In the morning we telephoned to mother, supposing she would have received my letter, telling her of the trial at Bow Street that morning, but begging her not to come up for it unless she specially wished to do so. This telephone message was, unfortunately, the first news that reached her of my arrest, and was a great shock to her. She could not have caught a train that would have brought her in time to Bow Street; my eldest sister, Betty Balfour, and my eldest brother, Vic, went down to her later in the day. I felt happier than I had done for a long time. I knew that the first news would be the worst to her, that had now reached her, all else would seem unimportant in comparison; the most difficult, most dreaded part of my job was over. I felt less ill in health than the day before, only played out. My one anxiety was lest I should break down physically and be dismissed from the prison at once “on medical grounds.” The wish to avoid this contingency was about as stimulating a tonic as could be desired. It had exactly the same happy effect upon me as some people seem to derive from a glass of brandy.

My sister, Betty Balfour, drove with me in a hansom to Bow Street. A considerable crowd was waiting outside the police station; we elbowed our way through them with great difficulty and only by the help of the police, to whom we appealed to ease matters “for one of the accused.” I felt dazed with the press of people. Before long I found myself in a sort of loose-box guard-room, or wide passage, where all my fellow criminals and many of their friends were assembled. Many of my personal friends were there and most heart-gladdeningly kind to me. I had concocted a short speech, explaining the reasons of my action. I was told it was not very likely that the magistrate would allow me to deliver it; my friends kindly helped me to condense it as much as possible. It consisted of about four short paragraphs, sentences bearing on the reasonableness, justice and urgency of our demand. I remember nothing of it but these words: “I have been more proud to stand by my friends in their trouble than I have ever been of anything in my life before.”

Presently there was a roll call and we were all told off to the various policemen who had taken us prisoners. I had been so exhausted at the moment of my capture the night before that I had not realised what sort of a human being underlay the helmet and uniform responsible for my arrest. In the morning I saw that he was a particularly pleasant-spoken and obliging man, who seemed to understand all about it from our point of view. He explained what I had to do. We were first congregated in a sort of waiting-room with a wooden bench round the wall, and then, as our time drew near, we were called out into a narrow passage where the particular policemen who were charging us stood facing us against the opposite wall. It looked as if we were vis À vis partners waiting for a country dance to strike up. We went into the court as our names were called. I was thankful that I knew a little of the hang of the business from having been present at the trial of Mrs. Pankhurst, Christabel Pankhurst and Mrs. Drummond. It is the absolutely unknown element in these kinds of ceremonies that adds considerably to their fearfulness. My name came rather early on the list. I was thankful that at least this time I had not to go into the awe-inspiring witness-box. Sir Albert de RÜtzen was the magistrate; he seemed old for the work. His manner throughout was querulous rather than dignified. The feeling of publicity and exposure struck me as completely odious; I was extremely nervous and rather dazed. I remember thinking, “If I feel like this, what must it be for the ordinary prisoners, whether guilty or not, who, day after day, file into this court?” I had a vague sense that friends were present amongst the crowd at the back of the court, but the mechanism of the official proceedings and the individuals who worked it seemed all at enmity with us—all, that is, except my partner the policeman. His look, manner and voice were so friendly that the set phrases in which he told of my conduct in Parliament Square and consequent arrest had a strangely incongruous and unreal ring about them. Not that he accused me of anything very terrible. He reported that I had pushed past him exclaiming, “I must see Mr. Asquith, I must get to Mr. Asquith.” I had never said anything of the kind, but no doubt, in the policeman’s estimation, this was a remark in keeping with my actions, and he thought it most probable that I had said words to that effect. I did not comment on the charge. It seemed all to be known and settled beforehand, and the processes which had to be got through seemed more or less farcical and unreal. When allowed to speak, I managed hastily to blurt out some of my speech, but I felt that nobody listened.

The sentence was one month, with the alternative of being bound over to “keep the peace.” I was immensely relieved that there was no fine. At the same time the length of the sentence was a surprise and somewhat of a shock, although I had prepared myself for it. It seemed hardly believable that what I had done was really considered worthy of four weeks in prison. I must, nevertheless, have heard, though the fact did not penetrate into my mind, that Miss Joachim and several others had, less than a year ago, been given three months for this crime of going on a deputation—they, like myself, were first offenders.

