The following day we were removed to the cells which we were to occupy during the remainder of our imprisonment. Many of the ordinary cells are exactly like the reception cells, but the cell into which I was now put was smaller, but better lit than the reception cell, for it had a larger window and there was a small electric light bulb attached to the wall instead of the recessed gas jet. Hanging on a nail in the wall was a large round badge made of yellow cloth bearing the number of the cell and the letter and the number of its block in the prison. I was told to attach this badge to a button on my bodice, and henceforth, like the other prisoners, I was called by the number of my cell, which happened to be twelve.
………
Suppose yourself to be one of the Third Class prisoners. Like them you will follow the same routine. Each morning whilst it is still quite dark you will be awakened by the tramp of heavy feet and the ringing of bells; then the light is turned on. You wash in the tiny basin and dress hurriedly. Soon you hear the rattle of keys and the noise of iron doors. The sound comes nearer and nearer until it reaches your own door. The wardress flings it open and orders sharply, “Empty your slops, 12!” You hasten to do so, and return at the word of command.
Then, just as you have been shown, you roll your bed. The first sheet is folded in four, then spread out on the floor, and rolled up from one end, tightly, like a sausage. The second sheet is rolled round it, and round this, one by one, the blankets and quilt. You must be careful to do this very neatly or you are certain to be reprimanded.
Next clean your tins. You have three pieces of rag with which to do this. Two of them are frayed scraps of brown serge, like your dress, and the other is a piece of white calico. These rags were probably not new and fresh when you came here, but had been well used by previous occupants of the cell. Folded up in these rags you will find a piece of bath-brick. You have been told to rub this bath-brick on the stone floor until you have scoured off a quantity of its dust. Then you take one of the brown rags and soap this on the yellow cake which you use for your own face. Then with the soapy rag you rub over one of the tins, and this done, dip the rag into the brick-dust which is lying on the floor and rub it on to the soapy tin. Then you rub it again with the second brown rag and polish with the white calico one that remains. You must be sure to make all the tins very bright.
Presently the door opens and shuts again. Someone has left you a pail of water; with it you must scrub the stool, bed and table, and wash the shelves. Then scrub the floor. All this ought to be done before breakfast, but unless you are already experienced in such matters it will take you very much longer.
Before you have done your task there comes again the jangling of keys and clanging of iron doors. Then, “Where’s your pint, 12?” You hand it out, spread your little cloth and set your plate ready. Your pint pot is filled with gruel (oatmeal and water without any seasoning), and six ounces of bread are thrust upon your plate. Then the door closes. Now eat your breakfast, and then, if your cleaning is done, begin to sew. Perhaps it is a sheet you have to do. Of these, with hem top and bottom and mid-seam, the minimum quantity which you must finish, as you will learn from your “Labour Card” is 15 per week.
At half past eight it is time for chapel. The officer watches you take your place in line among the other women. They all wear numbered badges like yours, and are dressed as you are. A few, very few, four or five perhaps, out of all the hundreds in the Third Division, wear red stars on caps and sleeves. This is to show that they are first offenders who have previously borne a good character and have someone to testify to that fact. Every now and then the wardress cries out that someone is speaking, and as you march along there is a running fire of criticism and rebuke. “Tie up your cap string, 27. You look like a cinder-picker. You must learn to dress decently here.” “Hold up your head, number 30.” “Hurry up, 23.” In the chapel it is your turn. “Don’t look about you, 12.” In comes the clergyman. He reads the lessons and all sing and pray together.
Can they be really criminals, all these poor, sad-faced women? How soft their hearts are! How easily they are moved! If there is a word in the services which touches the experience of their lives, they are in tears at once. Anything about children, home, affection, a word of pity for the sinner, or of striving to do better,— any of these things they feel deeply. Singing and the sound of the organ make them cry. Many of them are old, with shrunken cheeks and scant white hair. Few seem young. All are anxious and careworn. They are broken down by poverty, sorrow and overwork. Think of them going back to sit, each in her lonely cell, to brood for hours on the causes which brought her here, wondering what is happening to those she loves outside, tortured, perhaps, by the thought that she is needed there. How can these women bear the slow-going, lonely hours? Now go back to your cell with their faces in your eyes.
