CHAPTERXVIHOLLOWAY REVISITED: MY FOURTH IMPRISONMENTI determinedthat I would do my work alone. I was afraid that, if I combined with others, I might fail them, through illness, when they counted on me. Some days later Miss Lawless said she would come too, and, as she kindly chose to do the job with me, all was well. I selected a post office window in Victoria Street, on the left-hand side, facing Westminster. I went to buy some stamps there the day before to make sure of my bearings. I studied all the windows where it would be safe, and where not safe, to do the work of smashing without hurting anyone inside.A friend, Mrs. MacLeod, came to see me the evening before, November 20, 1911. She brought me flowers, lovely lilies-of-the-valley and two bunches of violets. She told me she had bought them in Piccadilly from a girl that was sitting round the fountain. “They are for a friend of mine who is going to fight for the women to-morrowâ€; she wasn’t sure she had said it in a way the girl could understand. “Oh! May God bless her, God bless them all! Here, lady, take this extra bunch of violets for her.†She called this out enthusiastically, as she collected the flowers.This time I had a small hammer as well as three stones wrapped in paper. The hammer, of course, wasthe safest as well as the most efficient of my tools, but one had to be quite near to the window in order to use it. Another dear friend, Dr. Alice Ker, came to me from Liverpool on the day, Tuesday, November 21. She was coming to the fray in Westminster, but she did not wish to get arrested. Towards six o’clock we took a taxi and went together to the beginning of Victoria Street. Then we got out and each went our own way. I walked up and down the street, first along one side, then along the other, and I inspected the side parallel streets. Victoria Street I had always supposed was rather a long one, but on this occasion it was infinitely short, and I seemed to pass the same people over and over again. Once I jumped into a ’bus to go up again towards Westminster, and there I came across many of my friends, who doubtless were going to the preliminary meeting at Caxton Hall. At last when standing, as it seemed to me, for the fiftieth time in front of a door with pillars, which was our trysting place, I met Miss Lawless and soon after Miss Douglas Smith, who had said she would join us for a little, as she had to go to all who were “active†in Victoria Street. We turned into a “Lyons†for some tea, the whole place was full of our friends and a detective or two. A cat was there; she came to lie on my lap and I had to turn her off when we left.The time was getting near; we were to wait until the clock struck 8; we were none of us to move before and not much later. At last there was a noise of many people coming round the corner of a street; it was Mrs. Pethick Lawrence walking at thehead of her Deputation. A large crowd surrounded them and cheered them on their way to Westminster. Miss Lawless and I had taken up our position already on the steps leading to the post office we had selected. As soon as the Deputation had passed, the clock of Big Ben began striking eight. I said, “I can wait no longer,†and I turned and smashed the glass of two doors and one window. I raised my arms and did it deliberately, so that every one in the street could see. Miss Lawless smashed the windows to my right. We were going down the steps and I was afraid no policemen had been near, when two came from over the way. All was peaceable and friendly. My policeman said to me with a smile, “I’ll take you this way, lady, see? And that won’t inconvenience you.†With that he adjusted his grasp at my elbow. I said to him: “Unless you are obliged, don’t hurry your pace more than you can help,†and he walked at my pace through Westminster to Cannon Row. He also disarmed me, taking my hammer. In Westminster the crowd was immense and at the bottom of Whitehall, but we got through all right, and Miss Lawless kept close behind me.Cannon Row was already crowded with women. We stood in a closely packed ring to give our names, and afterwards our names were called out before we went upstairs. To my surprise and great delight Lady Sybil Smith was there. I knew she herself had been wishing to go on a deputation for some time. We were taken into the cells to be searched, but this was not the grim business that it sounds. We were left to walk quite by ourselves; a policemanshowed us in and we were put four or five together in a cell. The door was left open, and a wardress asked respectfully if she might search us. We said, “Yes, most certainly,†and began to deliver up our stones. The wardress’s face was all kindness, and no sooner had the policeman gone away from the door than she burst out with: “Oh! you ladies, I’d be with you to-morrow if it weren’t for my child. I am a widow with one child. If only these politicians knew what that meant! They can talk fine about the widow, but when it comes to her earning a livelihood they don’t help her.†It seemed wonderful, she understood. Meanwhile she was picking out the stones from our pockets. We were allowed to go back to the central room as soon as it was finished, we left a friend behind us in the wardress. Upstairs, in the policemen’s billiard room, we sat in crowds, and everything was noticeably different from last time. All was joy and triumph, and there seemed the echo of these from the street. I felt quite an old hand, and was going about the room collecting telegrams; I had bought a packet of forms on the chance. A policeman was singled out and stood waiting for them in a meek and respectful attitude. One woman, who looked about sixty or sixty-five, had written a telegram but had put no signature; I asked if there was to be none. She hesitated for a moment and then added: “Well—put Mother.†I thought it must be rather trying when it was a “daughter,†but much more when it was a “mother,†and she getting on in years. There was a girl lying down in the window recess where I had gone with my cough last time; she was ashypale. I went up to her and asked her if she felt ill. Her face immediately lit up with a radiant smile—“I’m not ill now, but I have been for three months.†I said how wonderful was the feeling of the movement, as one realised the difference which a year had made it was impossible that one should feel depressed, though one might be depressed for oneself. “No,†she said, “I am never depressed now.†Had she a mother? “Oh! mother would be here too, only she is a cripple.