On leaving the court we were taken downstairs to the cells. Four or five of us were put together. I was in one with Miss Daisy Solomon, Miss Elsa Gye, my guide and friend of the day before, Miss Dugdale and a sympathetic young girl unknown to me. These cells are narrow compartments, unfurnished, except for a wide wooden bench running the entire length of one wall and terminating in a lavatory seat. This was unconcealed and without any means of drawing water from within the cell. It was periodically flushed with water by a pulley communicating with all the cells from outside. The door had a small grating of iron bars, through which one could look and speak to people outside. Many of our friends came by in the passage and spoke to us through this grille. They also brought us some sandwiches and fruit—very acceptable. This was the worst moment for the friends, and several mothers who came to say goodbye to their daughters must have left feeling very miserable. I felt thankful that my mother was not there. For me, it seemed the best moment for many a long day. My part was over, so far as initiative and activities were concerned, the rest required only enduring, always a much easier job to my lazy temperament. My sisters and youngest brother came to bid me goodbye. Some other friends came and said “Well done,” or words of that kind. Christabel Pankhurst came. She said “Thank you,” and seemed grateful for my share in the day’s work. This was a most unlooked-for honour and joy, from that moment I felt a very privileged and happy person. The sound of her voice and the look in her eyes remained stamped upon my mind, and played the part of a sort of talisman of consolation whenever the trials of my imprisonment weighed upon my spirits.

As for the physical hardships of prison, these had been the first items to be measured and prepared for when deciding to go on the Deputation; of all the anticipatory difficulties they had been the least, and it was a comfort to think that now, before long, one would know the worst in this respect. I felt considerably exhausted still from the battering about the day before, and I had a craving to be alone. Unlimited hours of “solitary confinement” were the most desirable paradise I could vision to myself.

It was a time of longer waiting than I had ever thought a single day could contain. Already one began to taste that peculiar feature, most markedly characteristic of the whole of prison life, that of being in ignorance of what is going on outside your cell, of why you are being kept there, and of what will happen to you when the keys jangle, bolts rattle, the door is thrown open and you are ordered out. We passed the time recommending to each other various dodges of how to keep in touch while in prison. Knocks on the cell walls with a brush or boot, and at the hour when the wardresses went to meals it was said to be possible to communicate by speaking on the hot water pipe, which runs through all the cells, at the point where it touches the wall. We were to maintain the right to talk to each other at associated labour. Mrs. Pankhurst had obtained the right to speak to her daughter when they were in prison together. Otherwise the silence rule, at all other times we were told, was very rigidly enforced. I showed my companions some leg and arm exercises which I urged them to do, so as to counteract the want of exercise and general stagnation of life which makes so many people ill in prison. We had great fun over this. We were all able to send messages and little scraps of letters to our relations. I was distressed that the stranger girl seemed to have no friends, and no one came to the grille to ask for her. It spoilt the pleasure of our visitors. She seemed of a very retiring and unassertive nature, and I did not like to make inquiries as to how we could help her communicate with her friends for fear that she had none. Happily, just before the passage was cleared of all visitors, three kind-looking women came to the window and she sprang up. They were her friends.

The courtesy of the police continued, and Christabel Pankhurst and a few others were allowed to remain talking to us for some time after the general public had been sent out of the passage communicating with the cells.

Knowing that we had yet a long day before us, we in turns took advantage of the lavatory end of the cell, the others mounting guard in a group round the grating to ensure privacy. This was my first experience of the publicity attending this process throughout prison life. It is, without doubt, one of the greatest trials to the better-educated prisoner; my sympathy went out especially to the younger members of our Deputation and to all young prisoners.