At twelve o’clock comes dinner. A pint of oatmeal porridge and six ounces of bread three days a week, six ounces of suet pudding and six ounces of bread two days a week, and on two other days eight ounces of potatoes and six ounces of bread.
After dinner you will leave your cell no more that day, except to fetch water between two and three o’clock, unless it be one of the three days a week on which you are sent to exercise. In that case, having chosen one for yourself from a bundle of drab-coloured capes, and having fastened your badge to it, you follow the other women outside. There, all march slowly round in single file with a distance of three or four yards between each prisoner. Two of the very oldest women, who can only totter along, go up and down at one side, passing and repassing each other.
If you came into the prison on Wednesday, the first day for you to exercise will be Saturday. How long it seems since you were last in the outside world, since you saw the sky and the sunshine and felt the pure fresh air against your cheek! How vividly everything strikes you now. Every detail stands out in your mind with never-to-be-forgotten clearness. Perhaps it is a showery Autumn day. The blue sky is flecked with quickly driving clouds. The sun shines brightly and lights up the puddles on the ground and the raindrops still hanging from the eaves and window ledges. The wind comes in little playful gusts. The free pigeons are flying about in happy confidence. You notice every variation in their glossy plumage. Some are grey with purple throats, some have black markings on their wings, some are a pale brown colour, some nearly white; one is a deep purple, almost black, with shining white bars on his wings and tail. All are varied — no two are alike. The gaunt prison buildings surround everything, but in all this shimmering brightness, in this sweet, free air, they have lost for the moment their gloomy terror.
Now, your eye lights on your fellow prisoners. You are brought back to the dreary truth of prison life. With measured tread, and dull listless step, they shuffle on. Their heads are bent, their eyes cast down. They do not see the sun and the brightness, the precious sky or the hovering birds. They do not even see the ground at their feet, for they pass over sunk stones, through wet and mud, though there be dry ground on either side. The prison system has eaten into their hearts. They have lost hope, and the sight of nature has no power to make them glad. It may be that when next you walk with them you will feel as they do. These gloomy overshadowing walls and the remembrance of your narrow cell, with its endless twilight and dreary, useless tasks may have filled your mind and driven away all other thoughts.
Once inside, the last break in the day will be supper at five o’clock (like breakfast, six ounces of bread and a pint of gruel), except that just before the light goes out at night, comes a noisy knocking at every door, and the cry, “Are you all right?” Then darkness, a long, sleepless night, and the awakening to another day like yesterday and like to-morrow.
* * *
1 The Secretarial duties had now increased so greatly that no one person could cope with them without giving the whole of her time to the work. As I was unable to do this, I had been obliged to resign.
2 Some days afterwards it was condemned and I had a somewhat better one given to me.
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3 We afterwards learnt that one clean handkerchief was supplied each week. We had no pockets to keep them in.
4 Each prisoner, on the day of entering is according to prison rules to be given a supper consisting of six ounces of meat and one pint of cocoa.
5 Since this time night dresses have been introduced into Holloway, and are given to Suffragettes, and, let us hope, to other prisoners.
CHAPTER VII
NOVEMBER, 1906, TO FEBRUARY, 1907
FURTHER ARRESTS. THE “MUD MARCH.”
