 Chapter 4 of The Suffragette, The History of the Woman's Militant Suffrage Movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 4. January to May 1906 Annie Kenny sets off to rouse London, the scene in the ladies' gallery and the deputation to Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman. As soon as the general election was over, we began to make preparations for the opening of Parliament. It was decided that the work of our union must be carried to London and that we must have an organizer there who would be able to devote the whole of her time to it. Annie Kenny, who after her imprisonment had never gone back to the mill, was chosen for this post. The election campaign had put a severe strain upon the resources of the union and from the first the raising of funds had been our greatest difficulty. Therefore it was with only two pounds in her pocket and the uncertainty as to whether more would be forthcoming that Annie Kenny set off to rouse London. Perhaps no one realized what a heavy task and how many bitter rebuffs were before this sensitive fragile girl. I took a room for her in the house where I was staying at 45 Park Walk, Chelsea, in order that we might consult and as far as possible work together. The Committee in Manchester had not formulated any definite plans of campaign, but we came to the conclusion that we must organize a procession of women and a demonstration in Trafalgar Square for the day of the opening of Parliament. When Annie went to Scotland Yard to inform the police of our intentions, however, she was told that no meeting in Trafalgar Square could be allowed whilst Parliament was sitting. This forced us to the conclusion that we must hire a hall somewhere near Westminster for our meeting place, but we knew not where to find the money to pay for it. This and other difficulties, however, were one by one smoothed the way. Mr. Keir Hardy and Mr. Frank Smith, afterwards elected to the London County Council as Member for Lambeth, were the first to help us and they advised us to take the Caxton Hall Westminster and put us in touch with a sympathizer who agreed to pay the rent of it. As soon as we had taken the hall we drafted a little handbill to announce the meeting, and then armed with her bills and her wonderful faith in the goodness of her fellow men and women, Annie Kenny proceeded with her mission, calling day by day upon people of whom she knew practically nothing and to whom she herself was entirely unknown. One of those who kindly helped us was Mr. W. T. Stead, who published the Review of Reviews, a character sketch of Annie Kenny in which she likened her to Josephine Butler. It was soon plain to us that it would be easier to ask for help if we formed a London branch of the WSPU, and with my aunt Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Lucy Rowe, our landlady, we therefore formed a preliminary committee. In about a fortnight's time my mother joined us. She was surprised to learn that so many arrangements had been made and at first was almost inclined to be appalled at the boldness of our plans. She was afraid that we should never induce more than a handful of women to walk in procession through the public streets and that the Caxton Hall could not be filled. But the die was cast and she threw herself into the work determined to do her very best to prevent failure. A few days after this we heard that Mrs. Drummond was coming from Manchester to help us. Her husband was earning little at the time and the Union had no money to provide her railway fare, but she had walked miles through the snow in order to collect the necessary funds from her friends. When she arrived we were all of us growing very weary and overwrought. It seemed almost impossible to stir this great city, filled with its busy millions who appeared to have no time to think of anything but their own affairs. The thoughtless apathy of those whom we met with money and leisure at their disposal, the dull hopeless inertia of those who agreed that we were right but would not stir themselves to help or to us in our anxiety almost maddening. But Mrs. Drummond, with her practical ways and her inexhaustible fund of good humour, brought with her a spirit of renewed hope and energy. Her first act was to go to the office of the Oliver Company and borrow a typewriter from them. The secretarial duties were thus enormously lightened and after rattling off the correspondence she was always ready to join us in delivering handbills, canvassing from house to house or writing announcements of the forthcoming meetings with white chalk upon the city pavement. At last the day of the opening of Parliament, February 19, 1906, arrived and a crowd of some three or four hundred women, a large proportion of whom were poor workers from the East End, met us at St. James Park District Railway Station. We formed in procession and put up a few simple banners, some of which were read with white letters and had been made by working people in Canningtown, whilst the rest I had made of white linen and lettered with India Inc. in the little sitting room at Park Walk. Our procession had gone but a few yards when the police came up and insisted upon the furling of the banners, but they did not prevent our marching to the Caxon Hall nearby. Here we found that a large audience had already assembled and soon the hall was crowded with women, most of whom were strangers to us. We were told afterwards that amongst the rest were many ladies of wealth and position who, inspired with curiosity by the newspaper accounts of the disturbances, which we were said to have created, had disguised themselves and their maids closed in order that they might attend the meeting unrecognized. Mrs. Pankhurst, Annie Kenney and others who spoke were listened to with much earnestness and presently the news came that the King's speech, the government's legislative program for the session had been read and that it had contained no reference to the question of women's suffrage. My mother at once moved that the meeting should form itself into a lobbying committee and should at once proceed to the House of Commons in order to induce its members to ballot for a women's suffrage bill. This resolution was carried with acclamation and the whole meeting streamed out into the street and made its way to the House. It was bitterly called and pouring with rain, but when we arrived at the stranger's entrance we found that for the first time that anyone could remember the door of the House of Commons was closed to women. Cards were sent in to several private members, some of whom came out and urged that we should be allowed to enter, but the government had given its orders and the police remained obdurate. All the women refused to go away and permission was finally given for twenty women at a time to be