Speaking now to the Magistrate, she said, quite quietly, that she had gone to the House of Commons to demand the vote; that so long as women were deprived of citizen rights and had, therefore, no constitutional means of obtaining redress, they had a right to be heard in the House of Commons itself. She wished to take the whole responsibility of the demonstration upon her own shoulders. “If anyone is guilty,” she said, “it is I. I was arrested as one of the ringleaders, and being the eldest of these, I was most responsible.” Then she quoted in her defence the words of Mr. John Burns, who was now the President of the Local Government Board and who, in circumstances similar to those in which she was placed, had said, “I am a rebel because I am an outlaw. I am a lawbreaker because I# desire to be a law-maker.”
At this point the Magistrate, who had repeatedly interrupted her, refused to hear any more, or to allow any statement at all from the other prisoners, although in doing so, he was disregarding every legal precedent. He said that each of the ten defendants must enter into her own recognisances to keep the peace for six months and must find a surety for her good behaviour in £10, and that if she failed to do this, she must go to prison for two months in the second division. The women at once protested against this mockery of a trial, and raising a banner bearing the words “Women should vote for the laws they obey and the taxes they pay” declared that they would not leave the dock until they had been allowed the right to which all prisoners were entitled, namely that of making a statement in their own defence. But Mr. Horace Smith cared nothing for the justice of what they said; he merely called the police and the women were forcibly removed.
The Police Court authorities now announced to those of us who were waiting in the witness room that the case was over and that our friends had been taken to Holloway. I can scarcely express our feelings of indignation. It seemed, indeed, terrible that ten upright, earnest women should have been thus hustled off to prison, without a word from their friends, after a trial lasting less than half an hour.
Some protesting, others filled with silent consternation, the women turned to go, but I, myself, felt that I could not leave without a single word of rebuke to those who had conducted the proceedings against us so shamefully. I therefore returned to the door of the inner court and asked to be admitted. “It is all over,” said the doorkeepers, “there is nothing to interest you now;” but I walked quickly past them and entered the court. It was quite a small room; one could easily make oneself heard without raising one’s voice, and as shortly as I could, I told the magistrate how women had been refused admittance whilst the trial was in progress, and how some who had actually taken their seats had been tricked into leaving. I pointed out to him that as it was customary to allow the general public, and especially friends of the prisoners, to be present in court, it was grossly unfair to refuse to do so in this case, and likely to destroy confidence in the justice of the trial. I was explaining that even the women who had wished to testify as voluntary witnesses had been kept out of the court, when the magistrate interrupted me saying, “There is no truth in any of your statements. The court was crowded.’’
I was then seized by two policemen, dragged across the outer lobby and flung into the street. Here a great mass of people had assembled and I felt that I ought not to go away without telling them something of the cause for which we were fighting and of the very scanty justice which had been doled out to our women. I tried to speak to them, though I had been rendered almost breathless by the violent manner of my ejection, and only to those who were near me could I make myself heard. In a moment, I hardly knew how or why, I was again seized by the policeman and dragged back into the court house. Soon afterwards I found myself in the dock before Mr. Horace Smith, and was charged with causing an obstruction and with the use of violent and abusive language. I protested against the latter half of the charge and it was immediately withdrawn. At greater length than on the first occasion, I was then able to describe all that had happened within the precincts of the court. Many of our friends and members, on hearing that all was not over, had returned and from amongst them I called as witnesses to the truth of my statement, Mrs. Cobden Unwin, Mrs. Cobden Sickert and a number of other ladies, but their testimony was ignored and I was found guilty and sentenced either to pay a fine of £1 or to undergo fourteen days’ imprisonment in the third and lowest class. Of course I chose the latter alternative, and was taken to join my comrades in the cells. But now, instead of being ordered away as before, our friends were allowed to come up and bring us lunch and talk to us for a little while.
The police court cells were small and dark, furnished only with a wooden seat fastened to the wall and a sanitary convenience. The walls were whitewashed, the floors were of stone, and each of the cells opened into a long stone passage, whose barred windows overlooked the courtyard, beyond which we could see through gaps in the prison buildings, the crowds of people who were assembled in the street beyond. We were not shut up in the cells but allowed to move about from one to another, or to stand in the passage, at the end of which were several stone steps leading up to a strongly-fastened iron gate. This passage, though dimly lit, was lighter than the cells and seemed to us less insanitary, and so as we had many hours to wait before we were to be taken to Holloway in the prison van, “Black Maria,” we seated ourselves together on the stone steps. Someone had brought with her a volume of Browning, and Mrs. Lawrence read aloud to us from those of the poems which seemed to apply to our own case.
All too soon the order came for us to go down to the van and, one by one, as our names were called, we walked across the yard, climbed the steps and took our places separately in one of the twelve little compartments which it contained. I was one of the two last to enter, and I had, therefore, a little more of the fresh air than most of the others, and from the small barred window of my compartment, I could see the burly form of the guarding policeman who stood in the passageway between us and, when he moved from time to time, could see past him and out the barred window in the door of the van to the streets through which we drove.
