The following morning, Thursday, March 18, I was again summoned before the Governor. He looked as if he had an important announcement to make to me. “Do you still wish to leave the hospital?” he asked. I was afraid this might mean my dismissal. “Do you mean going to the other side?” I said. He answered “Yes.” “Rather!” I exclaimed, and could hardly contain myself for surprise and delight. He proceeded to explain: “The weather having changed, the medical officer gives his consent to your being moved to the cells.” I should not be allowed to scrub my floor nor do any of the routine “labour,” but if my health and behaviour (!) remained good, I might be moved next day.

The weather, of course, had changed many times since we had been in Holloway, varieties of cold or mild, damp or dry succeeding each other day by day, after the familiar fashion of our national climate in February and March. But I was too well content to be sarcastic over the reasons given for the official surrender to my request. I simply said “Thank you very much indeed.” I had already announced this decision to several of the ward patients, when the superintendent came on her rounds and I rushed up to her unceremoniously with, “Have you heard my good news?” Her official mood was on and she ordered me off with a “Hush! not now.” I gathered from various questions put to me by the Governor that the authorities hoped I had not told of my carving-strike to the other patients. It would never do, of course, to conciliate the wishes of a striker! But I was not able to comfort them on this score, and my triumph was public as well as complete.

Later in the morning the superintendent took me before the Senior Medical Officer. With him it was a real temptation to say, “If now, why not before?” to point out how effective had been the behaviour which two days previously he had professed to find so incomprehensible, also to draw the analogy between this little prison episode and the women’s fight for the vote—a reasonable demand, continuously pressed in a reasonable way and with great patience; result, blank refusal on the part of responsible powers. Militant action, by means of strike and protest; result, anger, condemnation, and the request is granted. The vote is not yet granted to women, but who now doubts that “they’ll get it” before long; but I restrained myself and trusted that the lesson would sink home unassisted. The doctor pointed to a chair by the side of his desk for me to sit while he sounded me. In my excitement I forgot all prison decorum and shook him cordially by the hand. He and the ward superintendent seemed nearly as pleased as I was myself. I felt how differently the prison system would work and with what different results if the officials were more often allowed to please themselves by pleasing their prisoners.

That afternoon Mrs. Macdonald was released and sent, by arrangement with the Prison Commissioners, to a private hospital. The ward superintendent accompanied her, but on the return of this officer no word escaped her as to how the patient had stood the transit, nor as to the result of the further radiograph which had been taken the day before. As soon as I was released, I heard that her leg was broken and had been from the first. A committee was formed for her care and her redress. The Home Secretary, Mr. Gladstone, was sure that the leg had been broken before and refused to read our statement. It was not till 1910, when Mr. Winston Churchill was made Home Secretary, that he read the case and paid her £500 compensation. She was taken to another hospital and had a serious operation to her leg. Had it been treated at once, the fractured bone would have been restored to its own length, but after about eighteen days of her being in prison, when nothing was done for it, the bone had overlapped and the muscles hardened round it. This, of course, inevitably shortened the bone. The operation was successful, but she is lame for life.

The only item in the cell-life routine to which I looked forward with considerable misgiving was discarding the hospital slippers and having to wear the hard shoes continuously all day. I felt quite absurdly pleased with the reward of my efforts. At the mid-day meal I drank, or rather ate, the doctor’s health in rice pudding and insisted that the wardress in charge should do the same. That day there happened to be on duty one of the outwardly least human of her kind, but my good spirits were irrepressible, and these being so rarely seen in prison, they gave me a certain air of authority, I suppose, for her severity melted and she ate the rice pudding, as ordered, with even the flicker of a smile.

The luxury of a bath was allowed once a week, my turn was due that evening. The superintendent said: “If I let you have it, will you promise me not to cut yourself about or any nonsense of that kind?” I answered: “Is it likely now that I’ve achieved all that I’ve been struggling for?” That evening, when she came to my bed for a last inspection, I said, “You see, they have given way after all.” “Yes,” she answered; “I never thought they would, but there, you never can tell what is happening behind the scenes.” I cordially agreed with this last sentiment. “That is why,” I answered, “one should never grow disheartened when things seem to be impossible.”