admitted. Then hour after hour the women stood outside in the rain waiting for their turn to enter. Some of them never got into the House at all and those who did so went away gloomy and disappointed for there was not one of them who had received any assurance that Parliament intended to give women the vote. Now after a chance meeting with Mrs. Bankhurst and a second long talk with her and with Annie Kenny a new recruit had entered our movement. This was Mrs. Pethic Lawrence, the daughter of Mr. Henry Pethic of Western Super-Mare and a member of a Cornish family. As a child at school she had read the story of Hettie Sorrell in George Eliot's Adam Bede, had seen Faust and Marguerite in her prison cell. Later she had learned from Sir Walter Besson's children of Gideon of the cheerless struggle to eke out an existence upon starvation wages which falls to the lot of working girls. Then and there she had resolved to spend her life in striving to alter these conditions. She determined that as soon as she left school she would go to the East End and begin. When the time came she had once acted upon this decision. Without seeking help or advice from anyone she wrote to Mrs. Hugh Price Hughes of the West London Mission and asked that she might be received into her sisterhood. When her request had been granted she told her parents of what she had done and they readily gave their full approval and sympathy. After four years of useful training and varied experiences in the West London Mission during which she had at sometimes the charge of a working girls club and at others had been sent out at night onto the London streets in order to save and sucker the homeless and outcast women there she and her friend Miss Mary Neal took rooms in a block of artisan's dwellings and gathered round them a small colony of social workers. Together they founded the Esperance Working Girls Club to which was attached a cooperative dressmaking establishment and a holiday hotel at Little Hampton called The Green Lady. Later on after her marriage Mrs. Pethic Lawrence built a small cottage near her house at home what called The Sundial where the junior members of the Esperance Club were invited during the summer. Writing of these early years and of her own decision to take part in the votes for women movement she says, out of that part of my life there stand out many memories. I remember a little girl belonging to the Children's Happy Evening Club who went mad with grief because her widowed mother lost her work and was in despair. The dread of being separated in the workhouse was upon the whole family and the child was taken to the asylum crying, poor, poor mother. I remember a girl about twenty alone in the world earning a pittance as a waitress in a tea shop. She was a quiet, gentle creature who made no complaint. All the greater was the shock when the girl put an end to her life leaving a little note with the words, I am tired out. These two cries still ring out at times in my memory with their terrible indictment against life as men have made it. We recognize the fact that we were only making in a great wilderness a tiny garden enclosed by the wall of human fellowship. As we saw more and more of the evil plight of women we realized ever more clearly that nothing could really lift them out of it until the power had been put into their hands to help themselves. Suddenly a light flashed out. News came of the arrest and imprisonment of Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney. Here at last was action. So it was that Mrs. Pethic Lawrence had prepared herself to take part in the Great Votes for Women movement. We had now decided to organize our London Committee on a more formal basis. Mrs. Lawrence was asked to become one of its members and I well remember her coming to my little room in Park Walk to take part in the formation of the new Central Committee. It was the first time I had seen her and I can never forget how much I was attracted by her dark expressive eyes and the quiet business-like way in which she listened to what was being said only interposing in the debate when she had something really valuable to suggest. It was later that I noticed the untrammeled carriage in the fine free lift of the head. The first meeting was towards the end of February and it was arranged that Mrs. Lawrence, her friend Mrs. Mary Neal, myself, Annie Kenney, my aunt, Mrs. Clark, Mrs. Rowe, Miss Irene Fenwick Miller, daughter of a well-known early suffragist, and Mrs. Martell of Australia should form the London Committee with my mother and Mrs. Drummond who were returning to Manchester. It was decided that I was to become the honorary secretary and Mrs. Lawrence was asked to be honorary treasurer. We now felt that our next move must be to secure an interview with the prime minister and we therefore wrote to Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman asking him to receive a deputation from our union. He replied that he could not spare the time to see us. Our answer was that owing to the urgency of the question we could take no refusal and that a number of our members would call upon him at the official residence number 10 Downing Street on the morning of March 2, 1906. Downing Street is a short road opening out of Parliament Street and ending in a flight of steps leading into St. James Park. There are now only three houses left in the street, the others having been pulled down to make way for government buildings. The official residence itself was not built for its present purpose and consists of two comfortable-looking Georgian houses knocked into one, each of which is three stories high with attics above and has three windows along the front of the first and second floors and two windows at a door below. The door is a dark green, almost black, and has a black iron knocker, a lion's head with a ring in its mouth. Above this knocker is a small circular brass knob about half an inch in diameter and very highly polished and under the knocker is a brass plate equally well polished inscribed, First Lord of the Treasury. There is one shallow, well-whitened doorstep and on each side of it are black iron railings that protect the house from the street. The next house, number eleven, is a slightly more ornate building in the same style which was then occupied by Mr. Herbert Gladstone. On presenting themselves at the door of the official residence, the deputation from the Women's Social and Political Union were told that Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman could receive no one as he had been ill and was still confined to his room. A request to see the Prime Minister's secretary was also refused and the door was shut. Then deciding to wait there until they were attended to, the deputation sat down to rest on the doorstep and displayed a little white