â€Mrs. Pethick Lawrence had come and was given a great cheer. She looked well and beamingly happy. The Deputation had been much more hustled about than we who had done damage, but still, there was no real roughness that I could hear of, and they had been arrested comparatively quickly. Mr. Lawrence’s welcome face came and he bailed us out, though it was a long business this time. When we drove away, every window in Whitehall bore the mark of the women upon it, with the unmistakable smashing, till it looked, as I passed, as though every window smiled.On Wednesday, November 22, I sent off a telegram, saying that I was arrested, to our organiser at Liverpool for a meeting at which I was going to speak. It was a joint meeting of W.S.P.U., National Unionist and Conservative Suffragists; Lord Selborne was to speak for the Conservatives. It had been arranged when we were at peace with the Government; that peace was now at an end. I then went to Bow Street. There were crowds of women; we each took luggage and wraps, for under Mr. Winston Churchill’s new rule we wereallowed to wear our own day and night clothes, and not obliged to have prison food. There was no difference in being allowed to see visitors or have letters. Books not dealing with current events were allowed, but one could not take them out of prison. At Bow Street we were put into the big room upstairs; again a policemen’s billiard room. Large as it was, it was very crowded, and I kept my seat on my luggage in the passage outside. Amongst others, there was a little American woman, whose husband stuck by her like a man till he should be separated by imprisonment. They had been in India, had heard much there about the Suffragettes, and one lady with whom they had dined had warned him against his wife becoming one of them. I saw there two Hertfordshire members, which did my heart good, when I remembered that a little time ago the whole county was asleep. Whenever I was able, I sat back on my luggage and wrote letters; it was the only way I could escape from talking to everyone, which was most delightful but I was very tired. We waited all day to learn in the evening that we must return to-morrow. I went to my mother from Bow Street who was staying in London at that time.Three times this autumn, after making a speech, I had been taken with heart-seizure and incapacitated for about a quarter of an hour. On Thursday morning, November 23, I was ill, on waking, with a heart collapse. In spite of my best efforts, I could scarcely hold up my head or speak. Mrs. Francis Smith, one of my dearest friends, had come to my rooms to see how I was, and she determined to callat Bow Street and find out for me if I could not put off going there till the afternoon. She came back, saying that she had had an interview with Inspector A——, who had already shown great kindness to me, and he had said I was not to trouble about the morning, that it would do quite well if I came in the afternoon. I lay down on my bed till nearly 2 o’clock, when I felt much better. Then I went to Bow Street. The woman who did my room came with me and carried my luggage; she also fetched me milk into the police station. She knew several of the policeman personally, so she managed everything very easily. I went on a deputation with Mrs. Haverfield and Mrs. Mansell-Moulin to Inspector A——, to say that unless the women could be told on leaving whether they would be wanted the next day, they would not go away. As this meant finding cells for all of us—we were 220 women in all—probably we should have to be put four or five in a cell together; it was speedily arranged and we were told that night when we should be wanted; I was one of those who came the following day. I went again that evening to my mother.The next morning, Friday, November 24, I woke all right and went to Bow Street quite happily. Before our trial we were taken down into the passage next the police court, and putvis-à -visto the policemen who had arrested us, as at my first trial. The magistrate was Sir Albert de Rutzen, who was too old for his work. Miss Lawless was accused with me. The hammers and stones were shown in witness against us, and the damage estimated at£3 15s.Mr. Muskett, the prosecutor, in totallingup my record, mentioned that I had been to Holloway after a deputation to the House of Commons, and in Newcastle I was imprisoned for throwing a stone at a motor car, but he did not mention “Jane Warton†at Liverpool. When I reminded him that he had left her out, he said testily, “Well, I’m very glad if I have.†I said it was quite true that I used a hammer and stones to break windows. I realised that this was the only effective means of protest left to us by a Government which boasts of Liberalism and representation where men are concerned, but ignores the elementary principles of representation where women are concerned. Votes and riot are the only form of appeal to which this Government will respond. They refuse us votes, we fall back on riot. The wrongs they inflict on women are intolerable, and we will no longer tolerate them—— Here the magistrate interrupted me; he could not enter into a discussion on the subject, and referred to the fact that Mr. Asquith had received a deputation last Friday. I said, “I heard Mr. Asquith say he would do nothing in regard to women.†The magistrate then advocated peaceful agitation. I answered that this Government have said they will do absolutely nothing as a Government, and Mr. Asquith is exactly where he was in 1908; all our peaceful agitation has been valueless in his eyes. I said that although we committed the acts alleged, we were not guilty of crime, our conduct being fully justified by the circumstances of the case. “I appeal to you, Sir, to vindicate the fundamental laws of liberty which our country has revered for generations,†and with thatI concluded. Miss Leslie Lawless said that if to fight for one’s liberty was a crime, she was guilty, but she pleaded not guilty, as that was the only protest that this Government understood. Our sentence was one of a fine of 40s.and37s.6d.damage each, or fourteen days’ imprisonment—half the sentence that I had received when I went to the House of Commons, doing absolutely nothing and being mauled by the police.We were not put into the cells, but again taken upstairs to a room close to the larger one. There was my friend, Adela Smith, with Olive Schreiner’s friend, Mrs. Purcell, and Mrs. Tudor, of St. Albans. All these were not among the condemned, but had been let in to see their friends. Towards half-past five Inspector A—— came and told me that presently a taxi would be round to take me to Holloway, that there would be a policeman inside, but that the other two could be any “fellow criminals†I liked. I at once chose Mrs. Leigh, who had been condemned to two months’ imprisonment, though she was said only to have struck a policeman in defence of another woman. I was immensely proud to take her with me. I also chose Miss Lawless. The policeman was in plain clothes and very amiable. Miss Lawless discovered that she had left her purse behind. We went back for it, and, on arriving at Bow Street, I decided that the constable should get out with Miss Lawless, put her in charge of another policeman, then return and mount guard on us. He was delighted to do this. From the point of view of our safety, of course, nothing could have been more absurd; we were notin the courtyard of the police-station, and nothing would have been easier than to open the door the other side of the pavement and, with the