway is, except that one goes twice to Chapel,
exactly like all the other days of the year and that the Christmas
dinner, of which so very much is thought outside, is just the usual one
that would naturally fall at any other season to that particular day
of the week. But as Mrs. Hillier on their release, said, they went to
prison for "a cause that they held dear," and so, as Mrs. Martha Jones
added, they regarded having gone there, "not as a sacrifice, but as an
honour." What they had seen in Holloway had more than ever convinced
them of the pressing need that women should be enfranchised. "The
stories that I have heard in the Prison hospital," said Mrs. Baines,
"have reached to the bottom of my heart. I have come out with the firm
resolve to work on."

So the year 1906, the first year of the Union's work in London came to
an end. In October, the step of opening a permanent central office had
been decided upon and a large general office having a small private
room opening out of it was taken in Clement's Inn, Strand. It seemed a
big undertaking at first, but the offices were indispensable. The small
room was considered chiefly as Christabel's office, but all private
business was transacted there, whilst the large room was used for
general clerical work and as a meeting place. Weekly Monday afternoon
and Thursday evening At Homes, were held there and all those who had
joined the Union in those early days can remember Mrs. Sparborough
making tea and handing round bread and butter and biscuits, and
Christabel, with a sheaf of newspaper cuttings in her hand, standing
up on one of the chairs to furnish the latest news of the militant
campaign and to explain the next move in the plan of action.

On the following February 4th, Mr. Winston Churchill spoke in the
Free Trade Hall, Manchester, and he bargained beforehand with the
Suffragettes that they should not interrupt him during his speech, on
condition that he would answer a question on Women's Suffrage before he
left the platform. At the close of the meeting he accordingly did so
by saying definitely that he would not vote for a Bill to enfranchise
women on the same terms as men. He added that he greatly regretted that
"earnest, good-hearted women should pursue courses which brought them
suffering and humiliation," but "God forbid" that he should "mock" them
by concealing his opinion. My sister Adela then rose to ask if he had
intended to speak for himself alone, or on behalf of the Government,
an exceedingly important point. What followed is best described in the
words of an eye witness who wrote at once to Christabel at Clement's
Inn: "Last night's affair was terrible. It was a wonder someone was
not killed. Your sister was thrown down and kicked by several men.
The attack was really unprovoked; the stewards had made up their
minds to do it before the meeting. Your sister has a black eye, Mrs.
Chatterton's throat was hurt and Miss Gawthorpe would have been
seriously handled but that some men came to her rescue."

Many women who had long felt that there was "something wrong" with the
position of their sex, but had not realised that the possession of the
Parliamentary franchise could do anything to remove the disabilities
both of law and custom from which they suffered, were now being
awakened by the much-talked-of militant tactics to a knowledge of what
the vote could do for them. Moreover, many who for years had been
nominal adherents of the Suffrage movement, now began to feel that if
some other women cared so passionately for the cause that they were
prepared to throw aside all the usual conventions of good manners and
to thrust themselves forward to meet ridicule, scandalous abuse, ill
usage and imprisonment, it was surely time that they too should make
sacrifices. Their hearts smote them that they had not done more for it
in the past. But most of them as yet thought only of bolstering up and
stirring to new activity the old National Union of Women's Suffrage
Societies for they still looked upon the militant women as a rather
dreadful body of fanatics who could have no notion either of systematic
organisation or the prudent laying-out of money. Therefore, though
the W. S. P. U. was already growing largely, the N. U. W. S. S. was as
yet benefiting most largely from its activities. But times had changed
and even the most old-fashioned of the Suffragists were now ready to
copy the first non-militant doings of the Suffragettes and, in order
to prove that they really wanted the franchise, they too determined to
march in procession through the London streets. Therefore on February
9th, 1907, three days before the opening of Parliament, a crowd of
the non-militants assembled close to the Achilles statue at Hyde Park
Corner. It was a dismal wet Saturday afternoon, but in spite of the
rain and the muddy streets a procession of women half a mile in length
was formed and marched steadily on to attend meetings in Exeter Hall
in the Strand and in Trafalgar Square. This procession was afterwards
known as the "Mud March."

At the Exeter Hall the principal speakers who had been chosen to
address the gathering of women were Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Israel
Zangwill. Mr. Hardie devoted himself to urging the women to place
the question of their enfranchisement before all other party
considerations. Meanwhile a most extraordinary scene occurred, for,
whilst his remarks were punctuated by volumes of cheers from the great
body of the audience, a number of Liberal ladies on the platform set up
a hissing chorus.