votes for women banner. We had notified the various newspapers that we intended to call on Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman and by this time a number of press photographers had collected. Note six. This greatly embarrassed the inhabitants of number ten and presently the Hall Porter opened the door again and looking very uncomfortable begged the women to go away. Annie Kenney assured him that she and her companions would remain all day if need be and after arguing for some time, scratching his head and looking very much puzzled, he finally asked two members of the deputation to go inside where they were received by Mr. Ponsambi, the secretary, who promised to give their message to his chief. The same evening we held another committee meeting and drafted a further letter to the Prime Minister asking for an early opportunity of laying our case before him. In response to this letter, he returned an evasive reply in which he stated that any representations that the Union wished to make to him must be put in writing. We therefore decided that another attempt must be made to interview him and after waiting until he had made a complete recovery and was again able to take his part in the House of Commons debates, a larger deputation consisting of several members of our committee and some thirty other women made their way to Downing Street about ten o'clock on the morning of March 9th. They again asked to see the Prime Minister and the doorkeeper promised to give their message to the secretary. After they had been waiting for three quarters of an hour, two men came out and said to them, you had better be off, you must not stand on this doorstep any longer. The women explained that they were waiting for a reply but were abruptly told that there was no answer and the door was rudely shut in their faces. Angered by this, Miss Irene Miller immediately seized the knocker and wrapped sharply at the door. Then the two men appeared again and one of them called to a policeman on the other side of the road, take this woman in charge. The order was at once obeyed and Miss Miller was marched away to Cannon Row police station. Spurred on by this event, Mrs. Drummond, exclaiming that nothing should prevent her from seeing the Prime Minister, darted forward and pulled at the little brass knob in the middle of the door. As she did so, she discovered that the little knob, instead of being a bell, as she had imagined, was something very different indeed, for suddenly the door opened wide. Without more ado she rushed in and headed straight for the cabinet council chamber, but before she could get there she was caught, thrown out of the house and then taken in custody to the police station. Meanwhile Annie Kenny began to address the gathering crowd but the man who at first called the policeman again looked out and said, Why don't you arrest that woman, she is one of the ring leaders, take her in charge. Then she was dragged away to join her companions. The three women were detained at Cannon Row for about an hour. Then a police inspector told them that a message to set them at liberty had been sent by the Prime Minister, who wished them to be informed that he would receive a deputation from the woman's social and political union, either individually or in conjunction with other women's societies. Of course we published Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman's Promise broadcast. Shortly afterwards 200 members of parliament drawn from every party petitioned Sir Henry to fix an early date for receiving some of their number in order that they might urge upon him the necessity for an immediate extension of the franchise to women. He then formally announced that on May 19th he would receive a joint deputation both from members of parliament representing the signatories to this petition and all the organized bodies of women in the country who were desirous of obtaining the suffrage. All the women's societies now began to make preparations for an effective demonstration on May 19th. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies decided to hold a meeting in the Exeter Hall, but we of the women's social and political union wished to do something very much more ambitious than that, and we resolved to organize a procession and a demonstration in Trafalgar Square. In view of the immense work that this would entail, we felt the necessity of engaging another organizer, and my mother now recommended that Miss Billington should be asked to undertake the work. Born in Blackburn in 1877, Teresa Billington, the daughter of a shipping clerk, had been educated at a Roman Catholic convent school. Owing to financial difficulties at home she had been sent to learn millinery at 13 years of age. At 17 she had made up her mind to be a teacher, and having obtained one of the Queen's scholarships she eventually became a teacher under the Manchester Education Committee. When she was first introduced to us she had come into conflict with the authorities because of her refusal to give the prescribed religious instruction to her pupils. My mother, who was then a member of the Education Committee, intervened to secure that she should be transferred to a Jewish school where she would not be expected to teach religion and thus prevented her dismissal. In 1904 at my mother's request she had been appointed as an organizer for the Independent Labour Party. About the middle of April, a few weeks after the Prime Minister had given his promise to receive the deputation, a parliamentary vacancy occurred in the I-Division of Suffolk, and Christabel wrote to our London Committee saying that she thought it advisable that we should go down to the constituency and intimate the Liberal candidate that, unless he could obtain a pledge from his government to give votes to women, we should oppose his return and that we should take a similar course in the case of every future government nominee. Mrs. Pethic Lawrence, Annie Kenney and Theresa Billington therefore went down to I and interviewed Mr. Harold Pearson, the Liberal candidate, but he treated the question of votes for women with contempt and ridiculed the idea that women could do anything to hinder his return. Owing to the size of that large county constituency and the pressure of work in London, these three members of our committee then decided to return to London. But at home in Manchester they were exceedingly anxious to see the policy of opposition to the government at by-elections put into practice. The funds of the Manchester branch of the Union were entirely depleted, but five pounds was got together and addressed to the electors of I from the Women's Social and Political Union was printed and Mrs. Drummond set off to the constituency to fight the election single-handed. Five pounds to fight an election campaign