The next morning, while dusting the ward, the little 3rd Division cleaner came up to me and, without looking at me after the manner of prisoners, said in a low voice, “I shall miss you.” I took her to mean that my housemaiding had to a certain extent lightened her labours, and I was filled with pride; I have seldom received praise that gave me more pleasure. I redoubled my energies and turned over and dusted the beds that were unoccupied. The superintendent passed and said, “What are you doing there?” I explained. “Oh!” she answered, “That’s good of you.” It’s wonderful how luck, good or bad, never comes singly. Everything seemed to win approval that day.

In the afternoon I was sewing a new stripe on to Mrs. Duval’s sleeve, a good conduct badge that had been dealt out to her, as the first month of her sentence had been served (she was in for six weeks), when a stranger wardress came into the ward and summoned me to “bring your things and come with me.” This meant the other side at last! Now that the long-fought privilege was actually mine I felt self-reproachful at leaving Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, but she thought I had done right to try and join the others. No time was allowed for goodbyes. As I retreated through the gate I waved the hated shoes at my companions, in token of my good wishes. I was made to change all my clothes. The wardress was reluctant to allow me to wear my nightdress, as I had done from the first in the day time. I insisted, fearing that I might catch cold without it, and I promised the doctor to care for my health in every way if allowed out of hospital. She relented, but told me I must inform the matron about it. I was taken over to the new building “D X,” and shown to a cell on the third floor, No. 10. It was very clean, had no bars on the window and no gate, and was in every respect much brighter looking and without so much of the death’s-head element as the hospital cell I had just left in the older part of the prison. It had a hot pipe and, to my surprise, was considerably warmer than the hospital cell or general ward, so that the official excuse about the change of weather seemed less to the point than ever. After depositing the sheets, towel, soap, etc., which I had brought with me, I was taken to join the others, who were sitting at associated labour on the ground floor passage. The building had a strange appearance, as of an enormous bird cage. The cells are ranged on either side of a barrack-like hall giving on to narrow galleries with iron rails. The different storeys are reached by a small iron stairway in the centre. These and the balconies are covered over with wire netting for the prevention of suicide, a precaution in every way most characteristic of the prison system, a symbol of the suicide of its own success. The wire netting gives the building an abnormal appearance; newcomers question “Why is it there?” The explanation fills the mind with horror and revolt. A deeper investigation into prison life brings to light the fact that nothing is done to prevent or counteract the desire for suicide in prisoners, the evil is only met by artificial prevention of its consequences when the mutilation of all spontaneous wishes, human instincts and reasonable paths of self-interest have engendered the passionate longing to cease existing.

The moment of joining my companions was most exhilarating. They were sitting on chairs placed in regular rows, knitting stockings or sewing women’s underclothes and men’s shirts. I was put into a vacant place about six rows from the front. Patients who had returned to the cells from hospital had spread the news of my continued but vain attempts to rejoin the bulk of my fellow-prisoners, so that my appearance among them caused great surprise. Some of them were almost unrecognisably changed by the prison dress, others I was distressed to see looked extremely ill, but, as the news spread amongst them of my presence, they looked my way in turn and gave me a welcoming smile that momentarily changed prison into paradise. I quickly understood that the right we had claimed to talk with one another at associated labour had been effectively maintained, but for the sake of not getting the wardresses into trouble we talked only in low voices or whispers to our immediate neighbours. The greatest eagerness, of course, was for news of Mrs. Lawrence. She had sent a special message of thanks to Mrs. Corbett and to Miss Carling, news having reached the hospital that these two had been particularly active in maintaining the rights and decencies that had been won by our predecessors through much hardship, also in their efforts to secure fresh reforms of the same kind. These were mostly connected with ordinary prison routine and affected the welfare of all prisoners besides ourselves. They were, amongst others—the use of an earthenware mug for drinking purposes instead of a tin; permission to empty slops more frequently; a chair with a back to it had been substituted for the stool; a better standard of food, cooking and clothing through complaint whenever these were amiss; the right to appeal direct to the Governor—previously the applications to see the Governor had frequently not been delivered, this being, of course, more especially the case when it was suspected that complaint would be made about any of the officers; protest whenever prisoners were unjustly punished for offences they had not committed; the right to speak to each other at associated labour.