How long the way seemed to Holloway, as the springless van rattled over the stones and constantly bumped us against the narrow wooden pens in which we sat! As it passed down the poor streets, the people cheered — they always cheer the prison van. It was evening when we arrived at our destination, and the darkness was closing in. As we passed in single file through the great gates, we found ourselves at the end of a long corridor with cubicles on either side. A woman officer in holland dress, with a dark blue bonnet, with hanging strings on her head and with a bundle of keys and chains jangling at her waist, called out our names and the length of our sentences and locked each of us separately into one of the cubicles, which were about four feet square and quite dark. In the door of each cubicle was a little round glass spy-hole, which might be closed by a metal flap on the outside. Mine had been left open by mistake, and through it I could see a little of what was going on outside.
Once we had been locked away, the wardress came from door to door, taking down further particulars as to the profession, religion, and so on, of each prisoner — there were many beside ourselves — and asking if we and they could read and write and sew. Meanwhile the prisoners called to each other over the tops of the cubicles in loud, high-pitched voices. Every now and then the officer protested, but still the noise continued. Soon another van load of prisoners arrived and the cubicles being filled, several women together were put into the same compartment,— sometimes as many as five in one of those tiny places! It was very cold, and the stone floor made one’s feet colder still, yet for a long time — until I was so tired that I could no longer stand — I was afraid to sit down because, in the darkness, one could not see whether, as one feared, everything might be covered with vermin.
After waiting a long time, the prisoners were sent to see the doctor, and we Suffragists stood waiting in a line together. The wardress passed constantly up and down our ranks saying, “All of you unfasten your chests.�
�� When at last we got into the doctor’s room, he either asked us no questions, or said in a mechanical way, “Are you all right?” then he touched us quickly with his stethoscope and we passed back to our cubicles.
After another long wait we were sent to change our clothes. In a large room, lined with shelves, with two or three wardresses hovering about, and one seated at a table, we were told to undress, three or four at a time, and given a short cotton chemise to put on after we had removed our own clothes. Then we were ordered to hand over our clothes, hats, dresses, boots and all together, which were roughly tied up in bundles and placed upon the shelves. Then, barefooted, and wearing only the chemise, we were made to march across to the officer at the table. The officer now told us to deliver to her our money, jewellery, hair pins and hair combs. She gave us back the hair pins and kept everything else, taking down particulars of these and entering them in a book. At the same time she again asked us our names, ages, and the other particulars which we had now given so often. After this we were searched; the officer first telling us to put up our arms, and then feeling us all over and examining our hair to see that we had nothing concealed about us. A wardress then led us through a doorway into the dimly lit bath room.
The baths were separated from each other by partitions, and from the rest of the room by a half door which had no fastening and over which the wardress could look. The baths were of black iron, covered with an old and very dingy coat of white paint, which had worn off in patches and the woodwork which enclosed them was stained and worn. I shrank from entering the bath, but I was shivering with cold, and though I feared it was not clean, there was something comforting about the feèl of the warm water. Presently the wardress hung some towels and underclothing over the top of the wooden door, and told me to dress as quickly as I could. I hastened to obey her, and found that the clothes, which were badly sewn and badly cut, were of coarse calico and harsh woollen stuff, and that there were innumerable strings to fasten around one’s waist. A strange-looking pair of corsets was supplied to each of us, but these we were not obliged to wear unless we wished. The stockings were of harsh thick wool, and had been badly darned. They were black with red stripes going around the legs, and as they were very wide, and there were no garters or suspenders to keep them up, they were constantly slipping down and wrinkling around one’s ankles.
On opening my door I found that outside all was hurry and confusion. In the dim light the women were scrambling for the dresses, which were lying in big heaps on the floor. The skirts of these dresses, like the petticoats — of which there were three — were of the same width at both top and bottom and they were gathered into wide bands which, though fastened with tapes were not made to draw up, and had to be overlapped in the most clumsy fashion in order to make them fit any but the very stoutest women. The bodices were so strangely cut that even when worn by very thin people they seemed bound to gape in front, especially as they were fastened with only one button at the neck. My bodice, the only one I could manage to get hold of, had several large rents, which had been roughly cobbled together with black cotton.2 Every article of clothing was conspicuously stamped with the broad arrow, which was painted black on light garments, and white on those which were dark.
I had scarcely fastened my dress when somebody called out to us all: “Look sharp and put on your shoes.” These we had to take for ourselves from where they were bundled together on a wooden rack. None of them seemed to be in pairs and they were heavy and clumsy, with leather laces that, when one attempted to tie them, broke easily in the hand. Lastly, white cotton caps fastened under the chin with strings and stamped in black with the broad arrow, and the blue and white check aprons and handkerchiefs, both of which looked like dusters,3 were given to us and we were led off on a long journey to the cells.