When Mr. Zangwill came to speak, he, too, declared himself to be a
supporter of the militant tactics and the anti-Government policy, and
the same Liberal ladies, although they had themselves asked him to
speak for them, expressed their dissent and disapproval as audibly as
though they had been Suffragettes and he a Cabinet Minister. From Mr.
Zangwill's brilliant speech--his maiden speech as a politician as he
said it was--which has since been published under the title "One and
One are Two," I can but quote an extract to conclude this chapter:

 What is it that prevents the Prime Minister bringing in a Bill for
 Female Suffrage at once, in this very Parliament that is opening? He
 is in favour of it himself, and so is the majority of the House. The
 bulk of the representatives of the people are pledged to it. Here,
 then, is a measure which both parties deem necessary. A sensible
 woman would think that the first thing a Parliament would do would
 be to pass those measures about which both parties agree. Simple
 female! That is not man's way. That is not politics. What is wanted
 in Parliament is measures about which both parties _disagree_, and
 which, in consequence, can never be passed at all. I declare I know
 nothing outside Swift or W. S. Gilbert to equal the present situation
 of Women's Suffrage.... The majority have promised to vote for Women's
 Suffrage. But _whom_ have they promised? Women. And women have no
 votes. Therefore the M.P.s do not take them seriously. You see the
 vicious circle. In order for women to get votes they must have votes
 already. And so the men will bemock and befool them from session
 to session. Who can wonder if, tired of these gay deceivers, they
 begin to take the law into their own hands? And public opinion--I
 warn the Government--public opinion is with the women.... They _are_
 unwomanly--and therein consists the martyrdom of the pioneers. They
 have to lower themselves to the manners of men; they have to be
 unwomanly in order to promote the cause of womanhood. They have to
 do the dirty work. Let those lady suffragists who sit by their cosey
 firesides at least give them admiration and encouragement. "Qui veut
 la fin, veut les moyens." And undoubtedly the means are not the most
 ladylike. Ladylike means are all very well if you are dealing with
 gentlemen; but you are dealing with politicians.... In politics only
 force counts, but how is a discredited minority to exercise force?...
 There is a little loophole. Every now and then the party in power
 has to venture outside its citadel to contest a by-election. The
 ladies are waiting. The constituency becomes the arena of battle,
 and every Government candidate, whether he is for female suffrage
 or not, is opposed tooth and nail. For every Government--Liberal or
 Conservative--that refuses to grant Female Suffrage is ipso facto
 the enemy. The cause is to be greater than mere party. Damage the
 Government--that is the whole secret. Are these tactics sound? In
 my opinion, absolutely so. They are not only ladylike, they are
 constitutional. They are the only legitimate way in which woman can
 bring direct political pressure upon the Government.... Far better
 than to put yourself in prison is to keep a man out of Parliament....
 What Christianity cannot do, what charity cannot do, what all the
 thunder of your Carlyles and your Ruskins cannot do, a simple vote
 does. And so to these myriads of tired women who rise in the raw dawn
 and troop to their cheerless factories, and who, when the twilight
 falls, return not to rest but to the labours of a squalid household,
 to these the thought of Women's Suffrage, which comes as a sneer to
 the man about town, comes as a hope and a prayer. Who dares leave that
 hope unillumined, that prayer unanswered?... For fifty years now woman
 has stood crying: "I stand for justice--answer, shall I have it?" And
 the answer has been a mocking "no" or a still more mocking "yes." With
 this flabby friendliness, this policy of endless evasion. To-day she
 cries: "I _fight_ for justice and I answer that I _shall_ have it."

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Speaking at Leicester on January 30th, the Home Secretary, Mr.
Herbert Gladstone, was proceeding to extoll the promptitude and care
with which, he asserted, the Home Office inquired into alleged cases
of miscarriage of justice, when he was interrupted by cries of protest
from Annie Kenney and a band of other Suffragettes. Whilst they were
being speedily ejected, Mr. Gladstone tried to curry favour with the
audience by saying that he particularly regretted what had taken place
because his action in regard to the Suffragettes had been to reduce the
sentences passed upon them and to ameliorate their prison treatment. As
we have seen the change was only made in response to an unmistakable
public demand, and after Mr. Gladstone had begun by saying he had no
power to effect it.

