I was at Birmingham in October, 1909, and I had two meetings with Mrs. Pankhurst. Whenever this happened one felt most singularly useless beside that great woman. I was overcome by the sense of being superfluous, and oppressed at having to go through the same ordeal in the evening. After the first meeting she took me with her to a nursing home to see the girl who had been the first to be released after the hunger-strike and forcible feeding. It was a fine evening, and a beautiful red light lit up the window as we came in; against it was merely the shadow of a girl, sitting in an arm-chair. She did not look ill in an ordinary way, but young and fresh, only so absolutely thin and wasted, it would not have surprised us if life had gone out. She told her story very simply, just the bare facts and nothing more. She had been fed for a month. Mrs. Pankhurst, in cross-questioning her, elicited some of the horrors. She had resisted the gag as long as possible, then, with the increasing weakness, she had not the strength to resist much. Yes, the tube was a long one, pushed down the throat, in spite of all attempts to prevent it, and into the stomach. The feeling was that the tube was absolutely choking you, and when it was withdrawn that it dragged after it the whole of your inside.

She looked absolutely ethereal as she smiled at us and said “Good-bye.” For several days her face haunted me, it was startlingly like something. Then I remembered the paintings of Fra Angelico in the Chapel of St. Mark’s at Florence. I bought one of the little sixpenny editions of his pictures. There it was, the thing I had seen lately, the look of spiritual strength shining through physical weakness. I looked through the book to choose one specially like the girl at Birmingham; there were several that reminded me of her. I had looked at these pictures in my younger days, and their great beauty had given me joy, but I had felt annoyed with the man for painting beings so inhuman, women that were ethereal but so little real, a look of purity that no living creature has. Now I had longed for them, having seen the thing portrayed in life. As I looked through the book, I turned over suddenly on a picture that was quite different. There was a crowd of women, real women, doing battle with men. One hit out at a soldier—the men were soldiers—another thrust out her arm, and with her hand over his face, kept him away with all the strength she could, a third had been thrown to the ground, but, with a face of raging despair was thrusting out in every direction. The soldiers were simply carrying out their duty, an order had gone forth and they obeyed it; in the arms of the women were little babies, they had been told to kill them, and they did as they were told. In a seat above, looking on quite calmly, was Herod. It was the Massacre of the Innocents. The picture made a deep impression upon me, yet it all seemed so small compared with the unnecessary death rates of now. I was, just then, reading some facts that dealt with the death rate of infants. I found in one of the booklets by J. Johnston, Esq., M.D., 1909, this passage: “The first big fact which faces us upon this subject is that while the death rate for England and Wales for 1906 was 15.4, the infantile mortality—the death rate of children under twelve months—was 132.” This means that one in eight of the children born in this country dies before its first birthday—a death roll of 339 per day—a massacre of the innocents greater than that of King Herod at Bethlehem. And this wholesale slaughter of young life goes on, not for one day, as did that historic butchery, but is repeated every day, every week, every month, year in and year out, until in the year 1906 the army of baby martyrs reached a grand total of 123,895. Well might the African monarch, King Khama, say, “You English take great care of your goods, but you throw away your children.”

I left that room in Birmingham in a maze of feelings. An angel had been in my presence and I, who agreed with all she did, had left her and many others to go through with this alone. My mind was made up. I would take the very next opportunity of making my protest with a stone.

. . . . . .

On Friday, October 8, Christabel Pankhurst and I were on our way to Newcastle. We were seated opposite to each other in the midst of a crowded third-class carriage. It was on this occasion that I realised, as I had not yet done, the wonderful character, the imperturable good temper, the brilliant intellect of my companion. As we could not talk in this crowded train, I showed her some letters and papers on which I wanted her advice, or which I wanted her to know about. Whether they were print, typewritten, or manuscript, she had read them all in a moment, so as to discuss them with me afterwards. When we arrived at Newcastle we found that we had accompanied Mr. Lloyd George; there was a small crowd that welcomed him and that cheered half-heartedly. We went, after depositing our things at an hotel, to join an outdoor meeting. Christabel spoke. I sold Votes for Women in the crowd, which, though a large one, was mostly composed of out-of-work men, who took little interest in what was said. We drove round the town in honour of Miss New, who had just come out of prison, and went to a tea in her honour in an hotel where some fifty or sixty women were assembled. After this there was a strange meeting in the ground-floor room of a lodging-house. There were twelve women; we were all intending stone-throwers, and Christabel was there to hearten us up and to go into details about the way in which we were to do it. Mrs. Brailsford was there, whose husband was lately on the staff of the Daily News; he and Mr. Nevinson had resigned their posts because of the shameful way in which that paper and the Liberal Government had forsaken the women.

