It was in August-September, 1908, at “The Green Lady Hostel,” Littlehampton, the holiday house of the Esperance Girls’ Club, that I met Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and Miss Annie Kenney. I was two or three days in the house with them without discovering that they were Suffragettes or that there was anything unusual about their lives. But I realised at once that I was face to face with women of strong personality, and I felt, though at first vaguely, that they represented something more than themselves, a force greater than their own seemed behind them. Their remarkable individual powers seemed illumined and enhanced by a light that was apart from them as are the colours and patterns of a stained-glass window by the sun shining through it. I had never before come across this kind of spirituality. I have since found it a characteristic of all the leaders in the militant section of the woman’s movement, and of many of the rank and file. I was much attracted by Mrs. Lawrence, and became intimate with her at once on the strength of our mutual friendship for Olive Schreiner. We had, besides, many other interests and sympathies in common. The first Sunday that we were together, the girls of the club were asked to come in early that evening, so that Jessie Kenney, Annie Kenney’s sister, who had only recently been released from Holloway, might tell them of her prison experiences. I then realised that I was amongst Suffragettes. I immediately confessed to them that although I shared their wish for the enfranchisement of women, I did not at all sympathise with the measures they adopted for bringing about that reform. I had, however, always been interested in prisons and recognised from the first that, incidentally, the fact of many educated women being sent to gaol for a question of conscience must do a great deal for prison reform, and I was delighted at this opportunity of hearing first-hand something about the inner life of a prison. I listened eagerly and was horrified at some of the facts recorded. Amongst these I remember specially that the tins in which the drinking water stood were cleaned with soap and brick dust and not washed out, the tins being filled only once or at most twice in twenty-four hours; the want of air in the cells; the conduct of prison officials towards the prisoners.

Having betrayed my disapproval of the Suffragette “tactics,” which seemed to me unjustified, unreasonable, without a sense of political responsibility, and as setting a bad example in connection with a reform movement of such prominence, there was naturally something of coolness and reserve in my further intercourse with Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and the Kenneys. But before their brief stay at the club came to an end, I achieved a talk with each of the leaders.

One evening, after incessant rain, Annie Kenney and I marched arm-in-arm round the garden, under dripping trees. I explained that though I had always been for the extension of the suffrage to women, it did not seem to me a question of prime urgency, that many other matters of social reform seemed more important, and I thought class prejudice and barriers more injurious to national welfare than sex barriers. I was deeply impressed with her reply. She said, in a tone of utmost conviction: “Well, I can only tell you that I, who am a working-class woman, have never known class distinction and class prejudice stand in the way of my advancement, whereas the sex barrier meets me at every turn.” Of course, she is a woman of great character, courage and ability, which gives her exceptional facilities for overcoming these drawbacks, but her contention that such powers availed her nothing in the face of sex prejudices and disabilities, and the examples she gave me to bear out her argument, began to lift the scales of ignorance from my eyes. She was careful to point out that the members of her own family had been remarkably free from sex prejudice, and her illustrations had no taint of personal resentment. She explained how the lot of women being not understood of men, and they being the only legislators, the woman’s part had always got laid on one side, made of less importance, sometimes forgotten altogether. She told how amongst these offices of women was the glorious act of motherhood and the tending of little children. Was there anything in a man’s career that could be so honourable as this? Yet how often is the woman who bears humanity neglected at such times, so that life goes from her, or she is given no money to support her child. I felt that through Annie Kenney’s whole being throbbed the passion of her soul for other women, to lift from them the heavy burden, to give them life, strength, freedom, joy, and the dignity of human beings, that in all things they might be treated fairly with men. I was struck by her expression and argument, it was straightforward in its simplicity, yet there was inspiration about her. All that she said was obvious, but in it there was a call from far off, something inevitable as the voice of fate. She never sounded a note of sex-antipathy; it was an unalloyed claim for justice and equity of development, for women as for men.

Then Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and I, during a day’s motoring expedition, achieved a rare talk out. She met all my arguments, all my prejudices and false deductions with counter-arguments, and above all with facts of which I had till then no conception. I trusted her because of what I had learnt of her personality, her character, mind, wide education and experience, and was to a certain extent at once impressed; still I only half believed many of the things she reported, the real purport of her statements did not yet sink into my soul as they were soon to do, fact upon fact, result upon result, as I found out their truth for myself.