seems an absurdly small sum when one realizes that the candidate spent many hundreds. Nevertheless, though she was entirely friendless and unknown in that part of the country, Mrs. Drummond succeeded in creating a wonderful impression. She could not afford to hire a carriage it is true, but there was always a friendly farmer or tradesman who would give the cheery little scotch woman a lift in his cart and so active was she that in a short time the impression was spread abroad that not one solitary suffragette had gone to eye but that several were working from different centres. Before the end of the election the Conservative candidate and even scornful Mr. Harold Pearson the Liberal had declared in favour of votes for women. Meanwhile Mr. Keir Hardy had secured a place for a woman's suffrage resolution which was to be discussed in the House of Commons on the evening of April 25th. Though a resolution is only an expression of opinion and can have no practical legislative effect, this was considered important because it was realized that if the new parliament were to show a substantial majority in its support the women's claim that the government should deal with the question would be greatly strengthened. Unfortunately only a second place had been obtained for the resolution. Hence there was every reason to fear that as so often before our talkative opponents would succeed in preventing its being voted upon. The situation became more hopeful however when the anti-vivisectionists who had obtained the first place for the evening entered into a compromise by which they agreed to withdraw their resolution early. The way was thus left clear for the votes for women resolution but we ourselves still thought the talkers out would probably have their way. We were determined not to allow this to happen without protest. Therefore in order to be in readiness for any emergency a large number of us had obtained tickets for the ladies gallery. Looking down through the brass grill from behind which women are alone permitted to listen to the debates in parliament we saw that the House was crowded as is usual only at important crises and that both the government and opposition front benches were fully occupied. The resolution that in the opinion of this House it is desirable that sex should cease to be a bar to the exercise of the parliamentary franchise was moved and seconded in short speeches in order that the opponents should have no least excuse for urging that there had been no time for their own side to be fairly heard. Then Mr. Cramer rose to speak in opposition. His speech was grossly insulting to women and altogether unworthy of a member of the people's House of Representatives. Both by his words, his voice, and gestures he plainly showed his entire view of women to be degraded and indeed revolting. Yet though one was angry with him he was an object for pity as he stood there, undersized and poorly made, obviously in bad health and with that narrow, grumbling and unimaginative point of view flaunting his masculine superiority. The women found it very difficult to sit quietly listening to him and though my mother strove to check them some subdued exclamations got the speaker's ears. He immediately gave orders for the police to be in readiness to clear the ladies' gallery if any further sound should issue from it. But once Mr. Cramer had finished speaking absolute quiet was restored. Mr. Willie Redmond, brother of John Redmond, the leader of the Irish party then indignantly protested against the tone of Mr. Cramer's speech crying fervently that he himself had always believed in women's suffrage because all his life he had been opposed to slavery in any form and declaring that any of God's creatures who are denied a voice in the government of their country are more or less slaves and that men have no right to assume that they are so superior to women that they alone have the right to govern. All through the debate everyone was waiting for a declaration from the government. At last Mr. Herbert Gladstone the home secretary rose to speak but his words were vague and evasive and whilst not absolutely excluding the possibility of the governments taking the matter up he certainly made no promise on their behalf. At ten minutes to eleven Mr. Samuel Evans rose with the obvious intention of talking the resolution out and as eleven o'clock the hour for closing the debate drew nearer whilst spinning out his remarks by means of some very doubtful jokes he kept turning round every now and then to look at the clock. Our eyes were also eagerly fixed upon the timepiece. Every moment one woman or another stretched across and asked Mrs. Packhurst whether the demonstration of protest should begin but her answer was always that there was time yet and that we must wait. At last someone looked round and saw that the police were already in the gallery and we realized that we were to be taken away in order that the resolution might be talked out without our having an opportunity to protest. Irene Miller could no longer be restrained. She called out loudly, divide, divide, as they do in the House of Commons, and we refused to have our resolution talked out. Then we all followed suit and Teresa Billington thrust a little white flag bearing the words, Votes for Women, through the historic grill. It was a relief to thus give vent to the feelings of indignation which we had been obliged to stifle during the whole of the evening and though we were dragged roughly out of the gallery it was with a feeling almost of triumph that we cried shame upon the men who had wasted hours in useless talk and pitiful and pointless jokes with which to insult our countrywomen. But the rough usage of the police was not by any means the hardest part of the experience. When we reached the lobby we learned that our action had been entirely misunderstood. A number of non-militant suffragists were present and most of these believed as the members of parliament were telling them that but for our injudicious action a vote would have been taken upon the resolution. They met us with bitter reproaches and disdainful glances and even those members of parliament who had proved themselves to be absolutely careless of our question now took it upon themselves to come up and scold us. On all sides we were abused, repudiated and contemptuously ridiculed but after a few days public opinion began to turn somewhat in our favor. It leaked out that the speaker had not intended to allow a resolution calling for the closure of the debate to be moved and it therefore became known that we had judged correctly in thinking that the woman's suffrage motion was to be talked out. Writing in the Sussex Daily News for May 2, Mr. Spencer Lee Hughes, well-known under his pen name, Sub Rosa, recalled the account given in Lady