[19] A cultured literary woman, who, with her husband, had recently
published two anthologies of music.

                             CHAPTER VIII

                       FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 1907

THE FIRST WOMAN'S PARLIAMENT IN THE CAXTON HALL AND THE SENDING OUT
OF THE MOUNTED POLICE TO DRIVE AWAY THE WOMEN'S DEPUTATION. MR.
DICKINSON'S BILL AND THE SECOND WOMEN'S PARLIAMENT.

And now again the thoughts of all the women who wanted votes were
turning towards the opening of Parliament. The old fashioned
Suffragists had held their demonstration during the recess but that
of the Suffragettes was still to come and it had been announced that
on February 13th, 1907, a Parliament of women would sit in the Caxton
Hall to consider the provision of the King's speech to be read in the
Nation's Parliament on the previous day. It was but a year since Annie
Kenney had set off to rouse London and since Mrs. Pankhurst had feared
that we should neither fill the Caxton Hall nor induce a body of women
to march for the sake of a vote through the London streets, but the
tickets were now sold off so rapidly that the Exeter Hall in the Strand
was also requisitioned, and we could now firmly rely on hundreds of
women who were ready and eager, not merely to walk in procession, but
if need be to risk imprisonment for the Cause.

Parliament met on Tuesday the 12th, and we soon learnt that the King's
speech had made no mention of Votes for Women. Therefore when the
Women's Parliament met at three o'clock next day, it did so ready for
decisive action. Mrs. Pankhurst was in the Chair, and throughout the
proceedings there were manifestations of an enthusiasm such as the
women of our time had before then never learnt to show. A Resolution
expressive of indignation that Votes for Women had been omitted from
the King's speech and calling upon the House of Commons to insist that
precedence should be given to such a measure, was moved in stirring
words and carried with every demonstration of fervent eagerness. A
motion that the resolution should be taken to the Prime Minister by a
deputation from the meeting was greeted with cheering and waving of
handkerchiefs. Then the watchword, "Rise up women!" was sounded, and
the answer came in a great unanimous shout, "Now," while hundreds of
women volunteers ready for Parliament or Prison sprang to their feet.

Mrs. Despard was chosen to lead the deputation, and, as each woman
marched out of the Caxton Hall, a copy of the Resolution for the Prime
Minister was put into her hand. We formed up in orderly procession,
and, amid the cheers of the thousands of men and women who had gathered
in sympathy, and with police walking in front of us, we marched into
Victoria Street and on towards the House of Commons.

It was cold but a shimmering dainty day, the sky a delicate rain-washed
blue and the sunshine gleaming on the fine gilded points on the roof of
the tall clock tower. We stepped out smartly and all seemed to be going
well, but when those who were in front reached the green in front of
the Abbey, a body of police barred their way and an Inspector called
to them to turn back, and ordered his men to break up the procession.
The police strode through and through our ranks, but the women at once
united again and pressed bravely on. A little further we went thus,
when suddenly, a body of mounted police came riding up. In an instant
Mrs. Despard and several others in the front rank were arrested, and
the troopers were urging their horses into the midst of the women
behind, scattering them right and left.

Still we strove to reach our destination, and returned again and again.
Those of us who rushed from the roadway on to the pavement were pressed
by the horses closer and closer against the walls and railings until
at last we retreated or were forced away by the constables on foot.
Those of us who took refuge in doorways were dragged roughly down the
steps and hurled back in front of the horses. When even this failed to
banish us, the foot constables rushed at us and, catching us fiercely
by the shoulders, turned us round again and then seizing us by the back
of the neck and thumping us cruelly between the shoulders forced us at
a running pace along the streets until we were far from the House of
Commons. They had been told to drive us away and to make as few arrests
as possible. Still we returned again, until at last sixty-five women
and two men, all of them bruised and dishevelled, had been taken to
the police station, and those who had not been arrested were almost
fainting from fatigue. Then, after ten o'clock, the police succeeded in
clearing the approaches to the House of Commons, and the mounted men
were left galloping about in the empty square till midnight, when the
House rose.

In spite of the fierce battle to keep them out, fifteen of the
Suffragettes succeeded by strategy in making their way into the
Strangers' Lobby of the House of Commons and at about six o'clock
attempted to hold a meeting there. The police, of course, rushed to put
them out and, in the confusion that ensued one of the women succeeded
in getting past the barriers and making her way down the passage
leading to the beautiful white inner lobby which opens into the sacred
chamber of debate. She had just reached the first set of swing-doors
when a Member of Parliament dashed up and slammed them against her
with such force that she was thrown to the ground and carried out in a
fainting condition.