noise of the street, Mrs. Leigh or I could have escaped. But it was understood all round that this was not the game, and we waited quietly for the policeman to return and, finally, Miss Lawless and the purse.At Holloway all was civility; it was unrecognisable from the first time I had been there. There were no reception cells for us, but we were taken at once to our separate cells in D X, where, after a time the Matron, and afterwards the doctor came to see us. Nothing could have been more charming than the Matron—another woman than had been there before. She asked me at once after Miss Davison; was she coming this time? The Matron had been at Manchester when the hose-pipe had been played on her. This she asked before two wardresses, and in a voice of sympathetic intonation. I said I did not think she was coming this time, but it would not be long probably before she was in prison again. Then came Dr. Sullivan. His manner was kind, as it had always been, but I no longer felt the same towards him since he had fed some of the prisoners by force. He said at once, after testing my heart, that I could not stay there, but must go at once to hospital. I said I was much more comfortable where I was than in the general ward, and that I could not sleep there. He said he meant to put me in a cell apart. I was then moved over to the hospital side. There on the ground floor was the superintendent officer I had known before. I smiled, but she looked as if she did not recognise me. She went with meupstairs. “I believe,†I said, as she opened a door, “it is the very same cell I had before.†“No,†she answered, “the one next door,†and her reserve, to my great delight, broke down. I unpacked my flannel sheets, my flannel nightgown, and my long bed-socks, and made myself ready for the night. It was almost unbelievable to have so much comfort in a place which before had been the very acme of discomfort. They brought me a pint mug of milk and a small white loaf before the night. It was about eight o’clock by the time I got to bed, but the hours, I supposed, were the same as they had been in Holloway before, and besides, I was dead tired.The next day, Saturday, November 25, I felt ill in the morning. The prison was scarce of food—at least, there were no vegetables; they gave me bread and butter and a pudding for luncheon. The Governor came, Dr. Scott, and he was amiability itself, I was only to take care of myself. Since all was made easy, I stayed in bed that day.The girl who was let in to wash my floor was fair-haired, with a most pleasant and intelligent face. I longed to know about her, but a wardress stood at the door looking on at her work all the time, and I did not once catch her eye. On Sunday, November 26, I felt no better and again stayed in bed. The second doctor, a new man, who was pleasant in his manner, came to see me. In the morning when I had been let out to the sink, the little prisoner who washed my floor met me coming out. My back was turned for a moment; she patted my shoulder and said, in a tone of voice of utmost comfort, “Cheer up!†By the time I looked round she was off somewhereelse and no one would have supposed that she had communicated with me. After that I was determined to get some snatch conversation with her when she was in my cell. When she washed out that morning, I said to her—it was always the first thing—“How long have you got?†“Three years,†was the answer. This greatly surprised me, for Holloway was not the place for long sentences, but I could not ask her then, there was not time to tell, only time for bare questions and answers. I asked, “What was it for?†“Stealing my mother’s skirt,†she said. This was more startling than ever. Where was the mother’s skirt one could “stealâ€? But the wardress looked in and we were obliged to stop. On another occasion she told me that she had been very ill on first coming to Holloway, and that was why she had been kept there. Another time she slipped this notice under the door, and signalled to me by opening the gas-jet glass from the passage. On one side of the little torn bit of paper was written, “Z— A—, Boardstil Institution, Hailsbrayâ€; on the other side, “I shall be glad to hear from you because I have no friends at all and it will cheer me up.†I longed to speak to her, but I did not see her again after this. It was my last morning in prison when she put this paper under the door. After I came out I, of course, wrote to her, thanked her for her cheering words to me, asked if I might go and see her, and sent her a little3d.book of extracts from my father’s poems. I sent these to the chaplain at Aylesbury and asked him if he would deliver them. He sent my letter back, saying that he would not be allowed to give it, for shehad already chosen as her correspondent her grandmother or some old lady. I do not know anything of her, of her failings or virtues; I only know that there was no loosening the net that clung round her so tightly for three years.On Sunday, November 26, in the afternoon I went out to exercise. This was indeed a changed world. All of us assembled were walking about arm in arm, as we liked, in rows facing each other, or round the ground; some of us went apart in a little side-walk, all talking to one another, and all, of course, wearing our own clothes. One or two wardresses were there, but they were smiling all the time and chatted with us. One of them asked me why I had not come to visit Holloway. I told her that they would not allow “criminals†to come back except as prisoners, that I had tried in vain. She said I could come as someone who visited the cooking places, or something of that kind. I was afraid I was too well known in Holloway, as I had paid rather frequent visits to the Governor. I saw and walked with Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, arm in arm, and nothing that we did caused any disturbance.On Monday, November 27, I stayed in bed again, and at about 11 o’clock the doctor came and offered me vegetable soup from outside, and massage from my masseur-doctor, Mr. May. I said surely that would not be allowed! He told me that of course in the ordinary course of things it was not allowed, but, if I wished for it, he would see what he could do. I refused all these offers, which were not, so far as I knew, offered to the others. I heardafter my release, how my dear friends had put themselves about to get me all these things, and how my servant had brought soup to the prison every day, which she had made. I had a tin of biscuits sent in to me and some orange sweets. As I was not feeling well, I was unable to eat these, but I managed to give a good many to the girls who washed my cell. I only once got a look into the general ward. I saw Mrs. Mansell-Moullin, Mrs. Mansel and others, but it did not seem to be the thing for the prisoners from the cells to go into the general ward. That night Mrs. Mansel came in to see me from there. She and some others were to be released the next day. She had suffered from influenza and had a bad time of it while she was in prison. We had a long talk, and she gave meThe Man-made World, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, to read, as a wonderful book that had just come out. She was not allowed to take it out with her. The publisher, Mr. Fisher Unwin, had kindly sent me the book, but I had not yet had time to read it. I read it that night and found it all that she had said—a most remarkable book. It is dedicated to a man, showing that the woman’s movement has in it nothing, as is sometimes supposed, against men, but only against the vices of some men. In a chapter called “Crime and Punishment,†this passage struck me with intense truth:“Does a child offend? Punish it! Does a woman offend? Punish her! Does a man offend? Punish him! Does a group offend? Punish them! ‘What for?’ someone suddenly asks. ‘To make them stop doing it!’ ‘But they have done it.’ ‘To make them not do it again, then.’ ‘But they do it again and worse.’ ‘To prevent other people’s doing it, then.’ But it does not prevent them—the crime keeps on. What good is your punishment to crime? Its base, its prehistoric base, is simply retaliation.â€On Tuesday, November 28, I felt much better and went out to exercise in the morning. While there I was summoned to see the Governor. He told me that my fine had been paid anonymously and that I was free. Among my friends there is none that I can think of who would have paid my fine; my state of health, I suppose, after the forcible feeding, was “dangerous,†and it was thought safest to pay the fine “officially.†To my great surprise, the superintendent came with me to my flat. She was very dear but quite “official.†As I had packed up my things rather quickly, I felt ill and not inclined to talk much. She told me how very overworked the superintendent officers had been with the 220 Suffragette prisoners there were this time, she herself sometimes not getting to bed till one or two in the morning. She looked very tired and I felt very sorry for her. It seemed hard that, when they made us prisoners, so much extra work should fall upon the wardresses. When we reached the Duke’s Road, I did not like to ask her into my rooms, not knowing who would be there, so I said good-bye to her, kissed her, and begged her to take back the taxi at my expense. This, however, she refused to do; she preferred to go home by omnibus, and we parted at the front door. I went upstairs and found three of my friends. We were delighted to see each other, but they soon went away, and I rolled wearily into bed.I frequently had to lie up during the winter and spring months that followed. On May 5, 1912, I had a stroke and my right arm was paralysed; also, slightly, my right foot and leg. I was taken from my flat to my sister Emily Lutyen’s house, and for many long months she and my mother and Dr. Marion Vaughan were kindness itself to me. From that day to this I have been incapacited for working for the Women’s Social and Political Union, but I am with them still with my whole soul.And what is this which yet comes to us from the prisons? The torture of the “Cat-and-Mouse†Act and of forcible feeding! Oh! if only people could know what these things signify! But surely they must understand that they are barbarous practices such as we have not tolerated for long in our prisons. “Cat-and-Mouse†Act—what does it mean? The prisoner does not eat or drink, nothing to pass the lips; it may be three days, it may be a week, it may be nine days. Then the prisoner is let out, watched day and night, and taken back to prison, back to hunger and thirst, till she is again at death’s door. This they do twice, three times, four times, five times, till life is all but out. Not yet have the Government admitted that they will stop the “Cat-and-Mouse†torture short of death itself. And the forcible feeding—what is that? The only possible excuse for it is that it prolongs the prisoner’s sentence by so many days, so many weeks, and that is all. But heed what it is. I have described it exactly as it was done to me. See what it has meant in the recent case of Mary Richardson. It took eight wardresses and one man to overcome her.On two occasions it was said: “Twist her arms—the only way to unlock them.†They held her feet by pressing in the hollow of her ankles. Occasionally the doctor pressed her in the chest to hold her down. He announced that he was going to use the stomach tube. As he could not get through her teeth, he put his fingers to the extremity of her jaw, and with his finger-nail deliberately cut her gum and cheek until her mouth was bleeding badly. He then inserted the gag and stomach tube, but she was so choked by the process that he stopped the feeding, and said he would return to the nasal tube. This is inhuman, like the feeding of a beast—no, of an insentient thing. Where is the gain? A week or several weeks more of imprisonment, and you have let in torture to our form of punishment; yes, and repeated torture, for these prisoners are let out by the “Cat-and-Mouse†Act, and, on those ghastly terms, the police will mount guard on them to seize them again if, according to their judgment, they have regained sufficient fitness.And why are these women imprisoned? Because they and many thousands, or rather several millions, of women with them, have asked for the vote, but the Government would not give it to them. For forty-five years women have supported their demand in Parliament for enfranchisement with ever increasing vigour. Petitions, processions, meetings and resolutions all over the country were infinitely greater in number than have been achieved for any other reform. When the Conciliation Bill was framed, women waited to see what the Government would do for them; the vote on the second readingof the Bill, for the second time, was immense. Women listened to the pledges of the Government and they seemed to hold out a certainty of the vote. Now, when these promises have all been broken, women have taken to burning empty houses, railway stations and stacks, though they have respected life and refrained from wounding, as men would do for far less a cause. Yes, and they will burn buildings until they are treated rationally as an equal part of the human race.I hear the cry go up from all parts of the country, “How long? How long?†The time is fully ripe, when will women be represented in Parliament by the vote, equally with men?BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO.LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
I determinedthat I would do my work alone. I was afraid that, if I combined with others, I might fail them, through illness, when they counted on me. Some days later Miss Lawless said she would come too, and, as she kindly chose to do the job with me, all was well. I selected a post office window in Victoria Street, on the left-hand side, facing Westminster. I went to buy some stamps there the day before to make sure of my bearings. I studied all the windows where it would be safe, and where not safe, to do the work of smashing without hurting anyone inside.