Mary Montague's memoirs of the way in which the peeresses of the 18th century had frequently disturbed the serenity of the House of Lords debates and how they had triumphed over the Lord Chancellor Philip York, first Earl of Hardwick, who had attempted to exclude them from the House of Lords. Lady Mary describes the thumping, rapping and running kicks at the door of the House of Lords, indulged in by the Duchess of Queensbury and her friends, the strategy by which they finally obtained an entry and the way in which, during the subsequent debate, they showed marks of dislike not only by smiles and winks, which have always been allowed in these cases, but by noisy laughs and apparent contempts. Mr. Hughes ended by saying, After this excellent and pertinent account of the action of the peeresses in the House of Lords, I suppose no one will be so silly as to complain of what the women did the other day in the House of Commons. Mr. Stead, in the review of reviews, published an article by a woman's writer who said, Instead of upholding what we had done to rebuke the anti-suffragists for their mean and cowardly policy of obstruction, a policy which had prevented the enfranchisement of women for so many years, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, and some of the members of the Parliamentary Committee, which was at the time engaged in arranging the deputation to the Prime Minister, now urged that the women's social and political union had disgraced itself too deeply to form part of the deputation. Efforts were made to induce us to withdraw from it, but this were refused to do. At last, both because some members of Parliament, and it is said Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman himself, strongly supported our claim to be represented, and because it was well known that if we were not received, we should simply agitate for another deputation, the attempt to exclude us had to be abandoned. On the morning of May 19th, our procession started from the Boa de Silla statue on Westminster Bridge. First came the members of the deputation to the Prime Minister, amongst whom were to be seen the veteran suffragist, fragile little Mrs. Wollstone-Holmele with her grey curls, Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Pethic Lawrence, Mr. Keer Hardy, and Annie Kenney, wearing the clogs and shawl which she had worn in the Lancashire cotton mill. Amongst the deputation marched a body of women textile workers from Lancashire and Cheshire, who had joined us carrying the bright banners of their respective trades. Then came the great red banner of the Women's Social and Political Union, inscribed in white letters with the words, We demand votes for women this session. The polls of the banner were lashed to a big forage lorry in which wrote a number of women who were either too old or too feeble to walk. After these came the members of the Women's Social and Political Union and women members of various other societies, and last of all, a large contingent from the east end of London, a piteous band, some of them sweated workers themselves, others the wives of unemployed working men, and many of them carrying half-starved looking babies in their arms. The deputation which assembled at the Foreign Office was introduced by Sir Charles McLaren, and it was arranged that there should be eight women speakers. The first of these was the agent Miss Emily Davies, LLD, one of the two women who in 1866, more than 40 years before, had handed to John Stuart Mill the first petition for women's suffrage ever presented to Parliament, and whose part in opening the university examinations to women and in founding Gertin, the first of the women's colleges, will be gratefully remembered by women of all ages. In pleading for the removal of the sex disability Miss Davies said, we do not regard it as a survival which nobody minds, we look upon it as an offence to those primarily concerned and an injury to the community. Then Mrs. Eva McLaren, Miss Margaret Ashton and Mrs. Roland Rainey, representing respectively some 80,000, 99,000 and 14,000 women liberals in England and Scotland, urged each in her own way that the party for which these women had done so much should extend the franchise to them. Miss Eva Gore Booth and Mrs. Sarah Dickinson, who had herself been a factory worker for 16 years and a trade union organizer for a further 11 years, then spoke on behalf of the 50 delegates from the Lancashire and Cheshire Textile and other workers' representation committee. They dwelt on the low wages, often no more than six or seven shillings a week, and the other heavy economic hardships under which the women whom they represented were obliged to labour. They pointed out that these women, millions of whom since leaving school had never eaten a meal which they had not earned, were not only helping to produce the great wealth of the country but were caring for their homes and their children at the same time and urged that they were every day more gravely conscious of the heavy disadvantage under which they suffered from their absolute lack of political power. Industrial questions were now becoming political questions, they said, and the vast numbers of women workers had their point of view and their interest which ought to be taken into consideration but which were disregarded because they were without votes. Next followed Mrs. Gasson, the speaker for 425 branches and 22,000 members of the Women's Cooperative Guild. She said that the cooperative movement with its 62 million members and annual trade of 60 million pounds had often been called a state within a state. In that state women had votes, they attended quarterly business meetings and voted side by side with men on questions of trade, employment and education. Women were elected as directors of cooperative societies and also in educational committees connected with the cooperative movement. And yet the prosperity of the cooperative state continued to increase although in many places the women members outnumbered the men. The cooperative guild women saw that when questions affecting the cooperative movement came before parliament the movement lost much of its power because the women had no vote. Unwise or unjust taxation was injurious to the cooperative trade and women were the chief sufferers by unjust taxation. Whatever taxes were put upon necessaries men did not receive larger incomes and so women had less to spend. That very month Mr. Beryl had received resolutions from large conferences of the cooperative guild members urging that medical examination should be made compulsory under the new education bill but the resolutions were worth nothing without a vote behind them. The women who had sent up these resolutions felt like a crying child outside the door of a locked room demanding entrance with no