The prisoners near me were eager to point out these two valiant women and cordially endorsed the report of their splendid persistency. They were sitting near the front, and it was several days before I achieved getting a place near enough to convey to them Mrs. Lawrence’s message. They were immensely pleased. One of the reforms for which they had asked most continuously, but always in vain, was for alteration in the lavatory doors. These, which we nick-named “the cowsheds,” were only about three feet in depth and left a space of one foot from the ground, there was no lock or bolt or catch of any kind and they could not be fastened. As the lavatories occupied a position next door to the sink and in the very centre of the gallery, there was no sense of privacy whatever. Both feet and head of the occupant could be seen from the passage, and in the hurried passing to and fro of prisoners to the sink to draw water or empty slops the lavatory door was frequently flung open. The excuse given for this arrangement was that it was in the interests of cleanliness and because of the tendency amongst prisoners to commit suicide. If they were invisible or could lock themselves in, it was stated that besides foul behaviour they would seize the opportunity to kill themselves. Obviously neither of these precautions were necessary in the case of Suffragettes, and we pleaded that when our numbers exceeded sixteen, the number of cells to which a lavatory was provided, one might be set apart for our use. With the W.S.P.U. and Freedom League together the Suffragette prisoners during my time amounted to about forty. We asked that a bolt should be put on the inside of the door, and a curtain hung from the top of the doorway. This would have been easy and inexpensive, and the wardress in charge could, at any time necessary, draw the curtain and open the bolt from outside the door. It is difficult to see how this arrangement would be harmful even to the ordinary prisoner. The modern cells are fitted with electric light, the lamps of which have glass shades. The prisoners are locked into these cells and pass the night without inspection. If they intended suicide nothing would be easier than to break the glass and open a vein with it. The lavatories contain no such easy implements for suicide. The almost unanimous experience of our prisoners, and of many ordinary prisoners with whom I have compared notes since my release, is that prison life disorganises digestion. The unaccustomed food, the many hours of sitting still, the want of air, the inability to leave the cell except at stated times, and the great depression of spirit, are all of them certain to produce digestive disorders. Bread is the staple food of prisoners. The prison brown bread is excellent in quality and in nutritive properties to those who can digest it, but to most moderns, of whatever class or sex, it is an unaccustomed food. To some people it is too coarse and acts as an irritant, while producing the opposite effect on others. The white bread of the hospital, also excellent of its kind, though not so irritating, is also not easily digested because of the stagnant life and small quantity of vegetables or butter allowed. The part played by the drug-basket in prison routine, and the surprise of its attendant if purgatives were not required, is proof sufficient that prison conditions in this matter are abnormal. The cells are supplied with tin chambers fitted with a lid which can be used in an emergency, but the close atmosphere of the cells makes this extremely undesirable to people trained in any sense of cleanliness. Every cell has an electric bell for summoning a wardress, but frequently no notice is taken of such a summons, and the bells are often out of order and do not work. Many of our Suffrage prisoners have had their health permanently impaired, some have had to undergo operations, as a result of the prison life in these respects. From the writings of ordinary prisoners and from what I have heard from them direct, digestive disorders seem to be common to most prisoners. My own comparative immunity I ascribe to the following precautions: Doing physical exercises twice or three times a day, saving potatoes from the midday dinner so that I had some vegetable food at every meal; keeping my allowance of bread until it was stale; the extra milk and butter allowed to vegetarians; the freedom from drug taking made possible by these precautions; the privileges extended to me in the way of occasional permission to leave my cell out of the drill routine limitations.

After we had returned to our cells the Matron came to visit me. I reported the fact that I was wearing my nightgown under my day clothes. She said I could not be allowed to do this without special permission from the medical officer. I accordingly put in “an application” to see him the next day.