Members of Parliament could scarcely fail to have been impressed by the
extraordinary scenes which had taken place, and when the adjournment
of the House was moved that night a Unionist Member, Mr. Claud Hay,
asked the Home Secretary whether it had been necessary to inconvenience
its Members by surrounding Parliament with a body of police, both upon
horse and foot, as great as though it had been a fortress instead of a
deliberative assembly. It appeared to him, he said, that Mr. Gladstone
was afraid of the women, but they were entitled to make a protest even
if it were not agreeable to Members of Parliament, and there was no
need to brow-beat them by using force. Mr. Gladstone replied that he
had very little knowledge of what had been going on outside the House,
but Mr. Claud Hay interrupted him with, "Then you ought to have!" At
that he hesitated and changed his tone, saying that it was the police
who were responsible for keeping open the approaches to the House,
that they had only done their duty, and that he hoped they would
continue to do it in the same way.

Next morning all the world was talking of the mêlée, and in the
newspapers there were long accounts and startling headlines describing
the scenes that had taken place. These were very much more favourable
to the women than any which had been published hitherto, for, though
the Press was still far from admitting the extreme urgency of the cause
of Women's Suffrage, or the need for the militant tactics as a means of
obtaining the Parliamentary vote, still a large section of both Press
and public were unanimous in condemning the Government for the violent
measures which it had employed to suppress the women's deputation. Many
compared the sending out of mounted police against a procession of
unarmed women to the employment of Cossacks in Russia, and the _Liberal
Daily Chronicle_ published a cartoon called "The London Cossack" which
showed a portly policeman riding off with a trophy of ladies' hats.

At ten o'clock on Thursday morning, January 14th, the fifty-seven women
and the two men who had been arrested on the previous day appeared at
the Westminster Police Court. The women were put in one of the side
rooms, and then a band of policemen filed in and each one identified
his prisoner. For most of the women this was a first visit to the
police court, and, though many of them were severely bruised by the
previous day's encounter, they were all determined to make the best
of the experience and to dwell, as far as possible, upon the humorous
side of the situation. Whilst the Suffragettes were ready to forgive,
the constables seemed mostly anxious to forget the violence, and
many of the men asked their captives to give them the round white
"Votes for Women" buttons which they were wearing as mementoes of the
women's famous "raid" on the House of Commons. After waiting until the
drunkards and pickpockets had been disposed of, the Suffragettes were
taken into the Court one or two at a time. Christabel Pankhurst, as
organiser of the Demonstration was, at her own request, the first to
be placed in the dock. She explained clearly that many of our members
had suffered very seriously, but that the W. S. P. U. wished to fix
the blame for what had occurred, not upon the police, but upon the
Government that had dictated the use of these measures for clearing
the women away. If the Government refused to take "the only just,
simple and proper way out of the difficulty--that of giving women
their undoubted right to vote," she said, "the responsibility must be
theirs, and if lives are lost in this campaign the Liberal Government
will be directly responsible. One thing is certain; there can be no
going back for us, and more will happen if we do not get justice." Mr.
Curtis Bennett, the magistrate, here intervened, saying with what he
evidently thought was unanswerable firmness, that the women undoubtedly
were responsible for all the trouble, that there were other means of
obtaining votes; and that these disorderly scenes in the streets must
be stopped. "They can be stopped," she retorted, "but only in one way."
He looked at her sternly, and "twenty shillings or fourteen days,"
was his sole reply. Then she was hurried away, and, in an incredibly
short space of time, fifty-four Suffragettes had been tried and
sentenced to undergo punishment varying from ten shillings or seven
days' imprisonment to forty shillings or one month. Forty shillings or
one month's imprisonment had also been imposed on a working man, Mr.
Edward Croft, who had been arrested for trying to defend one of the
women in Parliament Square. All those who had been convicted refused to
pay their fines and decided to go to prison, and whilst Mr. Croft was
removed to Pentonville, we Suffragettes were taken away in the van to
Holloway Gaol.