one to open it. Most of the cooperators were married working women. Their houses were both their workshops and their homes and therefore housing and public health questions were especially important to them. Their incomes were affected by laws relating to trades, accidents, pensions and all industrial legislation that went to secure the good health of the workers. Therefore they appealed that this common right, the right of a citizen, should be granted to them and to other women. Mrs. Watson spoke on behalf of the Scottish Christian Union of the British Woman's Temperance Association with a membership of 52,000 women. Then Mrs. Mary Bateson presented a petition for the franchise from 1,530 women graduates amongst whom were doctors of letters, science and law in the universities of the United Kingdom, the British colonies and the United States. Mrs. Pankhurst spoke for the Women's Social and Political Union, the militant organization 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 preparative 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. Keer Hardy 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. Hardy 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. Keer Hardy and solemnly shook his head. After the resolution had been seconded by Mrs. Elmi, whose name had not been placed upon the authorized 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 million. 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 disenfranchised 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 Kenny 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 Beals 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 blows struck which won the parliamentary vote for the working men in the towns. It was here too that in February 1866 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 Lonell had been trampled to death by the horses of the police. On this ground, consequent 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 woman's suffrage meeting in London was held. By three o'clock more than seven thousand 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. Teresa Billington in her bright blue dress, strongly built and upstanding, her bare head crowned with those brown coils of wonderfully abundant hair. I see Kier Hardy in his rough brown home-spun jacket, with his deep-set, honest eyes and his face full of human kindness, framed by the halo of his silver hair. Then Mrs. Elmi, fragile, delicate and wonderfully sweet, with her face looking like a tiny bit of finely-modeled, finely-tinted porcelain, her shining dark brown eyes and her long gray 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 plate just as she wore it in the cotton mill. Over her head she wears a gray 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 surged 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 stonework 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. Footnote 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. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of the Suffragette, The History of the Woman's Militant Suffrage Movement by E. Sylvia Pankhurst This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 5 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 a 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, Teresa 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 at the end of his speech Mr. Asquith was questioned by several women, all of whom were ejected with the greatest violence while 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. Teresa 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 dog-whip, 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. Note 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 honourable 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 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. H. Sylvia Pankhurst. Honourary Secretary of the London Committee of the Women's Social and Political Union 45, Park Walk Jossi, SW. Mr. Asquith returned no answer to this our second letter, and therefore, without making any further attempt to obtain his consent, 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 30 or 40 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 30 of the East End members marched off in procession for Mr. Asquith's house, but on arriving at the edge of Cavangish 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 a fright 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 unlooker, 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 an 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 onto the pavement opposite number 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. Farborough, 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 these soldiers were sent to Featherstone. Notate. A policeman immediately pounced upon her and dragged her away. At the police court afterwards, Teresa Billington, on being charged with an assault upon the police, refused either to give evidence or to call witnesses in her defense, 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 ten pounds or, in default, to go to prison for two months. Notate. Mrs. Billington chose imprisonment but her resolution was bogged by an anonymous reader of the Daily Mirror who handed the amount of her fine to the governor of Holloway Jail. Notate. 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 recognizances in the sum of fifty pounds and to find one surety for the same amount to be of good behavior 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 reprain from similar methods of agitation. Rather than this, Annie Canney 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 jail. In the meantime there were stirring do-ings in Manchester. On June 23 there had been a great liberal demonstration at the Zoological Gardens Bellevue 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 affect 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 Kenny and her comrades in London, with the result that Adela was committed to prison for a week on refusing to pay a fine of five shillings and cost, whilst Mrs. Morrissey and Mrs. Mitchell on refusing to be bound over to keep the peace were imprisoned for three days. Note 11 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. Kier Hardy, 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. Kramer and Mr. Madison 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 Kenny, Knight and Sparrow, calling them mock martyrs and martyrettes and publishing hideous and libelous drawings of them. Even the stator and more serious periodicals gave one-sided and biased accounts of what had taken place, rebuking the suffragettes for what they termed their disgraceful behavior, 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 realization, therefore, of their aim 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 