During my stay at Littlehampton I witnessed a scene which produced a great impression upon my conscience. One morning, while wandering through the little town, I came on a crowd. All kinds of people were forming a ring round a sheep which had escaped as it was being taken to the slaughter-house. It looked old and misshapen. A vision suddenly rose in my mind of what it should have been on its native mountain-side with all its forces rightly developed, vigorous and independent. There was a hideous contrast between that vision and the thing in the crowd. With growing fear and distress the sheep ran about more clumsily and became a source of amusement to the onlookers, who laughed and jeered at it. At last it was caught by its two gaolers, and as they carried it away one of them, resenting its struggles, gave it a great cuff in the face. At that I felt exasperated. I went up to the men and said, “Don’t you know your own business? You have this creature absolutely in your power. If you were holding it properly it would be still. You are taking it to be killed, you are doing your job badly to hurt and insult it besides.” The men seemed ashamed, they adjusted their hold more efficiently and the crowd slunk away. From my babyhood I have felt a burning indignation against unkindness to animals, and in their defence I have sometimes acted with a courage not natural to me. But on seeing this sheep it seemed to reveal to me for the first time the position of women throughout the world. I realised how often women are held in contempt as beings outside the pale of human dignity, excluded or confined, laughed at and insulted because of conditions in themselves for which they are not responsible, but which are due to fundamental injustices with regard to them, and to the mistakes of a civilisation in the shaping of which they have had no free share. I was ashamed to remember that although my sympathy had been spontaneous with regard to the wrongs of animals, of children, of men and women who belonged to down-trodden races or classes of society, yet that hitherto I had been blind to the sufferings peculiar to women as such, which are endured by women of every class, every race, every nationality, and that although nearly all the great thinkers and teachers of humanity have preached sex-equality, women have no champions among the various accepted political or moral laws which serve to mould public opinion of the present day.

Nothing could have exceeded the patience, the considerate sympathy even, with which both Annie Kenney and Mrs. Lawrence endured my arguments, arguments, as I now realise them to have been, without any genuine element, stereotyped and shallow. Before we parted, Mrs. Lawrence said to me, and it was the only one of her remarks which savoured in the least of the contempt which my attitude at that time so richly deserved, “You are sufficiently interested in our policy to criticise it, will you be sufficiently interested to study its cause and read up our case?”

For two months I “read up” the subject as I had never read in my life before; I took in the weekly paper Votes for Women, the only publication which gave events as they happened, not as they were supposed to happen. I attended as many meetings as I could, and the breakfasts of released suffrage prisoners, whereat the spirit behind this movement, its driving force, seemed best exemplified. Above all, I watched current politics from a different point of view. I still held back from being converted, I criticised and argued at every turn, over every fresh demonstration of the W.S.P.U., but I began to realise of what stuff the workers in the movement were made; what price they paid for their services so gladly given; how far removed they were from any taint of self-glorification, and how amazingly they played the game of incessantly advertising the Cause without ever developing the curse of self-advertisement. I have never been amongst people of any sort who were so entirely free from self-consciousness, self-seeking and self-vaunting.