A friend, Mrs. MacLeod, came to see me the evening before, November 20, 1911. She brought me flowers, lovely lilies-of-the-valley and two bunches of violets. She told me she had bought them in Piccadilly from a girl that was sitting round the fountain. “They are for a friend of mine who is going to fight for the women to-morrowâ€; she wasn’t sure she had said it in a way the girl could understand. “Oh! May God bless her, God bless them all! Here, lady, take this extra bunch of violets for her.†She called this out enthusiastically, as she collected the flowers.
This time I had a small hammer as well as three stones wrapped in paper. The hammer, of course, wasthe safest as well as the most efficient of my tools, but one had to be quite near to the window in order to use it. Another dear friend, Dr. Alice Ker, came to me from Liverpool on the day, Tuesday, November 21. She was coming to the fray in Westminster, but she did not wish to get arrested. Towards six o’clock we took a taxi and went together to the beginning of Victoria Street. Then we got out and each went our own way. I walked up and down the street, first along one side, then along the other, and I inspected the side parallel streets. Victoria Street I had always supposed was rather a long one, but on this occasion it was infinitely short, and I seemed to pass the same people over and over again. Once I jumped into a ’bus to go up again towards Westminster, and there I came across many of my friends, who doubtless were going to the preliminary meeting at Caxton Hall. At last when standing, as it seemed to me, for the fiftieth time in front of a door with pillars, which was our trysting place, I met Miss Lawless and soon after Miss Douglas Smith, who had said she would join us for a little, as she had to go to all who were “active†in Victoria Street. We turned into a “Lyons†for some tea, the whole place was full of our friends and a detective or two. A cat was there; she came to lie on my lap and I had to turn her off when we left.
The time was getting near; we were to wait until the clock struck 8; we were none of us to move before and not much later. At last there was a noise of many people coming round the corner of a street; it was Mrs. Pethick Lawrence walking at thehead of her Deputation. A large crowd surrounded them and cheered them on their way to Westminster. Miss Lawless and I had taken up our position already on the steps leading to the post office we had selected. As soon as the Deputation had passed, the clock of Big Ben began striking eight. I said, “I can wait no longer,†and I turned and smashed the glass of two doors and one window. I raised my arms and did it deliberately, so that every one in the street could see. Miss Lawless smashed the windows to my right. We were going down the steps and I was afraid no policemen had been near, when two came from over the way. All was peaceable and friendly. My policeman said to me with a smile, “I’ll take you this way, lady, see? And that won’t inconvenience you.†With that he adjusted his grasp at my elbow. I said to him: “Unless you are obliged, don’t hurry your pace more than you can help,†and he walked at my pace through Westminster to Cannon Row. He also disarmed me, taking my hammer. In Westminster the crowd was immense and at the bottom of Whitehall, but we got through all right, and Miss Lawless kept close behind me.
Cannon Row was already crowded with women. We stood in a closely packed ring to give our names, and afterwards our names were called out before we went upstairs. To my surprise and great delight Lady Sybil Smith was there. I knew she herself had been wishing to go on a deputation for some time. We were taken into the cells to be searched, but this was not the grim business that it sounds. We were left to walk quite by ourselves; a policemanshowed us in and we were put four or five together in a cell. The door was left open, and a wardress asked respectfully if she might search us. We said, “Yes, most certainly,†and began to deliver up our stones. The wardress’s face was all kindness, and no sooner had the policeman gone away from the door than she burst out with: “Oh! you ladies, I’d be with you to-morrow if it weren’t for my child. I am a widow with one child. If only these politicians knew what that meant! They can talk fine about the widow, but when it comes to her earning a livelihood they don’t help her.†It seemed wonderful, she understood. Meanwhile she was picking out the stones from our pockets. We were allowed to go back to the central room as soon as it was finished, we left a friend behind us in the wardress. Upstairs, in the policemen’s billiard room, we sat in crowds, and everything was noticeably different from last time. All was joy and triumph, and there seemed the echo of these from the street. I felt quite an old hand, and was going about the room collecting telegrams; I had bought a packet of forms on the chance. A policeman was singled out and stood waiting for them in a meek and respectful attitude. One woman, who looked about sixty or sixty-five, had written a telegram but had put no signature; I asked if there was to be none. She hesitated for a moment and then added: “Well—put Mother.†I thought it must be rather trying when it was a “daughter,†but much more when it was a “mother,†and she getting on in years. There was a girl lying down in the window recess where I had gone with my cough last time; she was ashypale. I went up to her and asked her if she felt ill. Her face immediately lit up with a radiant smile—“I’m not ill now, but I have been for three months.†I said how wonderful was the feeling of the movement, as one realised the difference which a year had made it was impossible that one should feel depressed, though one might be depressed for oneself. “No,†she said, “I am never depressed now.†Had she a mother? “Oh! mother would be here too, only she is a cripple.â€
Mrs. Pethick Lawrence had come and was given a great cheer. She looked well and beamingly happy. The Deputation had been much more hustled about than we who had done damage, but still, there was no real roughness that I could hear of, and they had been arrested comparatively quickly. Mr. Lawrence’s welcome face came and he bailed us out, though it was a long business this time. When we drove away, every window in Whitehall bore the mark of the women upon it, with the unmistakable smashing, till it looked, as I passed, as though every window smiled.