WHILST their comrades were in Holloway, the W. S. P. U. members were putting forth redoubled efforts to press forward the work outside. A manifesto explaining the objects of our movement and calling upon the women of the country to stand by those who had gone to prison and to fight with them to secure enfranchisement was posted upon the walls and circulated broadcast as a leaflet. This appeal met with a far readier response than any that had yet been made. Amongst people of all parties, there was a growing feeling that the imprisoned Suffragettes should receive the treatment due to political offenders. The Liberals, large numbers of whom knew her personally, found an especial difficulty in reconciling themselves to the idea that Richard Cobden’s daughter should be thrown into prison and treated by a Liberal government as though she had been a drunkard or a pickpocket. Mr. Keir Hardie, Lord Robert Cecil and others, raised the matter in the House of Commons, and drew comparisons between our lot and that of the Jameson raiders, Mr. W. T. Stead and others who had been imprisoned for political reasons. In reply to this, Mr. Gladstone, the Home Secretary, began by saying that he had no power to take action. On October 28, however, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence left Holloway owing to serious illness. On the following day, Mrs. Montefiore was also released for the same reason, and a day or two afterwards it became known that Mrs. How Martyn and Mrs. Baldock had been removed to the prison hospital. Protests against the treatment of the Suffragettes daily became more and more insistent, and at last, on October 31st, Mr. Herbert Gladstone changed his mind and ordered,1 or as he put it, “intimated his desire” that the Suffrage prisoners should be transferred to the first class.
On the eighth day of our imprisonment my cell door was flung open suddenly and the Matron announced that an order had come from the Home Office to say that I was to be transferred to the first class. I was then hurriedly bustled out of my cell and a few minutes afterwards as, in charge of a wardress, I was staggering along the passage carrying my brush and comb, the sheets that I was hemming, and all my bed linen, I met my comrades going in the same direction.
We were ushered into a row of rather dark cells adjoining each other in an old part of the prison, which is chiefly occupied by prisoners on remand who have not yet been tried. These women, we were horrified to find, are treated exactly like second class prisoners, except that their dress is blue instead of green, and that some to whom permission has been given are allowed to wear their own clothes, and to have food sent in to them at their own expense. We were now offered the same privileges, but these we declined. On consulting the prison rules, however, I found that first class misdemeanants are entitled to exercise their profession whilst in prison, if their doing so does not interfere with the ordinary prison regulations. I therefore applied to the Governor to be allowed to have pen, pencils, ink and paper, and after a day’s waiting my request was granted. For me prison had now lost the worst of its terrors because I had congenial work to do.
We were now able to write and to receive a letter once a fortnight, and to have books and one newspaper a day sent in by our friends. The food served out to us was exactly like that of the second class except that instead of oatmeal gruel, a pint of tea was substituted for breakfast and a pint of cocoa for supper. As the second class is that into which the majority of the Suffragettes have been relegated, it is useful to give the table of dinners here.
Monday, 8 oz. haricot beans, 1 oz. fat bacon, 8 oz. potatoes, 6 oz. bread.
Tuesday, 1 pt. soup, 8 oz. potatoes, 6 oz. bread.
Wednesday, 8 oz. suet pudding (exactly like that served in the third class), 6 oz. bread, 8 oz. potatoes.
Thursday, 6 oz. bread, 8 oz. potatoes, 3 oz. cooked meat — a kind of stew.
Friday, Soup 1 pt., 6 oz bread, 8 oz. potatoes.
Saturday, Suet pudding 8 oz., bread 6 oz., potatoes 8 oz.
Sunday, bread 6 oz., potatoes 8 oz., 3 oz. meat “preserved by heat” i. e., some kind of preserved meat slightly warmed.
The soups or meat for each prisoner was served in a cylindrical quart tin into the top of which, like a lid, was fitted another shallow tin holding the potatoes. One did not clean these tins oneself as one did the other untensils, and probably because the kitchen attendants were overburdened with work, they were always exceedingly dingy and dirty-looking. Everything was as badly cooked and as uninviting as it could be. The cocoa, which was quite unlike any cocoa that I have ever tasted, had little pieces of meat and fat floating about in it. It was evidently made in the same vessel in which the meat was cooked. To cut up our meat, in addition to the wooden spoon, which is common to the second and third classes, we were now provided with “a knife.” This knife was made of tin. It was about four inches in length and Mrs. Drummond later on aptly described it as being “hemmed” at the edge. There was no fork.
On November 6th my sentence came to an end, and the newspaper representatives were all eager to hear from me what the inside of Holloway was like. I was thus able to make known exactly what the conditions of imprisonment had been both before and after our transfer to the first division and to show that even under the new conditions, the treatment of the Suffragettes was very much more rigorous than that applied to men political prisoners in this and other countries.