I think there must be something of Asiatic origin in me, for, contrary to Western customs, I never feel that meals are a suitable time for conviviality, but, on the contrary, that eating should be in solitude. I enjoyed the change to the cell routine in this respect. It was good to have always the same drinking mug, the cleaning of which I had done myself, and I was glad to be rid of the hospital tablecloth, for this was changed only once a week, and the over-filled dishes of fish and vegetables, as well as tea and milk, left their mark upon it abundantly, so that during the last days of the week it presented anything but an appetising appearance. In the cells, milk was poured into my own pint mug, vegetables were served in an unpolished tin which looked very dirty and sometimes smelt objectionably, but the potatoes were in their skins and I ate of the vegetables only that part which did not touch the tin. A tin plate and spoon were provided in the cells, and a curious piece of tin, oblong in shape, doubled over up one side to make a rounded surface and corrugated on the other to make an uneven saw-like edge, was handed in with the meal to serve as knife. This I used as it was put out again with the empty tins, but I soon learned that if the plate and spoon were greased with food it was very difficult to get them clean again, as they can only be washed in cold water. The pail of water allowed to stand in the cell quickly became greasy itself, and there was no time, when let out to the tap to draw water, to wash up these things at the sink. I therefore used some of the freely supplied brown toilet paper to cover my plate and helped myself with my fingers instead of the spoon as they were much easier to wash. We were allowed a small supply of hot water at the same time that supper, consisting of hot milk and bread, was brought round. It was rather a trial that under conditions where luxuries were scarce, two should be supplied together in a way to make the full enjoyment of them both impossible. I preferred a hot wash to a hot supper and performed my ablutions first.

I had hoped that having left hospital I should be allowed to sleep in the dark, but it was a disappointment to find I was still an “observation case” because of my “heart disease.” I did not sleep much and when morning came I felt strangely tired, but supposed it was due to the unusual excitement of rejoining my companions and of having at last attained to “the other side.” One of the hospital patients had kindly given me elaborate instructions as to the mysterious and dexterous craft of bed-rolling in the cells. As the failure to achieve this correctly was a frequent cause of reproof and as the instructions given by wardresses were often inadequate I was very grateful for this special training. I remember that the patient, Mrs. Manson, of the Freedom League, was reading George Elliot’s “Mill on the Floss,” and it was on the cover of this book that she elaborated to me the furniture of the cell, where each thing should be placed and how the bedding was to be folded, then rolled into a kind of Swiss-roll coil. In the cells the mattress is stuffed with some kind of chaff, a not uncomfortable form of bedding if not stuffed too full. But mine was a new one, it seemed filled to its utmost capacity, so that it was as hard as a pincushion to lie upon, and it was only after repeated efforts, requiring my utmost strength for about fifteen minutes, that I succeeded at last in curling it up and buttoning it together in the required fashion. I was sufficiently exhausted after doing this to necessitate a long pause before I started afresh on the folding of the sheets and blankets which had to be done with minute exactness. Much more prolonged physical labours in hospital had never produced this effect upon me even during the first days when my heart was in an actively disturbed state. I wondered whether there was some health-maiming condition in this much-yearned-after “other side” which had really justified my retention in hospital. I then remembered the ventilation system of the cells against which Suffragette prisoners had made such a determined stand. The Governor and doctors had never once mentioned this lack of air in the cells as among their reasons for keeping me out of them, but now I became convinced that this was the cause of my faintness. Beyond a general feeling of what might be described as extreme slackness I did not notice anything peculiar until I exerted myself, but then the absolutely stagnant quality of the atmosphere seemed to overwhelm me. The window had no opening of any kind, the sixteen small panes of glass in their wooden framework were hermetically sealed. There were three ventilators in all, but on placing my hand upon them there was no feeling whatever of a current of air. The window was not fogged, so proving that the air was not yet vitiated to that degree, but whatever the scientific diagnosis of the results of this ventilation, there could be no doubt to an occupant of the cell that it was difficult to breathe in it after the eleven or twelve hours of close confinement.[7]

During the morning, following on my “application,” I was visited by the medical officer. I put the request, as ordered by the Matron, of wearing my nightgown in the day time. He turned to the wardress and said, “What an extraordinary request to put before a doctor. That has nothing to do with me.” I explained that the leaving off of this garment would probably affect my health injuriously, but as it was contrary to prison discipline a doctor’s permit was required. He made some contemptuous remarks, but, when pressed, reluctantly gave his consent. This seems a very trifling incident as I record it here, but I vividly remember how it seemed another link in the chain of degradation which is forged afresh continuously around every prisoner. Some exceptional treatment becomes necessary, one is ordered to apply for it through some particular channel, on application the prisoner is refused, reproved or laughed at, as if this were a fresh instance of misdeed or foolishness. In this instance I reminded the doctor that the authorities were anxious that my health should be good at my release, and that in making this request I was assisting them, otherwise I should prefer to go without a privilege which would not be extended equally to all prisoners under like conditions. I had intended bringing forward the question of ventilation, but felt that it would be useless to appeal to this particular official, who had invariably treated all my requests as unreasonable. On looking back after my release on this man’s conduct, it has occurred to me that possibly he adopted his attitude towards me from a righteous indignation at the orders for specially favourable treatment which were ordered for my case from headquarters. I have heard from other Suffragette prisoners and also from ordinary prisoners of his considerate kindness to them on several occasions. I afterwards told the Chief Medical Officer about the airlessness of these cells, I think with some effect.

