So they dragged her out, the little fragile woman with her torn garments and her masses of golden hair falling below her waist, her sensitive face flushed and her blue eyes, wide with pain and horror. They dragged her close past the house of the great Wimbourne family who owned Canford Park, but though the guests and members of the family who were watching from the balcony and from the lawn in front, were appealed to by others, they made no attempt to intervene and saw the great gates opened and the little ragged, exhausted figure with her streaming hair, thrust outside, well knowing that the nearest railway station was more than three miles away.
Truly it needed some courage to face things like this for the sake of any cause, and this was not an isolated happening.
On August 8th, Miss Helen Tolson had a similar experience at Rushpool Hall, Saltburn by the Sea. This is her own description:
The day was beautiful and the private grounds in which Mr. Churchill and Mr. Samuel were to speak were thronged with a great crowd of their supporters, a large number of whom were miners. About ten of us had obtained admission in one way or another and had stationed ourselves at different points. As each woman spoke there was a great roar from the crowd, who nearly all left the speaker to follow and ill-treat her as she was being taken out. When my own turn came I started to ask a question, but was stopped by the hand of a Liberal steward, which was thrust into my mouth. The next thing I remember is two stewards holding my arms and a third coming up and deliberately kicking me in the body. This was a sign to the crowd to do what they liked with me and they thrust me forward with cries of "Throw her in the pond." They dragged me to a steep bank above the pond and here three men, seeing that my hold upon a small tree was giving way, tried to help me. Nothing of what happened during the next ten minutes is at all clear in my memory. I was often full length on the ground and I know I was bruised from head to foot. The crowd abated their efforts to trample me underfoot when the word was passed that the police were at last coming. When I was pulled up the bank again I found that my skirt and underclothing had been nearly torn off.
A Miss De Legh, daughter of Dr. De Legh of Coatham, a guest at Rushpool Hall, quite unconnected with the Suffragettes, was set upon by one man who pushed her into some bushes and blew tobacco smoke into her face. She afterwards brought an action for assault against her assailant and he was fined £3. His defence was that she had cried "cowards" to those who were ejecting the Suffragettes and had thus angered the crowd so that if he had not seized her she would probably have been swept into a pond.
On August 20th, when Lord Crewe spoke at the great St. Andrew's Hall, Glasgow, Miss Alice Paul succeeded in climbing to the roof and in the hope of being able to speak to the Cabinet Minister from this point, she lay there concealed for many hours in spite of a downpour of rain. When she was discovered and forced to descend she was heartily cheered for her pluck by a crowd of workmen, one of whom came forward and apologised for having told a policeman of her presence, saying that he had thought she was in need of help.
Later, when the women attempted to force their way into the building, the people needed no urging to lend their aid, and the police who were guarding the entrance were obliged to use their truncheons to beat them back. When the officers of the law attempted to make arrests, the women were rescued from their clutches again and again. Eventually Adela Pankhurst, Lucy Burns, Alice Paul and Margaret Smith were taken into custody, but even when the gates of the police station were closed upon them, the authorities feared that they would not be able to hold their prisoners for the crowds shouted vociferously for their release and twisted the strong iron gates. It was only when the women themselves appealed to them that they consented to refrain from further violence.
When Lord Crewe had safely left the town, the friends of the women were allowed to bail them out, on the understanding that they would appear at the police court at nine o'clock the following morning. Nevertheless though they arrived before the appointed time, there was no one to show them the Court room and whilst they wandered about in the passages, trying to find their way, their case was disposed of behind locked doors and with the public excluded. The bail was escheated and a warrant was issued for their arrest before five minutes past nine. At this Mr. Thomas Kerr, one of the bailees, rose to protest and asked two minutes leave to find the defaulting prisoners, saying that he was sure they were already in the building, but he was abruptly told that the court was closed. He went outside and immediately met the ladies and brought them in before Bailie Hunter, who presided, had left the Bench, but though the Bailie saw them he hurried away, whilst the Fiscal[38] tried to put all the blame upon him. The bail was never refunded and the women never answered to the warrants and so the matter dropped.
The same Friday, August 20th, on which Lord Crewe had spoken at Glasgow, Mr. Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, was addressing a meeting at Liverpool and Mrs. Leigh, who was in command of the Suffragette army there had organised her forces in such a way as to give an effective reply to his jeering reference to what he described as the "bodkin tactics." Early in the day she and a number of others had taken up their quarters in an empty house separated from the hall by a narrow passage only. When the meeting began she clambered through the window and swung herself on to the roof with the most extraordinary agility at so great a height and with so slender a foothold, that observers were thrilled with horror.