I had made up my mind that I was going to throw a stone—that was as sure as death, but the manner of it was going to be my own; I was equally sure of that. I was not sure of “the stone-throwers.” I had vaguely felt that they would have different reasons from mine for this errand, that perhaps, though they could not be more certain than myself, they would mind it less. I had not been in the room with them five minutes before I realised that I was mistaken. I was the “hooligan,” if there were one amongst them. One I specially remember. She was pretty, with a great deal of fair hair. She had not, I thought, the look of determination, of silent, unhesitating determination, which gave an air of inflexibility to the others. She leaned forward and asked many questions: the wardresses, would they, too, be disagreeable, would they pull down her hair and tear out the tortoise-shell combs? One somehow knew by her voice that she was not ready, she asked her questions as if something of a nightmare was in her mind; they were asked quite simply, but seemed to say, “Oh! save me from this!” I asked Christabel, when alone with her at the hotel, if I might tell her there was no need for her to do it, that I thought she was not quite prepared. “Of course,” she answered, “if she does not feel up to it, let her stand aside. One cannot tell how one is going to feel, she has never done anything before.” Not long ago Mrs. Pethick Lawrence had met her, it was at a bazaar. She wore a big hat and looked as remote as it is possible to look from stone throwing. She expressed the greatest admiration for the militants. “There is only one thing,” she said, “which I cannot think worth while—that they should go to prison.” I was to get her out of it the next morning, the day of Lloyd George’s meetings and of our militancy.

That evening there was an immense meeting at the drill hall where Christabel was to speak, but before she began a gang of about forty students howled and threw squibs, so that nothing could be heard. When she got up for a moment the applause drowned everything, but it soon was again impossible to hear her. The students broke up the seats and threw everything about. Then some ten of them charged the platform. A row of stewards hastily ranged themselves and tried to check their advance, but their arms were wrenched apart, until the husband of one of them took his turn and gave it to one of the students, whereupon the other men turned tail and ran. At this man coming forward the police interfered, they had been appealed to in vain by some of the stewards. It was most difficult not to help them, but I had sworn to keep myself till the next day. The row made by the other students went on unabated. Meanwhile, Christabel remained perfectly good-tempered. For the first quarter of an hour she spoke up, but as it was impossible for her voice to carry above the noise she lowered her voice and spoke only to reporters. The next day her speech appeared in full in all the local press.

The next morning, October 9, we were to meet early at the same lodging-house. The morning papers were full of Mr. Lloyd George, and in biographical sketches emphasised the glory of his having been militant, and successfully militant, through several questions that he cared about in his early days. It was different in the lodging-house from the night before. All was hurry and determination. Two of the women had gone already to deliver their stony messages. The organiser, a very straightforward and reasonable woman, was sending each one to a different place. She said, “There is a stone wants to be put through the door of the Palace Theatre in the Haymarket. It must be done at once or the gang of detectives will have become too thick.” A firm voice said: “I’ll go.” It was the young girl with fair hair who had asked so many questions the night before, and whom I was going to set free. “Oh, no,” said the organiser, “this job will have to be done alone—two would be detected at once.” “I’ll go.” It was like a force of nature that reiterated this, and there was something of adamant at the back of the voice. She picked up two or three papers to sell, and was out in the street before we any of us knew what she was doing. I dashed after her. I couldn’t believe that there was so much change in her since the night before. I moved quickly, but it was only down the street that led out of the lodging-house street that I caught her up. “I had thought of getting you out of it, because you seemed too young to do the work,” I said. “That was last night; to-day all is quite different.” “But let me try and say what I have in my mind. You are going to throw a stone. Think, as you lift your arm to do it, of the majority in the House of Commons who for years have said they are for Votes for Women, who over and over again for twenty years have voted for the second reading of a Woman’s Bill, and were quite content that it should stop there. Think of the nearly total Cabinet for Woman Suffrage when the Liberals came in, under a Suffrage Prime Minister, but all attempts to pass a Bill were treated as futile. Think of the women who work with a sweated wage, who have not the energy to rebel, who are cloaked with poverty; the thousands who, stricken with poverty more hideous than we can think of on one side, and tempted with money on the other, sink into a life of shame, which is endured for five or six years, till death releases them. Think of Lloyd George, whose speech is always fair but who carefully prevents anything being done for women. Think of the women who have been sent to prison for their protest against these things, who have hunger-struck as a fresh protest and who now have been fed by force. Then throw your stone and make it do its work.”