On arriving at the prison we found that, as was now the rule, most of
our number were to be treated as first class misdemeanants, though
some few, without any apparent reason were to be placed in the second
division. Those of us who had been there some months before now found
that several minor innovations had been introduced since our last
visit to Holloway. When we had originally been put in the first class,
Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, who was a vegetarian, was daily served with
the usual prison diet, and though she was obliged to leave the meat,
no extra vegetables were allowed her, and she was obliged to exist
on her potatoes and bread. Now a special dietary had been introduced
for vegetarians, which consisted at this season of an alternation of
carrots and onions, with occasional rather stale eggs as a substitute
for meat, and milk, night and morning, instead of cocoa and tea.
Butter was sometimes allowed by the doctor's special order. Now that
so large a number of us occupied adjoining cells in one corridor and
were sent out to exercise together apart from the other prisoners,
the authorities found it difficult to enforce the full rigour of the
prison régime. They found it difficult to prevent our speaking to
each other occasionally when we stood together in line waiting to be
marched to exercise or chapel; they could scarcely stop the tapping out
conversations on the cell walls which was carried on by neighbouring
Suffragettes. Sometimes, when the wardresses were off duty, one of our
number would strike up a hymn or march to which words suitable to our
movement had been adapted. The others would join in chorus; and when
the officers came hurrying back it would be some moments before silence
could be restored.

For one cause or another many of us were sent to the hospital, some
being placed in a ward with some twenty or thirty other prisoners,
others in separate hospital cells.

With the exception of Mrs. Despard and myself all the Suffragettes were
released at the end of the first fortnight, but our sentences did not
expire until a week later. A procession had been organised to welcome
our comrades, and a band had played for an hour outside the prison
gates. It is difficult to describe the effect upon ourselves which was
created by the music. We knew that it was being played by our friends.
We felt almost as though they were speaking to us, and to hospital
prisoners who are not even allowed to attend service in the chapel,
the very sound of the music in that dreary place was extraordinarily
impressive. It made one's pulses throb and filled one's eyes with tears.

The poor ordinary prisoners were filled with excitement and delight and
when we were out at exercise with them on the day before our release,
woman after woman contrived to walk for a few moments either before
or after one or other of us in the line and to ask if we also would
be met by a band. "How splendid for you!" said one of the girls to me
wistfully. "I only wish I had friends to meet me. But I am glad for
you." "We are looking forward to the band, but we shall be sorry to
lose you," another said.

Whilst so many of us had been in prison, a by-election had taken
place in South Aberdeen, where Mrs. Pankhurst, at the head of the
Suffragettes' forces, had vigorously opposed the Government candidate
whose majority had fallen by more than 4,000 votes.

The figures were:--

 G. B. Esslemont (L.)      3,779
 R. McNeill (C.)           3,412
 F. Bramley (Soc.)         1,740
                           _____
                             367

At the General Election the figures had been:--

 J. Bryce (L.)             6,780
 W. G. Black (U.)          2,332
                           _____
                           8,448

The Suffragists, too, had not been inactive, for Mrs. Henry Fawcett,
and four of her colleagues, had written to the Prime Minister asking
that they might be allowed to plead the cause of Woman's Suffrage at
the Bar of the House. They pointed out that in 1688, Anne, the widow
of Edward Fitz Harris, who was executed for treason in 1681, had been
allowed to speak for herself and her children at the Bar, and that
Mrs. Clarke, mistress of the Duke of York, had been summoned thither
to give evidence in regard to the charges of corruption against the
Duke. Nevertheless, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman refused to grant their
request on the ground that there was no precedent for women to appear
at the Bar of the House in support of a petition.