It seemed a sort of skeleton building that we were taken through — the strangest place in which I had ever been. In every great oblong ward or block through which we passed, though there were many stories, one could see right down to the basement and up to the lofty roof. The stone floors of the corridors lined the walls all the way round, jutting out at the junctions of the stories like shelves some nine or ten feet apart, being protected on the outer edge by an iron wire trellis work four or five feet high, and having on the wall side rows and rows and rows of numbered doors studded with nails. The various stories were connected by flights of iron steps bordered by iron trellis work, and reaching in slanting lines from corridor to corridor. All the walls and doors were painted stone colour and all the iron work was painted black.
We clattered up those seemingly endless flights and shuifled along those mazy corridors in our heavy shoes and at last stopped at a small office, rather like one of the pay desks which one sees in drapers’ shops, where our names and the length of our sentences and all the various other particulars were verified once more, and the sheets for the bed, a Bible and a number of other little books with black shiny bindings, were given out to us. Annie Kenney had told us that a tooth brush would be given to us if we asked for it, but that if we neglected to do this, nothing would be said about it, and we might not be allowed to have it later. As we waited in line I noticed that the other women were eating chunks of brown bread,4 but, though by this time I was very hungry, none had been given to me. I asked Mrs. Baldock, who stood next to me, where she had got her bread, and she told me that one of the wardresses had given it to her, and seeing that I had been overlooked, she broke off half her own small loaf and gave it to me. These were the last words I was to have with my fellow prisoners, for, whilst they had been put into the second class, I had been sentenced to the third, and even in chapel they were hidden from me by a buttress.
After another long march through the prison corridors, a wardress, with her jangling keys, unlocked a number of heavy iron doors and having ordered each of us to enter one of them separately, shut them behind us again with a loud bang. I now found myself in a small whitewashed cell twelve or thirteen feet long by seven feet wide, and about nine feet high. The floor was of stone. The window, which was high up near the ceiling had many little panes, enclosed in a heavy iron frame-work and guarded by strong iron bars outside. The iron door was studded with nails and its round eye-like spy-hole was now covered on the outside. On the left-hand side of the door was a small recess, some four feet from the ground, in which, behind a pane of thick opaque glass was a flickering gas jet which cast a dim light into the cell. Under this recess was a small wooden shelf, somewhere about fourteen or fifteen inches square, which I afterwards learnt was called the table, and opposite this was a wooden stool. By the window, set into the corner of the room, was another shelf about three feet six inches high, with one about six inches from the floor immediately under it. The lower shelf was for the mattress and bedding. The upper one held a wooden spoon, a pint pot of block tin stamped with the broad arrow, a wooden saltcellar, a small piece of hard yellow soap, a red card case containing some prison rules and a card on which was printed a morning and an evening prayer, a small oval hair brush without a handle, like a good-sized nail brush, and a comb between three and four inches long. On this shelf I was afterwards told to place my books and tooth brush. These things had all to be kept in certain never varying positions. On the floor, leaning against the wall under the window, were arranged a number of utensils made of block tin, these being a plate, a small water can holding about three pints of water, a tiny shallow wash-basin less than a foot in diameter, and a small slop-pail with a lid. Two little round brushes, in shape rather like those we use for brushing clothes with, which were intended for sweeping the floor, a little tin dust pan, and a piece of bath-brick wrapped in some rags for cleaning the tins. These also were all placed in an order which, as I soon learnt, was never to be changed. A small towel and a smaller table cloth, both of them resembling dish cloths, hung on a nail. Propped against the right-hand wall was the plank bed, with the pillow balanced on top. The bed is, I think, two feet six inches in width, and when in position f
or sleeping is raised up by two cross pieces to about two inches from the floor.
As I was examining in wonder all these various things, a wardress opened the door and said sharply, “What, have you not made your bed yet? The light will be put out soon. You had better make haste!” “Please can I have a nightdress?”5 I asked, but she answered “No.” Then the iron door banged and I was left alone for the night.
After eating my little piece of bread, I did as I was told and tried to sleep. But sleep is one of the hardest things to obtain in Holloway. The bed is so hard, the blankets and sheets are scarcely wide enough to cover one, and the pillow, filled with a kind of herb, seems as if it were made of stone. The window is not made to open. The system of ventilation is exceedingly bad, and though one is usually cold at night one always suffers terribly from the want of air.
I learnt next day that we were as yet only in the admission cells, and as everyone was too busy to set us to work we had nothing to do but examine our books. These I found, in addition to the prayer book, consisted of a Bible, a hymn book, a tract called “The Narrow Way,” which was intended to show how easy it is to fall into temptation, and a little book on health and cleanliness, which described the way in which human beings are gradually poisoned when they were not able to get enough fresh air.
The Suffragette Page 10