“Thank you,” she said, “thank you.” I looked up at her, as I had not liked to do till that minute. A changed being stood before me. I had noticed that she had changed from the night before, she had changed unbelievably at this minute, and all that strength, determination, complete forgetfulness of self could give her, were with her now.

We parted. I went back to the others. The next thing I heard of her was in the other office, where we provided ourselves with stones. A little girl of about sixteen, who kept on running messages for us, came rapidly into the room. “Miss X.,” she said, “has thrown her stone, broken her window, and been arrested.” Then she went out. From that moment I knew that all was well. Miss X. got through the two days in the police-court, the trial, the hunger strike, and the forcible feeding that followed for the space of fourteen days, as did the others. Her body was weakness, but her soul was strength.

No particular job was given to me. Miss Emily Davison and I were to keep together. It was still early, and first we had to make sure of our stones. We went to the other office to get them. I was doing up mine in brown paper, double thick. “You will not be able to throw those,” said the organiser, “if there is the least bit of wind, it will get inside and send them you don’t know where.” That was true. I found some much thinner paper which kept closely round the stone. I took four or five. On each one I wrote a different thing, I think they were all taken from Mr. Lloyd George’s recent speech. I put them into my pockets and went out. Miss Davison had been speaking from every part of the town during the last week. I recommended her to buy another hat for partial disguise. We went into a hat shop and did so. In the shop there was a fascinating little black kitten which it was hard to leave. Then we went into an eating shop, thinking it was as well to have some luncheon. The shop was overpoweringly stuffy and hot. I had not met Miss Davison before, and it was most interesting to hear her experiences. Still, we could neither of us speak nor listen with anything but effort. We decided to go and see what it was like at the Haymarket, a large, open space, where the car with Mr. Lloyd George would probably pass. There was still more than an hour before he could come. The crowd was already considerable. Nearly every woman that I saw looked friendly; this was probably my imagination, but it did me good. The Suffragettes were greatly thought of that day. The place, we found, was divided in two by a hoarding of about ten feet in height; there was a space, guarded by police, that could be opened to let a carriage through. We looked round at the windows of all the adjacent buildings, but they were not of an official or of a sufficiently conspicuous character for our stones. Presently a man in front of us—the crowd now was pretty thick—was twirling round one of his cards in his hands which were folded behind him. He then held it up, so that we could see there was writing on it. At last his signals grew more desperate. One of us took the card from him. On it was written his deferential greeting, that he knew what we were out for, could he help us in any way, run messages for us or anything? We answered, writing on the other side, that we thanked him cordially, but as we had no particular job, it was best for him to “wait and see.” He had a kindly face and looked the right sort, but we thought it was just as well that this was the true answer. There was a monument to the soldiers who had died in the war in the midst of the open space. Their names were written on it, and the little boys were clambering up the monument to see above the crowd. They had died for their country, that was the one fact which seemed to stand out very clearly from the monument. Yes, nobly, and in a good fight, they had died—where is the statue to the women who had given their lives to the nation?