At this juncture of my conversion I was much concerned with the arguments of Anti-Suffragists. I wrote a pamphlet to refute their points of view, as generally presented in newspapers and magazines. I was always, as it were, stopping on my road to combat their attitude. It was only after considerably longer experience that I realised the waste of energy entailed by this process, since the practical opposition which blocks the way to the legal removal of sex disability is not due to those men or women who have courage to publicly record their opposition, but to those who take shelter in verbally advocating the cause, while at the same time opposing any effective move for its achievement. Anti-suffrage arguments or agitations should, of course, be met whenever they present themselves, but it soon became clear to me that in private intercourse many people put them forward without any conviction, merely as a way of opening the conversation, and while at heart much more interested in the positive than the negative side of the question. The same is true of public audiences. The assertive claim to the value of voting rights for men, wherever these are denied, is perennially educating the public to our contention; one has but to catch them “at it” to illustrate the claim of women. The drawbacks resulting from laws and customs based on sex bias are also constantly put forward by Anti-Suffragist men themselves, when they are not considering the possible infringement of their own monopolies. Lord Cromer has headed the agitation against freedom for women in Great Britain. When he was responsible for the welfare of Egypt, he wrote, concerning the Prophet Mahomet: “Unfortunately the great Arabian reformer of the seventh century was driven by the necessities of his position to do more than found a religion. He endeavoured to found a social system. The reasons why Islam as a social system has been a complete failure are manifold. First and foremost Islam keeps women in a position of marked inferiority.” He quotes Stanley Lane Poole in corroboration: “The degradation of women in the East is a canker that begins its destructive work early in childhood, and has eaten into the whole system of Islam.” Lord Cromer then draws conclusions worthy of the most ardent Suffragette: “Look now to the consequences which result from the degradation of women in Mahomedan countries. It cannot be doubted that the seclusion of women exercises a baneful effect on Eastern society. The arguments on this subject are indeed so commonplace that it is unnecessary to dwell on them. It will be sufficient to say that seclusion, by confining the sphere of women’s interest to a very limited horizon, cramps the intellect and withers the mental development of one-half of the population in Moslem countries.... Moreover, inasmuch as women, in their capacities of wives and mothers exercise a great influence over the characters of their husbands and sons, it is obvious that the seclusion of women must produce a deteriorating effect on the male population, in whose presumed interests the custom was originally established, and is still maintained” (“Modern Egypt,” Vol. II., chapter entitled “Dwellers in Egypt,” pp. 134, 155, 156, First Edition). The contention of woman Suffragists could not be more reasonably presented. Add to this the belief of Englishmen in the power of the vote to lift from degradation and to widen the outlook of citizens; their attitude towards rebellions on behalf of constitutional rights by Russians, Turks, Persians, and Uitlanders of South Africa; the principles of every constitution in which Britishers have had a hand, notably in Australasia and South Africa, and the case is complete. To meet the Anti-Woman Suffragist arguments, it is only necessary to quote their own utterances.

My own researches had shown me not only the grievous harm to women from the inequalities of law and custom with regard to them, but that in many matters concerning men, and in practically all questions relating to children, the help of women was needed with an urgency that would no longer justify delay. I learnt that before resorting to militancy the women’s organisations had for many years past succeeded in obtaining a majority of supporters in the House of Commons, and the backing of leading men of both parties. It was startling to realise that the professed advocacy of such men as Lord Beaconsfield, the late Lord Salisbury and Mr. Arthur Balfour had not moved the Conservative party in any way to assist their cause. When the Liberal Government was returned to power in 1906, under the leadership of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, he himself was a declared Suffragist, as were all but a few of the men of most influence in his Cabinet, including Mr. Birrell, Mr. Buxton, Mr. John Morley and Mr. John Burns. Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Haldane had themselves introduced a Woman Suffrage Bill in 1889. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Runciman and Mr. Winston Churchill, who joined the Cabinet in 1908, were strong verbal advocates of votes for women. The women had tried repeatedly, and always in vain, every peaceable means open to them of influencing successive Governments. Processions and petitions were absolutely useless. I saw the extreme need of their position, the ineffectiveness of every method hitherto adopted to persuade these professed Suffragists to put their theories into practice. But I still held aloof from completely backing their militant action owing to mistrustfulness bred of ignorance as to its true nature.

After six weeks I reached the stage when I had little left to say against the movement and my enthusiasm for the workers in it was considerable, but on the whole my attitude was of a negative order. I was still not prepared to back my theoretic approval by action when, on October 13, Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Drummond and Christabel Pankhurst were arrested for issuing the famous handbill calling upon the people of London to witness the women’s deputation to the Prime Minister and to help them “rush” the House of Commons.