Devises. Four men were respectively hanged at Bristol and three in Nottingham. The Bishop of Litchfield 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 bishop's palaces. A general strike was proposed and secret arming and drilling commenced in most of the great charter 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 penile servitude were passed. In this way the male set a splendid example of constitutional methods in agitating for the franchise. I think we are well qualified to advise the suffragists to follow our example, to be respectful 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 3, 1906. The day after the trial, Mrs. Pethic Lawrence received from Annie Canney 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 woman'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 upborn by the greatness of the cause for which she suffered and cried with her last breath. Mother, I die of joy. The movements 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 pitiful of all civilized 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 one for British women within a few months time. Very soon after Annie Kenny, Mrs. Knight and Mrs. Sparrow 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 marketplace where she sold votes for women literature. When by this mean 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 Randalls, the unionist candidate had been returned by a majority of 690. The figures being Sir John Randalls, Unionist, 4593, Honourable F. Guest, a Liberal, 3903, Robert Smiley, Labour, 1436, The votes at the general election had been Sir W. Lawson, Liberal, 5439, Sir J. Randalls, Unionist, 4784. 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 I 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 Smiley 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 interest 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 was 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 this 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 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 organizations and counting as not the opinions of private members of parliament. The WSPU 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 and 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 fail 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 woman'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 it 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 favor, 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 14 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 Kenny were both white and feeble-looking but only spoke of their anxiety to be of service to the cause whilst Mrs. Sparboreau 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 low. And now great meetings of welcome to the prisoners were being held in London and provincial campaigns were being organized 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 Kenny 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 woman 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 that 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 Gothorpe. Note 12. Another new recruit, a winsome Mary 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 is so sparkling a fund of her party that she held dumb with astonished admiration vast crowds of big slow thinking workmen and succeeded in winning to good temperate 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 29th of April and who was now appointed a law officer of the Crown was coming to speak to his constituents. Ms. Gothorpe 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 woman suffrage debate in the House of Commons she should keep her husband at home. In London the work was being organized 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 and 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 a 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 Robbins 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 sewing 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 her 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 tale 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. Tredging 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 on to the pavement. Then dozens of hands helped her to recover her property. Footnotes. Seven. 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. Note Eight. 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 working men 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. Farborough, like many other persons, had of course read of this. Note Nine. On a protest being raised in the house, this sentence was afterwards reduced by half. Note Ten. 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 authorized 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. Note Eleven. Mr. Morrissey, who could not afford to leave his business, was regretfully obliged to pay his fine. Note Twelve. Mary Gothorpe 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 Scholarship. She had represented the Leeds Labor Church on the Local Labor Representation Committee. She had been a member of the Leeds Committee for the Feeding of Schoolchildren and the Leeds Committee of the National Union of Teachers. In 1906 she had been elected as Labor Delegate to the University Extension Committee. She was Vice President of the Leeds Independent Labor Party and Secretary to the Women's Labor League. End of Chapter Five. Chapter Six of the Supperjet, The History of the Woman's Militant Supperage Movement, by E. Sylvia Pankhurst. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Six. 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 Jail. On October 3, 1906, Parliament reassembled 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. Pethic Lawrence were amongst those who succeeded in gaining 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. Pethic 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 there reached to that legislative chamber which had so frequently refused to grant them the franchise. Once made, the resolution was acted upon without delay. Mary Gotthorpe mounted one of the settees close to the statue of Sir Stratford 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. Despert, a sister of General French, a tall, aesthetic-looking grey-haired figure, stepped into the breach, but she was also 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 Kenny, who had scarcely recovered from the effects of her last imprisonment, had been told by the committee that she must not take part in the demonstration for fear that she should again be 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. Pethic Lawrence was being roughly handled and impossibly 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 Adele Pankhurst, and Mrs. Howe Martin, B. S. C., who had recently become honorary secretary of the London Committee of the