We heard cheering in the distance, it was the arrival of Mr. Lloyd George at the theatre, he having driven by another way. My companion began to think that our chance was over until the evening. A feeling came over me that I could not wait any longer, and that somehow or other I must throw my stone. As it would anyhow be but symbolical, it seemed to me one could find an occasion as well here as elsewhere. One thing, however, I was determined upon—it must be more zealously done, more deliberate in its character than the stone-throwing at ordinary windows, which had been done lately. I was determined that when they had me in court my act should inevitably be worse than that of other women. At this moment there was a hurry in the crowd, the police were making a clearing and opening the carriage entrance for a motor-car. We found ourselves on the very edge of the crowd. As the motor appeared, I whispered to Miss Davison: “Is this any good?” “Not the least in the world,” was her reply, “just one of the motors coming back.” I knew this, of course, but the instinct was too much for me. To throw a stone against the car as it ran along the side was dangerous, as there were two men in the front. I stepped out into the road, stood straight in front of the car, shouted out “How can you, who say you back the women’s cause, stay on in a Government which refuses them the vote, and is persecuting them for asking it,” and threw a stone at the car, but very low down. I thought I had thrown it too low, so that it would not hit the car. I was going on, in the space of time which seemed infinitely long, to tell the car to turn back and get their answer from Mr. Lloyd George, then call to the people to come through the gap and hear his answer. I had time to think out all this. Miss Davison came to my side, and I saw someone take hold of her before she could throw her stone. Then two plain-clothes detectives caught hold of me, but what was my intense surprise, without any violence whatever. They simply led me back through the crowd which surged around on every side. I had thought there were no actual friends where we stood, but I at once saw one or two ready to come and help me if I wanted it. So I was still and said not a word. My part was finished, and I saw that anything said might easily cause a tremendous disturbance at those close quarters. Miss Davison was arrested at the same time, though she had done nothing, and we were led away together. It was a business getting through the crowd. When we had left the Haymarket the crush was very much less, and the two detectives in plain clothes who were responsible for me walked on either side without touching me. This went rather strangely with the newspaper contention that I was “very excitable.” Another incident which got put into the papers was, that when we were going down a main street, two tramcars, going different ways, were about to meet. This pressed the crowd that followed us and pushed us all together. We were walking, of course, in the roadway. A little girl with a baby in a perambulator and a small boy on foot had got on to the island and were wishing to pass to the pavement, being afraid of the two trams. I realised that I was the policeman of that show. I stopped and just held out my hand to the detective on my right. We let the baby and its leaders pass, then we moved on.

We were taken to the central police station of the town. The police here were most civil, and, indeed, kind. We gave our names and addresses, and then we waited in the main room. Poor Miss Davison was very distressed at doing nothing. Her heroism had to wait for another day.[9] Mrs. Baines came into the police court and spoke to us. I was filled with disappointment that I had not been able to do more. She told me that she was quite content, that I had thrown my stone straight, and, she believed, hit the car. She was delightfully encouraging, and made one think one had done well. Presently Mrs. Brailsford joined us, she had done exactly what she meant to do, and with a hatchet had hit one of the barricades.

I noticed in this central police station a large iron cage. It was empty, and we wondered what purpose it could serve. On one of the benches a little boy was sitting, of about seven or eight years old. He had on ragged clothes, but seemed quite happy with a cup of soup which he had been given. It seemed odd though to bring small children to such a place, with nothing but policemen, although several of these were good-natured.

After we had been here a considerable time and were joined by some of our companions, we heard that it was unlikely they would allow us bail, and we were taken off to the cells. Who could have believed that in the central police station of a place like Newcastle they could be so dirty? Mine was No. 2. It was on the left side of a broad gangway, which could be shut off by an iron gate. It was October and inclined to be dark, and when I was first put into the cell it was impossible to see what it was like or what it contained. It was rather high, the very small window opposite the doorway was either of foggy glass or grimed with dirt, it scarcely lit up anything but itself. To the right was a plank, rather wide and long, and with a kind of bolster made of wood. This was all for seat or bed. When the evening light was lit above the door, where it was barred with iron on the side of the cell, I saw that the wood was filthy. There was a plenitude of fleas, but no lice. Under the window to the right was a lavatory, it was extremely dirty, the water could only be turned on from outside. There was a ledge about three feet high, which sheltered the seat. Under the window, but this I could not see till the second day, was a men’s urinal, there was a gutter in the floor for this, but no water. The cleanliness of the wall can be imagined. The smell in the cell was continuously foul.[10] I was very tired, but only liked to sit, not lie, on the bed.