Meanwhile, since the so-called "Raid" on the House that had led to our
imprisonment, candid friends had been constantly telling us that we had
entirely alienated the sympathy of those who had hitherto supported
the enfranchisement of women. Yet, even whilst the "Raid" had been in
progress, a very much larger number of Parliamentary representatives
were agreeing to give their places in the private Members' ballot to
a Woman's Suffrage Bill than had ever done so before. When the result
of the ballot became known, it was found, that for the first time in
the history of the movement, the fortunate member who had secured the
coveted first place out of 670 was willing to devote it to introducing
a measure to give votes to women. It was a Liberal member, Mr.
Dickinson, who had won the first place and had decided to introduce the
Women's Enfranchisement Bill. The anti-Suffragists at once began to
work actively against the measure and the first Women's Anti-Suffrage
Society that had ever been formed was inaugurated to oppose it. Two
petitions against the Women's Enfranchisement Bill, one of them said
to be signed by 21,000 and the other by 16,500 persons, were presented
to Parliament on March 5th and March 22nd. They were heralded by
the jubilations of our opponents but when the petitions came to be
examined they were rejected by the Petitions Committee of Parliament
as "informal." This was because the separate sheets upon which the
signatures had been written were not each headed by the prayer against
the granting of Women's Suffrage, and there was consequently no
evidence to prove that the signatories had known for what purpose their
names were being collected. Afterwards Mr. J. M. Robertson examined the
Anti-Suffrage Petitions and reported that "whole batches of signatures
had been written in by a single hand," that "the batch work began on
the very first sheets," and that it appeared as though the petitions
"had been got up wholesale in this fashion." Mr. J. H. Wilson, M.P.,
Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Petitions, afterwards
stated in the House of Commons, that the names of whole families of
persons had undoubtedly been written in by the same hand. But even had
these petitions been so evidently authentic as to have been accepted
by Parliament without question, they would still have been quite
insignificant as compared with the great petitions and memorials in
support of Votes for Women, which had been presented year after year
since 1866. But the days in which women might have won or lost the
Parliamentary vote by petitioning had long gone by, and all politically
minded women knew this.

For a Member of Parliament to declare himself in open opposition
to Votes for Women, rendered him extremely unpopular, many of the
anti-Suffragists, especially of the Liberal Party, now pretended that
their reason for objecting to Mr. Dickinson's Bill was that they did
not consider it to be a democratic measure. They declared that it would
"disfranchise married women" would give the vote to women of wealth
and property only and would exclude all those who had to work for
their own living. So emphatically was this statement made that it was
difficult to convince many people that the measure in question was the
old equal Women's Enfranchisement Bill, and that there was no intention
of introducing some new-fangled, fancy franchise. Yet as a matter of
fact, Mr. Dickinson's Bill contained only a slight alteration in the
wording, though not in the sense, of the last clause of the original
measure. Instead of the phrase "any law or usage to the contrary
notwithstanding," which occurred in the original Bill and was intended
to strike at the disability of coverture which affects married women,
the words, "A woman shall not be disqualified by reason of marriage
from being so registered and voting, notwithstanding any law or custom
to the contrary," were substituted.

On moving the Second Reading of the Bill, Mr. Dickinson dealt
especially with the objections of those who declared that the measure
was anti-democratic. He stated, that in 1904, the women electors in his
constituency of North St. Pancras had numbered 1,014. Of these women
three per cent. had belonged to the wealthy upper class, thirty-seven
per cent. to the middle class, and sixty per cent. to the working
class; many of the latter being exceedingly poor.

When asked by the Secretary of the Local Women's Suffrage Society in
his constituency of Dunfermline, whether he would support the second
reading of the Bill, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had replied, "I will
with much pleasure give my support to Mr. Dickinson's Bill when it
comes before the House of Commons." Now that the moment for fulfilling
his promise had arrived, however, the Prime Minister threw cold water
upon the measure. "I am not very warmly enamoured of it," he said, and
after casting doubt upon the accuracy of Mr. Dickinson's figures he
added, that in his opinion, the Bill would merely "enfranchise a small
minority of well-to-do women." Where the Prime Minister had led, the
rank and file Anti-Suffragist Liberal Members of Parliament followed.
Though they had neither facts nor figures of their own to quote in
support of their contention, and, in face of both of Mr. Dickinson's
figures and Mr. Snowden's reminder that the I. L. P. census of 1904 had
shown that eighty-two per cent. of the women on the Municipal Register
belonged to the working classes, they still continued to assert that
only "a handful of propertied women" could obtain votes under this
Bill. At the same time, although they themselves belonged almost
exclusively to the middle and upper classes, they persistently stated
their belief in the dangerous influence of the women who belonged to
those same classes.