At about 2.30 there came a jangling of keys, rattling of bolts, and the cell doors were thrown open. We came out and lined up in the passage outside, and our names were called out in the order of our arrest. There were again some delays and waiting in different passages. One seemed to be dealt with much like goods at a custom house, certain facts about one being recurringly inquired after, investigated, noted in a book, and the goods then passed on for the same process to take place elsewhere. Eventually we filed out into a courtyard where the prison van, “Black Maria,” as the hull of a great dead ship, awaited her cargo. The grim appearance of that celebrated vehicle had always been a signal to me, when passing it in the street, for having to repress an instinct to follow it, an awed reverence for the distressful plight of those inside it, an almost maddening craving to know what had been the cause of their law-breaking, the nature of their crimes, how far their present degradation could morally uplift them, what was happening to their human belongings, what would happen to themselves when they were once more free, whether indignation, revolt, dull indifference, remorse, or the harrowingly abject penitence so frequent in suffering beings was uppermost in their minds. Now I myself was one of the criminals. I should know the sensations from actual experience, literally from within. Of course I in no sense regarded myself as a criminal, and was aware of a detached spectator’s commentary running through my mind all the while. It suddenly struck me, perhaps, after all, this is a sensation common to many criminals. A good number of them no doubt either know they have not, or think they have not, committed the offence for which they are condemned. Many, while admitting their acts, probably have a moral standard with regard to them quite different from that which controls the law. Others, perhaps, like myself, think their acts were entirely justified and right; some, again, would feel consciously and aggressively at war with all recognised standards.

I had several times seen men arrested and male prisoners in the streets, travelling, outside prisons and police courts, but I had never seen any women prisoners. Suddenly the picture of them and of women’s crimes came into my mind with a rush. Who were the women who, day by day, trod the very stones on which my feet now stood, whose eyes would look up, a few minutes after mine, to the terrifying form of Black Maria? How and why had they broken the law, in what way were they enemies of Society? The impress of their feet seemed to be one with mine, and up from that criminals’ pavement their mind seemed to get into my own. Child-burdened women who were left without money, without the means or opportunity or physical power to earn it, who had stolen in order to save their lives and that of their children,—thieves! Women who from their childhood had been trained to physical shame, women who at their first adolescence had borne children by their own fathers under circumstances when resistance was inconceivable. Women who had been seduced by their employers. Women deceived and deserted by their friends and lovers. Women employed by their own parents for wage-earning prostitution. Women reduced to cruelty after being for years the unconsulted churning mills for producing in degradation and want and physical suffering the incessant annual babies of an undesired family. Women who had been stolen in their bloom and imprisoned for purposes of immoral gain. If amongst such women, such criminals, there are many who are professionally thieves, prostitutes “by choice,” immoral “past redemption” as it is called, sodden with drink, undermined by drug taking, their maternity transformed into cruelty, their brains worn to madness, what cause is there for surprise or reproach, and what hope is there of cure by imprisonment? Before they took to these muddy lanes have they not been driven out from the fair road? What was their training, what their choice from the start? Are not the doors of the professions and many trades still barred to them? Their right to work, a fair value for their work, is it not denied to them? When they undertake the burdensome but joyous labour of maternity, is there any security to them of physical respect and choice, of economic security, of rewardful honour and social influence? Where is the recognition of the woman’s great service, how is she helped to render it suitably and efficiently; does the State, the race, the family, the individual, see to it that she has her reward?

I moved forward after the others. Black Maria looked like a sort of hearse with elephantiasis—warranted to carry many coffins concealed in her body and to bear them to as many graves. She fairly set one shuddering. To get inside her seemed a sort of living death, certainly, most literally, entry into another world. For a moment I hesitated and thought, “Suppose I refuse to get in?” The mere notion called up the forces arrayed against one and made me realise my utter helplessness. The gates, the bolts, locks and chains, the cells we had just left, the court and magistrate, the high walls all around, the enormous policemen on every hand. The one who stood at the open door of the van said, “Come along, please.” His words were civil enough and linked one back to the normal outer world, but his voice and beckoning gesture were authoritative and the sense of physical power seemed to wedge one in. It was clear that henceforth all one’s actions would be initiated and carried out without choice, solely by necessity of obedience.