After what seemed a very long time, a policeman summoned me, and said we were all to have food together in the wardresses’ room. As I was let out I noticed seven of the others being let out too—Winifred Jones, Ellen Wines Pitman, Kathleen Brown, Kitty Marion, Dorothy Pethick and Emily Davison. Mrs. Brailsford was the only one I did not see. The four others—Violet Bryant, Ellen Pitfield, Lily Asquith and Dorothy Shallard—had all done their work the previous evening, and had been sentenced on this, Saturday, morning to two weeks’ imprisonment. It was, of course, a joy to see them. It seemed so very long since that morning. When we had passed the central police office, and were ushered into the wardresses’ room, it appeared that Mrs. Brailsford was shut into the wardresses’ bedroom—whether for a more honourable imprisonment, she being a woman whose public work none could call deficient in selflessness and courage, or whether because she was a “dangerous criminal,” having used a hatchet in making her mark on the barricade, we did not know. I remember catching sight of her as the door was opened to let in a cup of tea. There she sat, calm and erect, and Mr. Brailsford, who had been let in to see her, in piteous trouble, having the one thought—“Will my wife be fed by force—how can they dare to do it? How will she be able to bear it?”

Most of the others I had not seen before, yet I felt exuberant delight at being with them. One only I knew well, and that was Miss Ellen Pitman. She was in the Deputation of February and, after being in prison some ten days, she was brought to the hospital for neuralgic pains in her leg. She was a trained nurse, we had got to know each other well, and her fine face will always be very dear to me. We now got to know the wardresses—they were as kind to us as possible. I was so tired I could scarcely see, and after a time we retired to rest. There was a deafening noise; the cells were filled mostly with drunkards, for it was Saturday. Thundering blows on the doors, accompanied by a string of oaths, went on all through the night. The police were very kind to them, bringing them fresh water to drink, chaffing them and coaxing them. No bedding of any kind or rugs were provided by the police, but our friends outside were most wonderfully good to us, and, when they found we were not to be bailed out, they were busy collecting rugs and blankets. At about 12 they sent me in a rug and a sort of air-cushion bed, which would have been most delightful, but I tried every end in vain, I didn’t know how to put air into it. I was stiff for several days from my rest on the plank, but I owed it to the friends that I did not have two nights of it. On Sunday they brought a mattress instead of the air bed, and my flannel sheets which gave me a restful night.

On Sunday I sent for the district visitor, supposing she would be a woman, but was told there was no district visitor; a police-court missionary? not one either; finally, I sent for the doctor. My complaint was that no toilet paper was provided, and no sanitary towels for the women. Prisoners are kept from Saturday afternoon until Monday. I said, were not these people the same as those who go to prison, they have these necessaries there? “I don’t know about a prison, I’m sure they would never use them in Police Station cells.” Exactly the same remark was made about the prisons, but all the same these things were instituted and now used by prisoners. I begged that, at least, they might be kept in charge of the wardress.

Not long after I had seen the doctor, I was summoned out to see someone else. To my great delight it was Mrs. Pankhurst. She was all sympathy, and it was delightful seeing her.

