Of course, when men wanted the franchise, they did not behave in the unruly manner of our feminine friends. They were perfectly constitutional in their agitation. In Bristol I find they only burnt the Mansion House, the Custom House, the Bishop's Palace, the Excise Office, three prisons, four toll-houses, and forty-two private dwellings and warehouses, and all in a perfectly constitutional and respectable manner. Numerous constitutional fires took place in the neighbourhoods of Bedford, Cambridge, Canterbury and Devizes. Four men were respectably hanged at Bristol and three in Nottingham. The Bishop of Lichfield was nearly killed, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was insulted, spat upon, and with great difficulty rescued from amongst the yells and execrations of a violent and angry mob. The Suffragists in those days had a constitutional weakness for Bishops, and a savage vandalism towards cathedrals and bishops' palaces. A general strike was proposed, and secret arming and drilling commenced in most of the great Chartist centres. Wales broke out even into active rebellion, and nine men were condemned to death. At London, Bradford, York, Sheffield, Liverpool, Chester, Taunton, Durham and many other towns long sentences of penal servitude were passed. In this way the males set a splendid example of constitutional methods in agitating for the franchise. I think we are well qualified to advise the Suffragettes to follow our example, to be respectable and peaceful in their methods like we were, and then they will have our sympathy and support.
Yours truly,
T. D. Benson.
"The Downs,"
Prestwich,
July 3rd, 1906.
The day after the trial Mrs. Pethick Lawrence received from Annie Kenney a little note hastily scribbled in pencil and posted by some kind-hearted person just as she was being taken away from the Police Court cell. "I am writing this," it read, "before going in the van. I am very happy and I shall keep up and be brave and true, and when I come out I shall be fully prepared to do anything the Union asks of me."
As yet most of us knew little of the interior of a prison, but, on those burning July days, we knew enough to think with sorrow and anxiety of our comrades shut away from the beauty of the summer in the heat of their small, stifling cells. We heard with joy that they were happy and contented to suffer imprisonment for the women's cause.
And now it seemed to us as though the spirit of revolt against oppression were flowing onward and spreading, like some great tide to all the womanhood of the world. We read of that wonderful Marie Spiridonova, the Russian girl who after enduring the most incredible and unspeakable torture and dying in the agony of her wounds, was yet upborne by the greatness of the cause for which she suffered, and cried with her last breath, "Mother, I die of joy." The movement towards liberty then springing up amongst the women of the Far East also inspired us. We read of the words of one of the Korean women leaders who said:—
The women of our country are the most pitiable of all civilised humanity.... They are enclosed like prisoners, bottled up like fish. But we must remember that after the cock crows the dawn comes, and after work there is reward. Should we but put forth together our feeble efforts a way will be found of accomplishing our object and women will gradually be able to stand in the shining light of the sun and to breathe the sweet heavenly air freely and happily.