On Wednesday, November 22, I sent off a telegram, saying that I was arrested, to our organiser at Liverpool for a meeting at which I was going to speak. It was a joint meeting of W.S.P.U., National Unionist and Conservative Suffragists; Lord Selborne was to speak for the Conservatives. It had been arranged when we were at peace with the Government; that peace was now at an end. I then went to Bow Street. There were crowds of women; we each took luggage and wraps, for under Mr. Winston Churchill’s new rule we wereallowed to wear our own day and night clothes, and not obliged to have prison food. There was no difference in being allowed to see visitors or have letters. Books not dealing with current events were allowed, but one could not take them out of prison. At Bow Street we were put into the big room upstairs; again a policemen’s billiard room. Large as it was, it was very crowded, and I kept my seat on my luggage in the passage outside. Amongst others, there was a little American woman, whose husband stuck by her like a man till he should be separated by imprisonment. They had been in India, had heard much there about the Suffragettes, and one lady with whom they had dined had warned him against his wife becoming one of them. I saw there two Hertfordshire members, which did my heart good, when I remembered that a little time ago the whole county was asleep. Whenever I was able, I sat back on my luggage and wrote letters; it was the only way I could escape from talking to everyone, which was most delightful but I was very tired. We waited all day to learn in the evening that we must return to-morrow. I went to my mother from Bow Street who was staying in London at that time.
Three times this autumn, after making a speech, I had been taken with heart-seizure and incapacitated for about a quarter of an hour. On Thursday morning, November 23, I was ill, on waking, with a heart collapse. In spite of my best efforts, I could scarcely hold up my head or speak. Mrs. Francis Smith, one of my dearest friends, had come to my rooms to see how I was, and she determined to callat Bow Street and find out for me if I could not put off going there till the afternoon. She came back, saying that she had had an interview with Inspector A——, who had already shown great kindness to me, and he had said I was not to trouble about the morning, that it would do quite well if I came in the afternoon. I lay down on my bed till nearly 2 o’clock, when I felt much better. Then I went to Bow Street. The woman who did my room came with me and carried my luggage; she also fetched me milk into the police station. She knew several of the policeman personally, so she managed everything very easily. I went on a deputation with Mrs. Haverfield and Mrs. Mansell-Moulin to Inspector A——, to say that unless the women could be told on leaving whether they would be wanted the next day, they would not go away. As this meant finding cells for all of us—we were 220 women in all—probably we should have to be put four or five in a cell together; it was speedily arranged and we were told that night when we should be wanted; I was one of those who came the following day. I went again that evening to my mother.
The next morning, Friday, November 24, I woke all right and went to Bow Street quite happily. Before our trial we were taken down into the passage next the police court, and putvis-à -visto the policemen who had arrested us, as at my first trial. The magistrate was Sir Albert de Rutzen, who was too old for his work. Miss Lawless was accused with me. The hammers and stones were shown in witness against us, and the damage estimated at£3 15s.Mr. Muskett, the prosecutor, in totallingup my record, mentioned that I had been to Holloway after a deputation to the House of Commons, and in Newcastle I was imprisoned for throwing a stone at a motor car, but he did not mention “Jane Warton†at Liverpool. When I reminded him that he had left her out, he said testily, “Well, I’m very glad if I have.†I said it was quite true that I used a hammer and stones to break windows. I realised that this was the only effective means of protest left to us by a Government which boasts of Liberalism and representation where men are concerned, but ignores the elementary principles of representation where women are concerned. Votes and riot are the only form of appeal to which this Government will respond. They refuse us votes, we fall back on riot. The wrongs they inflict on women are intolerable, and we will no longer tolerate them—— Here the magistrate interrupted me; he could not enter into a discussion on the subject, and referred to the fact that Mr. Asquith had received a deputation last Friday. I said, “I heard Mr. Asquith say he would do nothing in regard to women.†The magistrate then advocated peaceful agitation. I answered that this Government have said they will do absolutely nothing as a Government, and Mr. Asquith is exactly where he was in 1908; all our peaceful agitation has been valueless in his eyes. I said that although we committed the acts alleged, we were not guilty of crime, our conduct being fully justified by the circumstances of the case. “I appeal to you, Sir, to vindicate the fundamental laws of liberty which our country has revered for generations,†and with thatI concluded. Miss Leslie Lawless said that if to fight for one’s liberty was a crime, she was guilty, but she pleaded not guilty, as that was the only protest that this Government understood. Our sentence was one of a fine of 40s.and37s.6d.damage each, or fourteen days’ imprisonment—half the sentence that I had received when I went to the House of Commons, doing absolutely nothing and being mauled by the police.
We were not put into the cells, but again taken upstairs to a room close to the larger one. There was my friend, Adela Smith, with Olive Schreiner’s friend, Mrs. Purcell, and Mrs. Tudor, of St. Albans. All these were not among the condemned, but had been let in to see their friends. Towards half-past five Inspector A—— came and told me that presently a taxi would be round to take me to Holloway, that there would be a policeman inside, but that the other two could be any “fellow criminals†I liked. I at once chose Mrs. Leigh, who had been condemned to two months’ imprisonment, though she was said only to have struck a policeman in defence of another woman. I was immensely proud to take her with me. I also chose Miss Lawless. The policeman was in plain clothes and very amiable. Miss Lawless discovered that she had left her purse behind. We went back for it, and, on arriving at Bow Street, I decided that the constable should get out with Miss Lawless, put her in charge of another policeman, then return and mount guard on us. He was delighted to do this. From the point of view of our safety, of course, nothing could have been more absurd; we were notin the courtyard of the police-station, and nothing would have been easier than to open the door the other side of the pavement and, with the noise of the street, Mrs. Leigh or I could have escaped. But it was understood all round that this was not the game, and we waited quietly for the policeman to return and, finally, Miss Lawless and the purse.