The policeman who had special charge of us for the journey was a man of jovial disposition, and he cracked witticisms as he played his ’bus-conductor’s part. We readily responded to his mood. An antidote was needed to the grimness of the proceedings, but the merriment was by no means all forced. As soon as I laid aside the remembrance of the real prisoners and limited the outlook to that of our own immediate experience, the comic element was rampant and seemed to dig one in the ribs, making me laugh with heartiness. We were all, it seemed, playing some ludicrous, babyish game, unsuited to our years, but all the more absurd for that. The ’bus-conductor-policeman got inside; we followed him one by one into the narrow central gangway that forms the spinal marrow of Black Maria. On either side are tiny separate cells, like the compartments of a cupboard, the doors of which when opened completely obstruct the passage so that only one prisoner at a time can be admitted or released. On first getting in it seems quite dark, and the sensation of being rapidly pushed into a very small hole, squeezed back, the door shut and locked to the accompanying sound of banging and much jangling and turning of keys, is extremely disagreeable. The cell contains a seat and is ventilated by a grating in the door, by groups of small holes on either side, in the floor at one’s feet, and by a wire-netted ventilator running under the roof of the van, as in a ’bus. The cell was so small that my legs, which are long, had to be tucked up almost under my chin; I could imagine that in hot weather the want of air would be oppressive, but though the sense of being so closely confined was disagreeable, the draughts from the ventilators seemed to play upon one almost excessively and I felt very cold. When the cells were all filled the passage was duly packed with prisoners, standing one against the other like tinned sardines. As the van was not high enough to admit of standing upright, this must have been a most tiring position. Presently there was a final shutting and locking of the outer door, in which was a small grating window, as we know it from the outside. Then followed a rumbling jerk and Black Maria’s great overcharged body began her long, jolting drive to Holloway. The sensation reminded me of a bathing machine when it sets out for the sea, but the noise and jolting and darkness were all greater in degree. We tried to communicate with each other, to find out who was in which cell and who was standing in the passage. We started singing the Women’s Marseillaise and other of our songs. Those in the passage managed to put a scarf with our colours through the ventilator under the coachman’s seat, others passed a scarf through the grating window of the door at the opposite end. These feats were, of course, communicated to the whole Maria-full of us, and the news that the police were allowing the scarves to remain was greeted with much cheering. Possibly, the driver was unconscious of his magnanimous action, since the scarf end, I expect, flowed out somewhere near his feet. The colours every now and then were seen and loudly cheered by friends in the street. This woke in me an appreciation of the colours and understanding of their meaning in a way I had not grasped before. There is so little need for symbolism in these days of print, newspapers, advertisements, etc., but our movement has had to combat all the conditions of an era of darkness, ignorance, and barbaric repression. When newspapers will not accept, publishers will not print, and booksellers will not sell the true facts concerning us, then a rapid means of irrepressible communication had to be sought through the symbolism of colours, purple, white and green—justice, purity, hope. Wherever you see them you know we are there, and you know our meaning.

I joined in the songs for as long as I could and in the counter-cheering whenever we had a cheer from the streets, but I soon withdrew into the luxury of my solitude. I was exhilarated and happy in mind, but my physical exhaustion was considerable. The physical tax of the Deputation and the nervous tax of the trial proceedings had strained my powers to their uttermost. At last I was alone with myself. The sense of release from the necessity of keeping up appearances, of having to put on a good front, was great. I wondered how often the occupants of my cell in that black hive must have felt the same after the anguish, suspense, complication of fears, connected with their trial. I noticed that if for a moment I entertained the idea of initiative, action, the wish to touch normal existence, to be and behave like an ordinary being, then the sense of subjection, of being buried alive was all but insufferable and might quickly drive one to the verge of insanity. But the physical exhaustion which leads to the craving for inanition, for solitude and privacy, turned that locked-up slice of the van into a welcome sanctuary.

After a long drive, for seemingly the better part of an hour, the sounds changed and Black Maria quivered over a courtyard pavement, filling us with expectations of arrival. The jolting and noise ceased, the doors were unlocked, one by one as we had been packed in we emerged again and were quickly ushered into Holloway Prison, through what seemed a back door in a yard surrounded by high walls. It made no particular impression upon me. It might have been another police court, less dingy and more clean.