Next day, November 7th, Mr. Keir Hardie introduced a Women’s Suffrage Bill into the House of Commons under “the ten minutes rule.” It had only two chances of passing into law; the first that the Government should provide time for it and the second that not one single Member of Parliament should oppose it in any of its stages. The Government refused to give the time, and the second chance was destroyed by a Liberal Member, Mr. Julius Bertram.
On November 19th another demonstration was therefore held outside the House of Commons as a result of which Miss Alice Milne of Manchester was arrested, and imprisoned for one week. Public sympathy was still daily turning more and more to the side of the Suffragettes and when a by-election became necessary at Huddersfield, Mr. Herbert Gladstone decided to release Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and her colleagues, though they had served but half their sentences and, on November 24th they were set free after one month’s imprisonment. They were not only welcomed with enthusiasm by their fellow militant Suffragettes, but a dinner was given in their honour by the older non-militant Suffragists at the Savoy Hotel.
Believing that it was to the Huddersfield by-election that they owed their unexpected freedom, a number of the released prisoners at once hurried off to the constituency where Mrs. Pankhurst and a band of other women were strenuously working against the Government and had already become the most popular people in the election.
Though the train by which the prisoners arrived was more than two hours late, they were welcomed at the station by cheering crowds, and found that a great meeting of women, which had been called for the due time of their arrival, was still patiently waiting to hear them speak.
The three candidates, Liberal, Unionist and Labour were now, because of its extraordinary popularity, all anxious to be known as supporters of Women’s Suffrage and they went about wearing the white Votes for Women buttons of the W. S. P. U. Mr. Sherwell, the Liberal, tried to sidetrack the Suffragettes’ appeal to the electors to vote against him because he was the nominee of the Government, by constantly announcing that he was in favour of Women’s Suffrage, and that the Liberal Party was the best of all parties for women. The following handbill issued from his committee rooms:
“MEN OF HUDDERSFIELD, DON’T BE MISLED BY SOCIALISTS, SUFFRAGETTES, OR TOR
IES.
VOTE FOR SHERWELL.”
Polling took place on November 28th, and when the votes were counted, it was found that the Liberal poll as recorded at the General Election had been reduced by 540. The figures were:—
At the General Election the figures had been:—
Meanwhile the Government had been pushing on with its Bill for the abolition of plural voting, to which the Women’s Social and Political Union had persistently claimed that a clause providing for the registration of qualified women voters should be added. When the Bill reached the Report stage on November 26th, Lord Robert Cecil moved and Mr. Keir Hardie seconded and Mr. Balfour supported an amendment to postpone the operation of the Bill until after the next General Election, unless in the meantime the franchise had been given to women on the same terms as men. The object was, of course, to call attention to the need of Votes for Women, and this somewhat round-about way had been adopted because it was ruled out of order to simply suggest that votes for Women should be enacted as a part of the Plural Voting Bill. The amendment was opposed by the Government, and defeated by 278 votes to 50.
Our Manchester Members were now anxious to organise a protest on their own account and it was agreed that they should have their way. Accordingly, on December 13th, a valiant little army of some twenty or thirty North Country women came down to London and proceeded straight to Parliament Square, carrying a small wooden packing case which they set down in the gutter opposite the stranger’s entrance. The box was mounted by Mrs. Jennie Baines of Stockport, a fragile little woman, who had begun her strenuous life as a Birmingham child home-worker, rising early in the morning in order to help her mother to stitch hooks and eyes on to cards before going to school, snatching a few moments for the same task in the dinner hour and on returning home in the evening, working far into the night. In her girlhood she had been a Salvation Army “Captain.” Later she had married a journeyman bootmaker, and though, in addition to caring for her home and her children, she had been forced to toil in the factory, in order to keep the home together, she had still managed to work as a Police Court Missionary and Temperance and Social reformer.
The Suffragette Page 11