We were exercised in the morning, not in the afternoon as from the hospital. It was a moment of great delight to see my companions in the yard, where I had a better view of them than at associated labour. We were exercised in sections of about sixteen at a time for an hour, in the central yard of the prison, as it seemed, a triangular yard flanked by high walls of the oldest blocks of cells and adjoining the high central tower, which enables Holloway prison to stand as a landmark for many miles distant. It can be seen from the Great Northern Railway on the line between Holloway and Finsbury Park Stations. I never look at it without recalling the sensations that gripped my soul and checked my breath when I first set eyes on this inner yard. It seemed the quintessence of prison, the very heart of it. The length of each side of the rough, triangular formation is, I should think, about twenty-four feet. The walls facing south-west and east are very high, so that a deep shadow lies across the yard at all hours; on the right, as we entered from D X, is a low walled building used apparently, for cooking and laundry purposes and facing south. This seems to be a more modern erection, and from its low, single-storey construction is responsible for most of the sunlight allowed to enter the enclosure. The remarkable feature of the yard, which caused the first feeling of horror that has remained a nightmare in my mind ever since, is the tier upon tier of cell shutters, they could not be called windows, in the two high walls giving on to the yard. They are designed to let in the very minimum of light or air, the shuttered layers of wood are, moreover, coated with refuse of the pigeons which fly freely about the yard, and are in every other respect a great delight to prisoners. The prison from here looks like a great hive of human creeping things impelled to their joyless labours and unwilling seclusion by some hidden force, the very reverse of natural, and which has in it no element of organic life, cohesion, or self-sufficing reason. A hive of hideous purpose from which flows back day by day into the surrounding city a stream of evil honey, blackened in the making and poisonous in result. The high central tower seemed to me a jam pot, indicative of the foul preserve that seethed within this factory for potting human souls.

Sometimes, in momentary reaction from the pent-up feelings of indignation and revolt, which were chronic with me during my imprisonments, I could have laughed out loud at the imbecility and pathos of human fallibility, that civilised (?) educated beings could continue such processes by way of ridding themselves from the dangers and active harmfulness of crime. Wardresses stood at different points of the yard. Whenever in our march round there was a tendency for the single file to draw closer together, the wardresses would say nothing, but catch hold of one of us by the arm until the spacing was again correct. This handling of prisoners instead of appealing to their ordinary intelligence was typical of the mistaken routine, as in hospital, imposed upon prison officials.

Once, to my delight, I recognised among these superintending wardresses one who had been with us, and exceptionally kind, in hospital. I hoped that she would manage somehow to give me news of Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and possibly also of my friend with the injured leg, whose fate I thought must surely have filtered through to the wardresses. For some days no opportunity occurred, although this officer smiled at me once or twice with a friendly recognition that was quite unofficial, but only at carefully chosen moments, showing that such a smile would not be allowed by higher authorities. At last, when I purposely crowded up rather near to the prisoner ahead of me, she took the opportunity to check my progress by putting her arm in front of me in the recognised fashion, meanwhile telling me in a hasty whisper and without looking at me, just as prisoners communicate, that Mrs. Lawrence was well, but that Mrs. Macdonald had been found to have a fractured hip-joint and would have to stay in hospital a long while.