At Holloway all was civility; it was unrecognisable from the first time I had been there. There were no reception cells for us, but we were taken at once to our separate cells in D X, where, after a time the Matron, and afterwards the doctor came to see us. Nothing could have been more charming than the Matron—another woman than had been there before. She asked me at once after Miss Davison; was she coming this time? The Matron had been at Manchester when the hose-pipe had been played on her. This she asked before two wardresses, and in a voice of sympathetic intonation. I said I did not think she was coming this time, but it would not be long probably before she was in prison again. Then came Dr. Sullivan. His manner was kind, as it had always been, but I no longer felt the same towards him since he had fed some of the prisoners by force. He said at once, after testing my heart, that I could not stay there, but must go at once to hospital. I said I was much more comfortable where I was than in the general ward, and that I could not sleep there. He said he meant to put me in a cell apart. I was then moved over to the hospital side. There on the ground floor was the superintendent officer I had known before. I smiled, but she looked as if she did not recognise me. She went with meupstairs. “I believe,†I said, as she opened a door, “it is the very same cell I had before.†“No,†she answered, “the one next door,†and her reserve, to my great delight, broke down. I unpacked my flannel sheets, my flannel nightgown, and my long bed-socks, and made myself ready for the night. It was almost unbelievable to have so much comfort in a place which before had been the very acme of discomfort. They brought me a pint mug of milk and a small white loaf before the night. It was about eight o’clock by the time I got to bed, but the hours, I supposed, were the same as they had been in Holloway before, and besides, I was dead tired.
The next day, Saturday, November 25, I felt ill in the morning. The prison was scarce of food—at least, there were no vegetables; they gave me bread and butter and a pudding for luncheon. The Governor came, Dr. Scott, and he was amiability itself, I was only to take care of myself. Since all was made easy, I stayed in bed that day.
The girl who was let in to wash my floor was fair-haired, with a most pleasant and intelligent face. I longed to know about her, but a wardress stood at the door looking on at her work all the time, and I did not once catch her eye. On Sunday, November 26, I felt no better and again stayed in bed. The second doctor, a new man, who was pleasant in his manner, came to see me. In the morning when I had been let out to the sink, the little prisoner who washed my floor met me coming out. My back was turned for a moment; she patted my shoulder and said, in a tone of voice of utmost comfort, “Cheer up!†By the time I looked round she was off somewhereelse and no one would have supposed that she had communicated with me. After that I was determined to get some snatch conversation with her when she was in my cell. When she washed out that morning, I said to her—it was always the first thing—“How long have you got?†“Three years,†was the answer. This greatly surprised me, for Holloway was not the place for long sentences, but I could not ask her then, there was not time to tell, only time for bare questions and answers. I asked, “What was it for?†“Stealing my mother’s skirt,†she said. This was more startling than ever. Where was the mother’s skirt one could “stealâ€? But the wardress looked in and we were obliged to stop. On another occasion she told me that she had been very ill on first coming to Holloway, and that was why she had been kept there. Another time she slipped this notice under the door, and signalled to me by opening the gas-jet glass from the passage. On one side of the little torn bit of paper was written, “Z— A—, Boardstil Institution, Hailsbrayâ€; on the other side, “I shall be glad to hear from you because I have no friends at all and it will cheer me up.†I longed to speak to her, but I did not see her again after this. It was my last morning in prison when she put this paper under the door. After I came out I, of course, wrote to her, thanked her for her cheering words to me, asked if I might go and see her, and sent her a little3d.book of extracts from my father’s poems. I sent these to the chaplain at Aylesbury and asked him if he would deliver them. He sent my letter back, saying that he would not be allowed to give it, for shehad already chosen as her correspondent her grandmother or some old lady. I do not know anything of her, of her failings or virtues; I only know that there was no loosening the net that clung round her so tightly for three years.
On Sunday, November 26, in the afternoon I went out to exercise. This was indeed a changed world. All of us assembled were walking about arm in arm, as we liked, in rows facing each other, or round the ground; some of us went apart in a little side-walk, all talking to one another, and all, of course, wearing our own clothes. One or two wardresses were there, but they were smiling all the time and chatted with us. One of them asked me why I had not come to visit Holloway. I told her that they would not allow “criminals†to come back except as prisoners, that I had tried in vain. She said I could come as someone who visited the cooking places, or something of that kind. I was afraid I was too well known in Holloway, as I had paid rather frequent visits to the Governor. I saw and walked with Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, arm in arm, and nothing that we did caused any disturbance.