At a crowded meeting at the Queen’s Hall the previous day, Monday, October 12, the leaders announced that a warrant had been served upon them and that at any moment the police might come in and arrest them on the platform. The meeting was enthusiastically in their favour and the announcement caused an outburst of indignation. This, however, was instantly suppressed by the leaders, who explained that they were under a compact with the managers of the hall never to use these weekly meetings for any insubordinate demonstrations; that if the police arrived and proceeded to arrest them they would only be carrying out their orders; that if this happened, no interference, not a murmur of resentment must come from the audience. After a few moments they settled down under this decree with reluctant but strikingly obedient resignation. Before long the police were announced to be at the door. After some moments of interchanging messages with the leaders on the platform, during which the suspense in the hall was tremendously taut, the police left saying that the women arrested would have to report themselves at Bow Street the following morning. The next day, Tuesday, October 13, I called at the W.S.P.U. offices in Clement’s Inn to offer my sympathy. I regretted that I was still not sufficiently in agreement with their militant policy to join the deputation, but inquired whether there were any lesser services which I could render them. I was asked to try and approach the Home Secretary with a view to securing 1st Division treatment for the prisoners as political offenders instead of ranking them, as hitherto, with criminals in the 2nd and 3rd Divisions. From the first I had been in sympathy with this demand. To publicly maintain that the Suffragists, even if their breaking of the law were proved, had anything in common with the ordinary transgressor for selfish ends, appeared to me ludicrous as well as tyrannous on the part of the Government. I therefore willingly undertook the task, although I was convinced that my efforts would meet with no immediate success. I had already grasped this much of the spirit of the militants that rightness of aim is the factor controlling their actions; likeliness of achievement, in so far as this depends not on themselves but on their opponents, is not a matter to be considered. Looking back at the advance of their cause since militant action began in October, 1905, it seems to me that its amazing rapidity has been chiefly due to the unswerving carrying out of this principle. At every stage the militants selected a line of conduct, not in itself rebellious, but on the contrary, morally and constitutionally in accordance with accepted opinion and law. It has been the ignoring or deliberate repression of their lawful claims which produced disturbances. The unreasoned punishments which followed in no way altered the women’s need nor their determined claim for legal redress. The sufferings of their comrades merely heaped fuel on the fires of their enthusiasm and inevitably exposed the reactionary nature of the Government’s attitude towards them. I did not obtain 1st Division treatment for the prisoners, but my observations during that memorable day made me a complete convert to the policy of militancy.

From about 4 in the afternoon to 11.30 at night I was incessantly on the move between Clement’s Inn, the House of Commons, Bow Street Police Station and the private residence of the magistrate. I had ample opportunity of noticing the nature of the crowd summoned by the famous handbill and of studying the attitude of mind of the authorities, of the Home Office, the magistrate, and of the police towards our movement. The facts which I noted that day as a spectator were typical, and corroborated afterwards in every respect when it came to my own experience. The decisions of the Government as expressed through the Home Office were pre-determined and detached from any consideration of the political demand which was the root cause of the women’s rebellion. The magistrate’s attitude was obviously affected, whether directly or indirectly, by the Government’s lead. The political nature of the offences of which our prisoners were accused was not admitted; their purely nominal crimes were nevertheless punished with a severity that was unheard of had they been judged as ordinary disturbers of the peace. It was clear that the political motive of their actions was recognised sufficiently to justify the authorities in assuming that these actions would be continuous, an example to others, and a dangerous appeal from an organised body, but the reason was ignored when there was question of an inquiry into the political motive itself. The police showed a much more straightforward and impartial attitude whenever the conduct of our case was left entirely in their hands. They never for a moment looked upon the suffrage prisoners as ordinary rowdies, they realised that our motives were political and our actions peaceable, but that our appeals were met in a quite different spirit from those of other political agitators. The police, of course, in turn came under the influence of those in authority over them, and when under orders would knock us about in the streets, and accuse us in the courts, according to the requirements imposed upon them. Under this pressure, individual policemen would occasionally act with brutality and unfairness, but in the main their treatment of Suffragists was in striking contrast to that of the magistrates, the Home Office and the Government. A great number of police constables are better versed in the suffrage question and the woman question generally than most politicians. They have been obliged to attend our meetings. They know both the political and moral ethics of our policy. I have heard more intelligent reasoning about votes for women from policemen (both when my identity was known to them and when it was not) than has issued, with but rare exceptions, from the House of Commons.

During the afternoon and evening of this day I had my first experience of a suffrage crowd, immense in numbers, embracing every shade of opinion on the question, from enthusiasm in favour to contemptuous or angry hostility, largely interspersed with curiosity-mongers who were fascinated by the fight although without interest for its cause. There were men and women of all classes, but rowdyism was plainly not there, and from that day forward I was convinced of the fact, self-evident enough in all conscience, that the women never appealed to hooliganism and that they had nothing to gain from and nothing to offer to that element in the mob. The women, and the men too, who fight in this cause, or assist it ever so remotely, have never been and never will be of a self-seeking type, nor are they lovers of disturbance for its own sake.