Although my cell was considerably warmer than that in the hospital, I still had not grown accustomed to the insufficiency of my underclothing, and as now there was no worse condition of things ahead of me I put into use the strip of flannel that had been given me for knee-binders. I found that either they slipped off immediately or had to be bound so tight that they impeded circulation and the free use of the limbs. As one had to be constantly kneeling down for bed making, etc., this device proved quite impracticable. Fearing lest fresh suggestion on my part would have to be passed by a series of officials and finally submitted to the judgment of a doctor who might, as in the nightgown question, satirically exclaim that this was a point not suitable to put to him, I took advantage of the light that was left on all night, and during the uninspected hours sewed the strips of flannel on to the flannel drawers; this enabled me to tuck them into the stockings knickerbocker-wise.

The chaplain kindly came to visit me and remained for quite a long talk. He is the only male prison official who visits the prisoners without an attendant, the Governor and Deputy Governor being accompanied generally by the Matron, and the medical officer by a hospital attendant or wardress. He told me that many prisoners after release wrote to him with gratitude for his kindness and help; nevertheless he seemed to me to have but little fellow-feeling for the flocks he shepherded in Holloway. I appealed to him, in a way I had not been able to do within hearing of the other patients in the hospital, about the case of Mrs. Macdonald. I told how it seemed to me an instance of the way in which prison officials left to themselves could not possibly have shown such brutality and neglect as was actually the case, had not the tradition of the prison system exacted a lower standard of conduct than was natural. I summed up the special grievances—her being made to walk across the yard, to walk up the three flights of stairs, being left a whole day in her cell before being conveyed to hospital, the refusal of the doctors to use the X-rays for investigation in the first instance, the contempt with which they had ignored the suggestions of this unusually intelligent woman, the refusal to allow her to see a doctor from outside when she was dissatisfied with their diagnosis, in spite of the fact that she could not in any sense be regarded as a criminal, having been charged for “obstruction” only when on a perfectly peaceable deputation to the House of Commons. The difficulties put in the way of her communication with her husband relative to her release. The cruel, needless physical suffering as well as mental worry which such treatment had entailed, perhaps resulting in maiming her for life. He had no word of sympathy to offer in connection with this case, and when I compared the treatment with that meted out to myself, when much greater consideration was shown with much less need, he took the official line that all that was done by officials must be right, and that his own wife had had a similar fall, some friends had advised X-rays, others had said they would be useless. Nothing was done, the injury turned out to be slight and her recovery had been complete. At the time he was using such arguments to me, it was already known that in Mrs. Macdonald’s case the hip-joint had been fractured.

I know that it is a very serious matter to tell of these things in a published book. I shall be reminded that officials are unable to answer back or to defend themselves in public. It must, however, be remembered that prisoners are in a yet more defenceless position, and that having personally witnessed and experienced the effect on prisoners of certain kinds of official infallibility, it is a matter of conscience to speak out. But in all these instances it is the bad tradition, the wrong standard of conduct exacted, not the personal character of officials, that has to be attacked. This chaplain, given ordinary surroundings, would no doubt be according to his light a well-meaning, and according to his powers a well-doing man. If his work were in a West End parish or in a rural district among people whom he genuinely revered, I can conceive that his sympathy and understanding would be considerable. The blame of his attitude towards prisoners should rest on those who selected him for a prison job and on the many elements responsible for a system which instils contempt for the prisoner as a fundamental tenet of the prison official. I was told by a fellow-prisoner, a Suffragette, who on admission had entered her religious beliefs under the title “atheist,” that this chaplain several times discussed religious matters with her in a spirit of tolerant reverence for points of view differing from his own. The combination of the two offices, priest and prison official, seem to be almost incompatible, anyhow while the prison system rests upon its present basis. It would be more suitable if religious and moral teachers could come into the prison solely as representatives of the ethical bodies they represent. They could then offer their spiritual guidance and consolations to the unfortunate inmates, as they would to free individuals, without in any way compromising the “system” or the officials who have to carry it out.

On Sunday we were allowed to go to Holy Communion. This impressed one very strangely. An attempt was made to treat one more freely, combined with many of the same restrictions as at other times. There were about ten or twelve women altogether, of whom about six were Suffragettes. To our great delight Mrs. Lawrence was one of them. It seemed ages since I had left her, and I was delighted to see her again. The beautiful words of the service were almost more than one could bear, and every one of them seemed to contain freedom. It seemed as if we must be holding it privately among ourselves. “Drink ye all of this, for this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins: Do this as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me.” Yet there was the wardress with her face from which neither good nor bad could be told, neither kind nor unkind, and the face of the parson which seemed of the very nature of officialdom. After the service we left the chapel by different doors, Mrs. Lawrence’s batch and ours, and we did not see each other again.