As the afternoon wore on attempts were made to move the closure of
the debate in order that a vote on the Bill might be taken, but the
Speaker refused to accept the resolution, and at five o'clock Mr. Rees,
the Liberal Member for Montgomery Burghs talked the measure out after
a five hours' debate. There was no protest from the Ladies' Gallery
this time as the Suffragettes had all been rigorously excluded, but
both Suffragettes and Suffragists combined in urging the Government
to give another day for the discussion of the Bill. This they curtly
refused, and though the Suffragettes had not agreed to accept the
decision as final and intended to renew their demand until it was
granted, Mr. Dickinson shortly afterwards withdrew his Bill in order
to make way for a Women's Suffrage Resolution, a place for which had
been obtained by Sir Charles M'Laren. No sooner had Mr. Dickinson's
Bill been withdrawn and Sir Charles M'Laren's Resolution set down in
its stead than it was blocked by a discreditable move on the part of a
well known anti-Suffragist, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Maurice Levy. Taking
advantage of a rule of the House of Commons by which a Resolution
cannot be proceeded with, if a Bill dealing with a similar subject has
been introduced, this Liberal member now brought forward a Bill which
he never intended to be discussed to give a vote to every adult man and
woman. Therefore Sir Charles M'Laren's Resolution was thus entirely
shelved. This was not by any means the first time that the trick had
been used in the case of a Women's Suffrage motion, but the device was
acknowledged to be an unjustifiable abuse of the Procedure rules. Mr.
Levy refused even the Speaker's request to withdraw his dummy Bill.
Protests were raised on all sides of the House, because it was realised
that, if the practice of bringing in dummy Bills to prevent discussion
were to become common, the right of private Members to introduce
Resolutions would be entirely destroyed. A Resolution embodying this
point of view was therefore agreed to, and Mr. Asquith promised that
the Government would take action in the matter.[20] Though the
question was raised again three months later, however, the promise
was never kept, and though the general feeling was that Mr. Levy had
offended against the recognised etiquette of Parliament, it must be
remembered, that, as the _Standard_ put it "if the Government had
chosen to exercise pressure Mr. Levy would have proved complaisant."[21]

But after all this was only a Resolution, and, realising that the
Government, with practically all the time of Parliament at its
disposal, could easily provide the few days necessary for carrying into
Law a Woman's Suffrage measure, the Women's Social and Political Union
were now preparing for further militant action.

On the day of the talking out of Mr. Dickinson's Bill a meeting had
been held by the Union in the Exeter Hall at which Mrs. Pethick
Lawrence had called for subscriptions to inaugurate a £20,000 campaign
fund, and over £1,400 had been sent up to the platform during the
meeting. On March 20th, 1907, the second Women's Parliament assembled
in the Caxton Hall.[22] This Parliament was specially characterised
by the large numbers of delegates from the provinces, amongst whom
was a contingent of Lancashire Cotton Operatives, led by Annie Kenney
and wearing their clogs and shawls. As before, the decision to carry
a resolution to the Prime Minister was heralded with an enthusiasm
that was almost fiercely overwhelming. Then, when Christabel Pankhurst
called out from the platform, "Who will lead the deputation?" Lady
Harberton, for many years a Suffragist of the old school, eagerly
answered "I," and at once hundreds of women sprang up to follow her. As
soon as the deputation gained the street the police began to push and
hustle them, but though overwhelmingly outnumbered, they bravely strove
hour after hour to carry out their purpose. Rigid lines of police drawn
up across the approaches to the House prevented their even getting near
to it, and though at one point a number of Lancashire mill hands drove
up in a couple of waggonettes, and, being mistaken for sightseers,
succeeded in reaching the Strangers' Entrance, they were discovered and
beaten back.

Meanwhile Caxton Hall was kept open all the afternoon and on into the
evening, and the disabled women were constantly returning thither. They
brought with them the news that numbers of women had been arrested, and
that though Lady Harberton had at last got into the House of Commons,
her petition had been ignored. Christabel Pankhurst then advised any
who might succeed in entering Parliament to take sterner measures,--to
rush, if they could, into the sacred Chamber of debate itself, to
seat themselves upon the Government bench and demand a hearing. "If
possible," she cried, "seize the mace, and you will be the Cromwells of
the twentieth century!" The women rushed back with renewed zeal.

It was now dark, and, as the crowds grew denser and denser and the
police turned on them more angrily, many Members of Parliament,
including Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. Lloyd George, came out to watch
the scene. Some showed distress at the way in which the women were
being treated, but others regarded it as a joke. Many of the women were
roughly handled and some were seriously hurt, but, speaking generally,
the violence used against them was not so great as on the previous
February 13th. It was said that no fewer than a thousand extra police
were especially drafted into Parliament Square to guard the House of
Commons.

Amongst those who had been arrested were Dr. Mabel Hardy, Miss Naici
Peters, a Norwegian painter and a friend of Ibsen, Miss Cemino
Folliero, a portrait painter from Rome and Miss Constance Clyde, a well
known Australian journalist and novelist.

Next day when the women were brought up before Mr. Horace Smith