On Monday, November 27, I stayed in bed again, and at about 11 o’clock the doctor came and offered me vegetable soup from outside, and massage from my masseur-doctor, Mr. May. I said surely that would not be allowed! He told me that of course in the ordinary course of things it was not allowed, but, if I wished for it, he would see what he could do. I refused all these offers, which were not, so far as I knew, offered to the others. I heardafter my release, how my dear friends had put themselves about to get me all these things, and how my servant had brought soup to the prison every day, which she had made. I had a tin of biscuits sent in to me and some orange sweets. As I was not feeling well, I was unable to eat these, but I managed to give a good many to the girls who washed my cell. I only once got a look into the general ward. I saw Mrs. Mansell-Moullin, Mrs. Mansel and others, but it did not seem to be the thing for the prisoners from the cells to go into the general ward. That night Mrs. Mansel came in to see me from there. She and some others were to be released the next day. She had suffered from influenza and had a bad time of it while she was in prison. We had a long talk, and she gave meThe Man-made World, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, to read, as a wonderful book that had just come out. She was not allowed to take it out with her. The publisher, Mr. Fisher Unwin, had kindly sent me the book, but I had not yet had time to read it. I read it that night and found it all that she had said—a most remarkable book. It is dedicated to a man, showing that the woman’s movement has in it nothing, as is sometimes supposed, against men, but only against the vices of some men. In a chapter called “Crime and Punishment,†this passage struck me with intense truth:“Does a child offend? Punish it! Does a woman offend? Punish her! Does a man offend? Punish him! Does a group offend? Punish them! ‘What for?’ someone suddenly asks. ‘To make them stop doing it!’ ‘But they have done it.’ ‘To make them not do it again, then.’ ‘But they do it again and worse.’ ‘To prevent other people’s doing it, then.’ But it does not prevent them—the crime keeps on. What good is your punishment to crime? Its base, its prehistoric base, is simply retaliation.â€
On Tuesday, November 28, I felt much better and went out to exercise in the morning. While there I was summoned to see the Governor. He told me that my fine had been paid anonymously and that I was free. Among my friends there is none that I can think of who would have paid my fine; my state of health, I suppose, after the forcible feeding, was “dangerous,†and it was thought safest to pay the fine “officially.†To my great surprise, the superintendent came with me to my flat. She was very dear but quite “official.†As I had packed up my things rather quickly, I felt ill and not inclined to talk much. She told me how very overworked the superintendent officers had been with the 220 Suffragette prisoners there were this time, she herself sometimes not getting to bed till one or two in the morning. She looked very tired and I felt very sorry for her. It seemed hard that, when they made us prisoners, so much extra work should fall upon the wardresses. When we reached the Duke’s Road, I did not like to ask her into my rooms, not knowing who would be there, so I said good-bye to her, kissed her, and begged her to take back the taxi at my expense. This, however, she refused to do; she preferred to go home by omnibus, and we parted at the front door. I went upstairs and found three of my friends. We were delighted to see each other, but they soon went away, and I rolled wearily into bed.
I frequently had to lie up during the winter and spring months that followed. On May 5, 1912, I had a stroke and my right arm was paralysed; also, slightly, my right foot and leg. I was taken from my flat to my sister Emily Lutyen’s house, and for many long months she and my mother and Dr. Marion Vaughan were kindness itself to me. From that day to this I have been incapacited for working for the Women’s Social and Political Union, but I am with them still with my whole soul.
And what is this which yet comes to us from the prisons? The torture of the “Cat-and-Mouse†Act and of forcible feeding! Oh! if only people could know what these things signify! But surely they must understand that they are barbarous practices such as we have not tolerated for long in our prisons. “Cat-and-Mouse†Act—what does it mean? The prisoner does not eat or drink, nothing to pass the lips; it may be three days, it may be a week, it may be nine days. Then the prisoner is let out, watched day and night, and taken back to prison, back to hunger and thirst, till she is again at death’s door. This they do twice, three times, four times, five times, till life is all but out. Not yet have the Government admitted that they will stop the “Cat-and-Mouse†torture short of death itself. And the forcible feeding—what is that? The only possible excuse for it is that it prolongs the prisoner’s sentence by so many days, so many weeks, and that is all. But heed what it is. I have described it exactly as it was done to me. See what it has meant in the recent case of Mary Richardson. It took eight wardresses and one man to overcome her.On two occasions it was said: “Twist her arms—the only way to unlock them.†They held her feet by pressing in the hollow of her ankles. Occasionally the doctor pressed her in the chest to hold her down. He announced that he was going to use the stomach tube. As he could not get through her teeth, he put his fingers to the extremity of her jaw, and with his finger-nail deliberately cut her gum and cheek until her mouth was bleeding badly. He then inserted the gag and stomach tube, but she was so choked by the process that he stopped the feeding, and said he would return to the nasal tube. This is inhuman, like the feeding of a beast—no, of an insentient thing. Where is the gain? A week or several weeks more of imprisonment, and you have let in torture to our form of punishment; yes, and repeated torture, for these prisoners are let out by the “Cat-and-Mouse†Act, and, on those ghastly terms, the police will mount guard on them to seize them again if, according to their judgment, they have regained sufficient fitness.
And why are these women imprisoned? Because they and many thousands, or rather several millions, of women with them, have asked for the vote, but the Government would not give it to them. For forty-five years women have supported their demand in Parliament for enfranchisement with ever increasing vigour. Petitions, processions, meetings and resolutions all over the country were infinitely greater in number than have been achieved for any other reform. When the Conciliation Bill was framed, women waited to see what the Government would do for them; the vote on the second readingof the Bill, for the second time, was immense. Women listened to the pledges of the Government and they seemed to hold out a certainty of the vote. Now, when these promises have all been broken, women have taken to burning empty houses, railway stations and stacks, though they have respected life and refrained from wounding, as men would do for far less a cause. Yes, and they will burn buildings until they are treated rationally as an equal part of the human race.
I hear the cry go up from all parts of the country, “How long? How long?†The time is fully ripe, when will women be represented in Parliament by the vote, equally with men?
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO.LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.