The next morning when we were returning, through the many halls of the building, single file, our huge boots ringing out on the stone floor, at one door a hospital superintendent stood and said to each one as she passed: “Any application for the doctor?” When it came to my turn, I saw that it was my friend from the hospital, but no look of recognition betrayed itself in her face. She put out her arm to stop me and wheeled me round to the back. When several others had passed her she turned to me, began quickly undoing my dress and said rapidly, but with still no look of recognition: “Well, have you been all right?” “Oh, yes,” I said, “but surely you are not going to look at it here?” She made no answer, but began to inspect me even more quickly. I insisted on turning my back on the long file which seemed never to end. She asked kindly questions, and said she would come and see the other wound that afternoon. She did not come, however, but sent one of the younger superintendents. She came once in the early morning, and it was very nice to see her again; it was the last time.

On one of the latter days a girl was wrongfully accused of laughing in chapel, and confined to her cell in consequence the following day. It is possible that someone was guilty of this. The severity which some of the wardresses used at chapel seated above the prisoners, one at every two or three rows, their backs to the altar and their attention completely taken up with the prisoners, gave one a strange sensation in church; it took away all reverence of the usual kind, and made one nervous and possibly inclined to laugh. But, as it happened, the girl punished for this offence was far removed from the possibility of laughing. She was one of those I had noticed with particularly long hair; it must have reached below her knees. We had come away together once from an Albert Hall meeting in a four-wheel cab when I had been lucky in securing it, and a wet evening made me invite strangers who were anxious to get away. She was particularly deferential and modest in her ways, her manner in chapel was irreproachable, and that she was picked out for punishment was most singularly ill-judged. We volunteered punishment of the same order as hers, and neither chapel, exercise, nor concerted labour had the benefit of us during the day.

The last days were spent in burning excitement. Nothing that I can say will explain the feeling I had that I was going to be free once more. The food, the clothes, the getting up at 5.30 a.m., these were bad enough, but they were as nothing compared to the incessant brutal treatment of the official manner, as with Mrs. Macdonald more especially, but also with Mrs. Duval, Miss Lawless, and others; in the constantly being ordered about and spoken to as if one had no feelings or perceptions, there was nothing but an extreme severity of manner without the smallest variation. On the third or fourth day before our last, someone had a visitor while we were at associated labour. On her return along the line she said to me: “A speech is expected of you; they hope great things of you at the feast.” My heart gave one bound. This meant release without a doubt, but a speech! How was it such a thing was expected of me? “I’ll simply tell some of the things that take place here,” I thought, and I felt that this was necessary.

The morning of March 24 we were released. My excitement was great, I had not slept, and from 4.30 onwards it was impossible to keep quiet. At 5.30 we were called in the regulation way and towards 7 we were taken down to other cells. I was put into one with a stranger whom I had not seen before. She was a servant, a lady’s maid, who had left her last place, or, rather, they had left her, because of her opinions. She had determined to go in for the Deputation, although probably it would mean that she got no place again.[8] The cell where we were was dirty and smelt horribly, but I said nothing, hoping that my companion would not notice it. She soon did, however, for the smell nearly made her faint. I was given a packet of letters—a large heap from friends and strangers all the world over. At the head of the telegrams was a two-sheet one from our baker in the country, sent off the moment I was a prisoner, addressed to “The Castle where Suffragettes are confined, Holloway,” most anxious about my food, and might he send the special bread he always made for me! I read my mother’s letter again and again; it was all kindness, and I could hardly wait to see her. We were arranged in a long, close file, in the same order in which we had been ushered in, and put to stand in the big gateway. I never knew what it was that kept us, but there we stood for nearly an hour. A wardress or two were watching us, and we were not allowed to move. At last the big doors were unbolted, we were half pushed from where we stood, we were out in the open—we were free. My sister and her eldest girl and boy had somehow gained permission to come within the outer gates. I saw them and forgot all else. There was no release-breakfast feast; we were told that we were to meet that evening at the Inns of Court Hotel and make our speeches there.