I first of all tried to interview the Home Secretary, Mr. Herbert Gladstone,[1] at the House of Commons. I did not see him, but a friendly member of Parliament acted as messenger boy between us. I asked: (1) Would he use his powers to ensure that the three prisoners should be sentenced to the 1st Division, and not to the 2nd Division as though they were common criminals, which obviously they were not? Reply: As the prisoners were not yet arrested he could not possibly adjudicate on the question of their sentences. (2) If I returned at six o’clock, the hour when they were to surrender to the summons, would he then give me an answer? Reply: He had not the power, the question rested with the police-court authorities; he had determined never to interfere with sentences. (3) Would he give me a permit or some sort of facilities to approach the magistrate? My messenger told me that it would be useless to put this question, that Mr. Gladstone was in a state of great anger over the whole proceedings, and that, even if he had the power, nothing would induce him to help the Suffragettes to 1st Division treatment. I then went to Bow Street Police Court. The crowds were dense in Parliament Square, Parliament Street, and Trafalgar Square, but extremely orderly. When I reached Bow Street it was past six o’clock and the magistrate had left. On inquiring where I could find him, I was ushered into an inner room before a superintendent who wore a flat cap, not the usual policeman’s helmet. He was very civil, but told me it was against the rules to give the private addresses of magistrates and that Mr. Curtis Bennett would not be back until ten o’clock the following morning for the Court. I put various other questions. Though offering no practical assistance the answers led me to realise a strangely unexpected atmosphere of sympathy, and after a few moments hesitation I found myself telling this superintendent the full purport of my mission. To my intense surprise he not only expressed much approval, but burst out with a torrent of abuse against the Government—“Why to goodness couldn’t the Prime Minister receive the women’s deputation same as any other? The brunt of the whole business falls on us, and it’s the beastliest job we’ve ever had.” Then he added, “The prisoners are here now, in the cells, would you like to see them?” I felt almost overwhelmed that so unworthy and half-hearted a follower as myself should be the one to have this grand opportunity, but, of course, I availed myself of it without a moment’s hesitation. I was shown through a series of passages and up a flight of stairs, where a wardress was in charge. This October day was damp and foggy with the first sense of autumn chill, but as I was led on towards the cells the atmosphere became perceptibly damper and colder at every step, as in a vault. I realised for the first time the actual meaning of the word “puanteur,” which haunts the pages of Dostoievsky’s account of his imprisonments, the smell, as it were, of deadness pervading, I should imagine, every building, however cleanly washed, which is built and used to incarcerate human beings solely for punitive purposes. I had never seen Mrs. Pankhurst except on a public platform at moments when she was surrounded by public enthusiasm and personal devotion, such as are rarely accorded even to great leaders. My critical faculty is easily aroused by success, and although I recognised the single-mindedness of her aims, the uprightness of her character, the vigour of her intellect and convincing oratorical gifts, the charm of her personality and, above all, the magnificent power of her leadership, yet I had hitherto not felt drawn to this remarkable woman. It was with no sense of hero-worship that in reply to the wardress’ friendly question, “Which of the ladies do you wish to see?” I answered, “Mrs. Pankhurst.” She went to a cell door, many of which lined one side of a passage as the horse-boxes of a stable, and drew aside the shutter of a small grating. I looked through into a land of animal’s den, dimly lit and furnished only with a bare wooden bench running along the side of the wall, and terminating in a sanitary convenience. Standing erect as she moved towards the grating, was a woman whose appearance struck awe into every fibre of my being. A splendour of defiance and indignation pervaded her face, yet she was controlled and her attitude conveyed no suggestion of personal grievance. From that moment I recognised in her, and I have held the vision undimmed ever since, the guardian protector of this amazing woman’s movement, conscious not only of the thousands who follow her lead to-day, but of the martyred generations of the past and of the women of the future whose welfare depends upon the path hewn out for them to-day. I seemed to grasp prophetically and all at once the characteristic qualities which I learnt later on by closer observation and experience. I saw that the quality of sternness, which presented so unyielding a front to every opponent and every obstacle, drew its force from deep fountains of understanding, of sympathy and of love. While she most perfectly fulfilled her mission of pioneer, and shirked none of the responsibilities accruing to the lead, yet the efficiency and glamour attending the fulfilment of that mission were due to her recognition of the elements behind her, as an arrow-head derives its force from the construction of the whole weapon. The seemingly miraculous power of leadership with which the controllers of this militant movement are gifted is due to the fact that they too are fellow servants of a cause which they recognise is of infinitely greater importance than themselves or any other individual, they share with the humblest member of the rank and file the sense of loyalty and bond-allegiance to a common ideal—the welfare of women throughout the world.

