With 1905 we plunge into the new phase of the Suffrage question. At the outset Punch was decidedly sympathetic. Note, for example, the cartoon in which a beery working man—a "qualified voter"—addresses a well-dressed, refined-looking woman: "Ah, you may pay rates an' taxes, and you may 'ave responserbilities an' all; but when it comes to votin', you must leave it to us men!" In a brief year Punch was thoroughly estranged by the methods of the militants and their harrying of Ministers. His "Sensible Woman" retorts on her "Shrieking Sister": "You help our cause? Why, you're its worst enemy." Raids on the House of Commons and scenes in the Lobbies and the Ladies' Gallery drove him in the Epilogue to 1906 to take a new line. Since in the course of the Crusade women had descended to man's brutal level, put off their dignity and womanliness, and become "the complete elector"—"why, then, Madam, when you get the franchise, as you will eventually, I shall say to myself—Serve 'em right." The name "suffragette" had been coined, and came to stay for about fifteen years, at any rate; Punch tried his hand at a new variant—"the Insuffrabelles." It was still possible to laugh at a movement which intermittently ministered to mirth; as, for example, when a New York correspondent of a London paper wrote as follows:—
"In the course of a sympathetic discussion on the good work done for the cause by the Suffragettes in London at a meeting of a woman's society for political study, Mrs. Cory, a prominent advocate of female equality, gave a definition of a Utopian dream which woman must not rest until she has realized. 'Knowing as I do our ideals,' said Mrs. Cory, 'confident as I am that we shall attain them, I fix my gaze upon the brightening future, hopefully awaiting the time when a woman on trial for her life will be defended by a female lawyer, convicted by a female jury' (the natural result, we presume), 'sentenced by a female judge, consoled by a female chaplain, and executed by a female executioner. Then, and not till then, will she have attained her proper place in the world.'"
Punch, with commendable reticence, contents himself with observing, "nothing, however, was said as to which world." In 1907 we encounter a picture describing the embarrassment of an unfortunate man invited to tea at a ladies' club by a lady who had forgotten that the afternoon was consecrated to a "Down with Men" Meeting. In "Cross-examining a Suffragist" Punch dexterously manoeuvres a witness into the admissions (1) that nothing could cause Miss Pankhurst greater suffering than to stay idly at home while other women were demonstrating and going cheerfully to martyrdom; (2) that the greater the suffering, the greater the proof of faith in the Cause. Whereupon his Lordship then delivered judgment as follows:—
Argument and Ridicule
That Miss Pankhurst and her family should show their faith in the cause by suffering in the way suggested by Mr. Punch. That they should stay quietly at home for a while—keep out of the newspapers—arrange no demonstrations—go to no prison; seeing that this would be a much truer and more effective martyrdom than anything they had done as yet.
"And," continued his Lordship, waxing eloquent, "if time hangs heavy on their hands——
"Are there no beggars at the gate,
Nor any poor about the lands?
Oh! teach the orphan boy to read,