I was had out of my cell yet another time, for my name, age, etc., to be “taken down” by a policeman in a book. I was able to look over the book as he wrote, and I saw, to my intense surprise, that the law brought three charges against me, first, of assault on Sir Walter Runciman, who was in the car; secondly, of malicious injury to the car at £4; thirdly, of disorderly behaviour in a public place. I felt very exalted to think I had done so much, and thought that three months was the least they could give me. I could not help being pleased to think that the car had contained the host of Mr. Lloyd George, not merely the chauffeur. But what pleased me most was the £4 damage. How I could have done it was indeed a mystery, but I was glad to know that the stone had not gone on the ground, as I had feared. As I went through the central room on one of these occasions, the cage which I had seen before, to my astonishment, was inhabited—by a man, I expected to see some fierce brute, but he was small, frail and miserably degraded, without power to do anyone an injury, with marks of abnormal weakness in his face. When I saw him, the feeling came over me with a great tide, that I should throw myself at his feet and try to bear something of his burden, because if I had done my duty, and if my contemporary women and those who went before had done their duty, we should have given him another life, by securing better, more human conditions, for himself and for his mother who gave him birth. He had lived in that terrible state of things which make it hardly possible to survive. Here, at any rate, was a man intensely feeble in his body, and he was put in an iron cage as the only suitable place!

We were called out and made to stand at the doors of our cells. Presently, the plain-clothes police came to “learn our faces,” and after looking at us steadfastly for some minutes, we were put back again.

The food was brought for us by our friends from outside, who provided for us deliciously, and we had our meals all together in the wardresses’ room. Only Mrs. Brailsford never appeared, being shut in the inner room, but we sent her some of our food. On Sunday night, the wardress had brought us a little basin with some warm water to our cells, which was indeed a boon.

That Sunday night the police were most kind, they allowed me to sit at a table outside my cell and write. My cell was much too dark for writing. To-night the place was more full of noise than it had been before. The wild yells, and blows on the doors, made my hand shake so that at first I could not write, but by holding the pencil, lent to me by the police, over the paper, it came sufficiently legibly at last. I wrote to my mother and my sister. I also wrote to the Times the following letter, from the eleven[11] who were imprisoned:—

“Sir,—We ask you to give us our last opportunity, before we go through the ordeal awaiting us in Newcastle Prison, of explaining to the public the action which we are now about to take.

“We want to make it known that we shall carry on our protest in our prison cells. We shall put before the Government by means of the hunger-strike four alternatives: To release us in a few days; to inflict violence upon our bodies; to add death to the champions of our cause by leaving us to starve; or, and this is the best and only wise alternative, to give women the vote.

“We appeal to the Government to yield, not to the violence of our protest, but to the reasonableness of our demand, and to grant the vote to the duly qualified women of the country. We shall then serve our full sentence quietly and obediently and without complaint. Our protest is against the action of the Government in opposing Woman Suffrage, and against that alone. We have no quarrel with those who may be ordered to maltreat us.

“Yours sincerely,

“Lily Asquith.
“Jane E. Brailsford.
“Kathleen Brown.
“Violet Bryant.
“Ellen Pitfield.
“Dorothy Shallard.
“Winifred Jones.
“Constance Lytton.
“Kitty Marion.
“Dorothy Pethick.
“Ellen W. Pitman.

“Central Police Station,
“Newcastle,
“October 10, 1909.”

I wrote on the wall of my cell my name and the words which rung in my head over and over again, from the Book of Joshua: “Only be thou strong and very courageous.”

I received a letter in the police cell, saying that I had thrown my stone not far from a family residence of relatives of ours—did I not feel it hence a double disgrace? In answer to this I had thought some time. Who were those for whom we fought? I seemed to hear them in my cell, the defenceless ones who had no one to speak for their hungry need. The sweated workers, the mothers widowed with little children, the women on the streets, and I saw that their backs were bent, their eyes grown sorrowful, their hearts dead without hope. And they were not a few, but thousands upon thousands. Side by side I considered what they could do, what they had done, where women had the vote. The wife has half her husband’s wages, by law, and when he does not give it, she can have the amount paid direct to her. She is given money for her children by the State when her husband dies. When she is not married, if she has a child she is paid for it, not by the father direct, but through the public authority, and she has not to apply to the father for her money. I thought of all these helpless women, of the Parliament that had given its theoretic consent for over twenty years, but refused to pass a Bill, and I thought what are my relations? I do not know, but if anything, they are for us, and if they are still asleep, in the fog of the “don’t know and don’t care,” am I bound to consider their dreaming?

I wrote on the wall:—