Women's Social and Political Union. Note 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 Sikert 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 had once exceeded 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 managed clothes or as emotional and over strung. On the contrary, she is just what Reynolds, Hobna, Sir Henry Rayburn or Romney with his softest and tenderest touch would have loved to paint. Not very dull 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 strand should mar the neatness of her aspect. Her cheeks are tinged with a soft dull rose at one season 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 ring-leaders 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 ten pounds 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 failed 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 Samu had actually taken their seats had been tricked into leaving. I pointed out to him that 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 are 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 that 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 policemen and dragged back into the courthouse. 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 one pound or 14 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 one 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 and sanitary but many hours to wait before we were 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 had allowed 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 of 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 cheered 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 dangling 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 spyhole 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 so. 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 vanload of prisoners arrived and the cubicles being filled several women together were put into the same compartment 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 did waiting in a line together. The wardress passed constantly up and down our ranks saying all of you unfasten your chest. 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 shells with two or three wardresses hovering about and one seated at a table 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, jewelry, hairpins and haircombs. She gave us back the hairpins 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 let us through a doorway into the dimly lit bathroom. The baths were separated from each other by partitions and from the rest of the room by a half-door which had no fasting 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 course calico and harsh woolen 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 were several large wrenches which had been roughly cobbled together with black cotton. Note 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 were given to us and we were let off on a long journey to the cells. Note 15 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 around 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 color 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 desk which one sees in draper shops were 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 Kenny had told us that a toothbrush 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 but though by this time I was very hungry none had been given to me. Note 16 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 white wash 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 framework and guarded by strong iron bars outside. The iron door was studded with nails and its round eye-like spyhole 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 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 blocked tins tapped with the broad arrow a wooden salt-saller a small piece of hard yellow soap a red card case containing some prison rules which was printed a morning and evening prayer a small oval hairbrush 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 toothbrush. 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 blocked 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 dustpan and a piece of bath brick wrapped in some rags for cleaning the tins these were also placed in an order which as I soon learnt was never to be changed a small towel and a smaller tablecloth both of them resembling dishcloths 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 one in position for sleeping is raised up by two cross pieces to about two inches from the floor as I was examining and 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 night-dress I asked but she answered no note 17 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 called at night one always suffers terribly from the want of air I learned 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 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 twelve 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 surge 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 scored 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 in onto 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, twelve? 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 labor card is fifteen 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 born 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 twenty-seven you look like a cinderpicker you must learn to dress decently here hold up your head number thirty hurry up twenty-three in the chapel it is your turn don't look about twelve 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 views seem young all are anxious and care-worn 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 if etch 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-cuttered 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 the glossy plumage some are gray with purple throats some have black markings on their wings some are a pale brown color 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 and 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 you next 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 failed your mind and driven away all other thoughts once inside the last break in the day will be separate 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 in the cry are you all right then darkness a long sleepless night and the awakening to another day like yesterday and like tomorrow footnotes thirteen these 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 fourteen some days afterwards it was condemned and I had a somewhat better one given to me fifteen we afterwards learnt that one clean handkerchief was supplied each week so we had no pockets to keep them in sixteen 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 seventeen since this time night dresses have been introduced into Holloway and are given to suffragettes and let us hope to other prisoners end of chapter six