Some days had passed when I went back to the prison. I thought I should be glad to get within reach of the ordinary prisoner, I in no way dreaded it. I had more to find out about X., the 3rd Division prisoner of the hospital. But, strangely enough, when I saw the big tower of Holloway, that looked quite different from anything else, and which brought back the inevitable picture of the women that go in, are kept in durance, and let out again to a life more horribly unnatural, I felt my legs begin to shake, and by the time I was shown in to the Governor, who kindly saw me, it was all I could do to walk upstairs. I could not see X.; they said that someone else had been to visit her that month. I got in touch with her case through the Prisoners’ Aid Society but they said that she was being “attended to” by another lady.

I went again to Holloway the morning that X. was to be released. Her freedom was due at 8 a.m. Two women and her little boy were waiting for her, they had kept the boy from all harm during the long months of her imprisonment. They didn’t know where she was going to live, or what she would do, they had heard nothing from her. Soon after eight the great doors swung open, and the prisoners for that morning were let out, but there was no X., among them. I inquired at the door, but they would give no information there. After waiting another three-quarters of an hour I put in an appeal to see the Governor. The little boy of four years old had waited more than an hour outside, I had petitioned for him and one of the women to wait inside, but in vain. I was shown up to the Governor, who kindly saw me and made inquiries for me about X.’s case. She was booked to go out that morning, but was waiting for her uncle, a well-to-do man, to take her away. I said her little boy was there, might he not spend the time with her, as she would be taking him away. The answer was “No.” The Governor said it was a case in which the Chaplain and a lady visitor had taken a special interest, that he knew very little about it. He asked me very kindly to wait in his room, but as he had nothing more to tell me I went back to the women outside. They told me more fully about X. She seems to have been in every way a good and hard-working woman. She had killed her child, knowing that it would be impossible to keep it alive. The man, the father, lived in the same street, but now he had gone, they did not know where. They hoped that she would come back and live where she had been before, but they feared the rich uncle, a publican. X. had been to live with him and her aunt when quite a young girl, but they had insisted that she must tout the men for them, and engage in illegal intercourse as an attraction. She had run away, and would not live with them. At her trial the uncle had been called in, and he, being a Citizen of London, had kindly managed that she should be tried only for concealment of birth. He had done well for her at the trial, but now they feared he would get hold of her again. My feelings were indeed torn when I had to tell them the Governor’s news. They had kept the child without help from anybody, sometimes it was a very hard thing, but they had always kept it in good health. Presently a tall man came by and went into the prison. About a quarter of an hour after he came out. X. was with him. She walked head down, her face in tears. Scarcely knowing what she did, she advanced towards her little boy, stretched out both arms and gave him a passionate embrace. He had rushed towards her calling out “Mother!” Then, sobbing as if her heart would break, she followed the man to the public-house opposite. The two women made as if they would follow her, and I slipped into her hand a letter I had written in case I did not see her. The man then rounded on the women, and driving them away with his hand, said: “Keep away, we don’t want you—your money shall be paid you all right,” and he fled along the pavement, taking X. by the arm. We went and had some belated breakfast at a shop. I took the address of the women and the little boy, but I unfortunately lost it when I was abroad. I had given them mine, but I have never heard of them from that day.

I went abroad with my mother, and in the meanwhile things happened apace in England. The deputations, in ever-increasing numbers, succeeded one another with imprisonments of two or three months. The officials treated all the deputations with the utmost indifference. Miss Wallace Dunlop wrote up on the walls of the House of Commons: “Women’s Deputation, June 29. Bill of Rights. It is the right of all subjects to petition the King. All commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.” This is one of the most fundamental laws of Great Britain, but the vote has rendered it unnecessary for men. For this she was given one month’s imprisonment, and she it was who began the hunger strike, and was let free after four days. For several months succeeding prisoners followed Miss Dunlop’s fine example, and the Home Secretary, Mr. Herbert Gladstone, let them out after four or five days, some of them were kept five or six days. When they were let out they were released unconditionally. Towards the middle of September, Mr. Gladstone thought that he would make another move and, instead of releasing them, he had them fed by force in the prisons. The horror this created was at first small, for there were but few people who realised what it meant. I shall never forget the impression that it made on me.