I was advised by Mrs. Pankhurst how to turn my services to the best account and not to mind about the 1st Division, as they themselves could plead it in court, but to get them released for that night or they would not be able to plead properly, from fatigue. After a fruitless search of some hours for the magistrate in the wilds of West Kensington and a return to the office at Clement’s Inn for further instructions, I at last ran my quarry to ground somewhere near Olympia. The magistrate, Mr. Curtis Bennett,[2] received me courteously, but his face promptly assumed an official-defensive expression on learning my quest. If I had come to ask him about the trial next day he must request me not to proceed, since he must keep his mind unbiassed. I explained that I was altogether new to the rules of the game which he had at his fingers’ ends. That, as I was ignorant which questions I might or might not put to him, it would be best for me to unburden myself and for him to select which of my demands he could answer. He saw the reason of this and kindly consented to the arrangement. In reply, he could make no statement as to which Division he would sentence the prisoners, nor could they be let out on bail that night, because of the late hour at which they had responded to the summonses. As to taking them food and bedding, that was a matter for the police to decide, it was beyond his jurisdiction. I was thankful to hear this, knowing that the police were not likely to offer objections when matters were left solely to their care. I went back to Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, and in a few minutes we had taken bedding and rugs and were off to the police station at Bow Street. We found that a Member of Parliament, Mr. James Murray, had visited our friends and ordered everything they wanted from an hotel, making them as comfortable as possible for the night.

The next day their trial took place. After the evidence of the police had been taken, Christabel Pankhurst asked for an adjournment, in order to take legal advice and to prepare a defence. This was granted for one week. During the interval, Christabel secured the attendance of Mr. Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and of Mr. Herbert Gladstone, Home Secretary, as witnesses for the defence. The adjourned hearing of the case on October 21 lasted from 10.30 to 7.30 at night, with only two short intervals. The trial was immensely impressive, the three figures stood up at different times, and it was obvious to all who listened to the case that they were fighting against evil and were in all things most essentially good, so that one was awed by them. When the two members of the Cabinet gave evidence, the futility of the part they played was most obvious and they presented an appearance that was petty and contemptible to the last degree. There were a great many other witnesses, of whom I was one, in support of the contention that the crowd on the evening of October 13 was an orderly one, and that no violence was done. At 7.30 Christabel Pankhurst said she had still fifty witnesses to call, and the case was adjourned to Saturday, October 24. It was owing to Mrs. Pankhurst’s speech on this occasion that I felt taken hold of by the movement. Every sentence of it seemed to be true, dignified, strong, entirely respectful. This passage I more especially remember: “You know that women have tried to do something to come to the aid of their own sex.... I was in the hospital at Holloway, and when I was there I heard from one of the beds near me the moans of a woman who was in the pangs of childbirth. I should like you to realise how women feel at helpless little infants breathing their first breath in the atmosphere of a prison. We believe that if we get the vote we will find some more humane way of dealing with women than that.”

Mrs. Drummond made me feel faith in the woman’s movement, her type was most lovable, full of daring for the enemies of woman, full of patience in working for them, full of the most noble kind of humility in her reverence for them.

Christabel Pankhurst was the sunrise of the woman’s movement, I cannot describe her in any other way. The glow of her great vitality and the joy of her being took hold of the movement and made it gladness. Yet, her nature being so essentially a woman’s, there was a vein of tenderness throughout her speech, and her strength lay in her steadfast, resourceful and brilliant intellect.

With the exception of declining to give a pledge to keep the peace for twelve months, a pledge which these women were quite unable to accept, they had been guilty of no offence. Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Drummond were each sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and Christabel Pankhurst to ten weeks’ (two and a half months) imprisonment. It was like darkness when these three were in prison. Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and Sylvia Pankhurst, Christabel’s sister, kept the weekly meetings going at the Queen’s Hall in a splendid way. Sylvia is an artist by profession and an artist at heart, but whenever the women’s movement wants her she is there for its bidding. She looked all that is most modest and humble, but speaking seemed to come as a second nature to her as to everyone of the Pankhursts, and at times I could not have believed, but for having heard and seen, the splendid political speech which came from that young girl. During this time I lived in the country and seldom came to London. I needed no converting now and my only wish was to convince my mother.