CHAPTER XV
OCTOBER, 1908
The Trial of the Three Leaders. Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. Lloyd George in the Witness Box.
On the morning of October 14th began the trial both of the three leaders who had been arrested by warrant and the twenty-one women whom they were said to have incited to break the peace. Excited crowds early assembled in Bow Street, and besieged the doors of the Police Court, begging the unyielding custodians for admission. In the dark passageways and lobbies of the Court were numbers of women, imploring the officials to allow them to pass into the Court itself. The public enter by a door at the back of the room and here there is a space where visitors may stand. This space was now crowded with women, pressing closely against the wooden barrier which cut them from off the narrow rows of equally crowded wooden seats, where the friends and relatives of the prisoners, who could obtain the ear of some kindly officer, were allowed to sit. In front of these seats is the dock itself—a wooden bench some six feet long, empty as yet, and surrounded by a heavy iron railing on three sides, the fourth to be guarded by a policeman when the prisoners arrive. In front and at one side of the dock are the benches for the Press, which that morning contained representatives from all the leading newspapers. In front of this again, divided by a barrier and on a lower level so that one sees little more than the heads of its occupants, was another bench where Mr. Muskett, the solicitor for the Prosecution who had so often appeared against the Suffragettes, and other minions of the law now sat. In front again and placed at right angles to this bench is the witness box—a little wooden pen with a foolish wooden canopy which looks as though it were meant for keeping out the rain. On the right, opposite the witness box, are two rows of seats, each entered by a little wooden door, like church pews, where counsel and distinguished strangers sit. In the well between the witness box and these seats sit the recording clerks and other officials, and opposite to them, and facing the whole court is the Magistrate's high-backed chair and his table. Mr. Curtis Bennett, the Magistrate who was to try the case, sat there now, handsome and dignified, and looking the picture of a high-bred eighteenth-century squire.
The familiar figures of Mrs. Pankhurst, Christabel and Mrs. Drummond were soon ushered into the dock, and then Christabel began by asking the Magistrate not to deal with the case in that Court, but to send it for trial by Judge and Jury, her object being to secure that Suffragette cases should no longer be decided by a body of Police Court officials, whom we had every reason to believe were acting under the direct instructions of the Government against whom our agitation was directed, but should instead be submitted to a body of ordinary citizens. She urged that, under section seventeen of the Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879, she and her co-defendants were entitled to the option of being tried where they desired, and she wished now to state that they desired that the case should go before a jury. Mr. Curtis Bennett bent his head and smiled, saying, "Yes, yes, but we will go on with the case now." She pressed him to at once give an answer to the point which she had raised, but he replied that he could not do so until he had heard the case.
Mr. Muskett, then rose to prosecute. Speaking quickly in a low voice and showing considerable irritation, he began by complaining that the defendants had failed to obey a summons to appear, firstly on Monday and secondly on Tuesday morning, to answer to the charge of having been guilty of conduct likely to provoke a breach of the peace. Then in the most fastidious manner and with clearly expressed disgust, he proceeded to set forth the details of the case. He explained that, on October 8th, Inspector Jarvis had visited the offices of the Women's Social and Political Union and had there seen Mrs. Drummond with Miss Christabel Pankhurst. Miss Pankhurst had said, "What about the 13th? Have you seen our new bills?" and had produced the handbill which formed the foundation of the present charge. It was worded: "Votes for Women. Men and women help the Suffragettes to rush the House of Commons on Tuesday, October 13th, at 7:30 P. M." In showing this to Inspector Jarvis, Miss Pankhurst had said that the words "to rush" were not in sufficiently large type and that they were to be made much more distinct.
On Sunday, October 11th, the Defendants had held a meeting in Trafalgar Square, to which Mr. Muskett objected, because it had caused "an enormous amount of additional labour to be thrown upon the shoulders of the police." At this meeting, he asserted gravely, speeches had been delivered by the defendants inciting those present to carry out the programme of rushing the House of Commons. "You will agree sir," said Mr. Muskett, "that such conduct as that cannot be tolerated in this country." Finally he asked on behalf of the Commissioner of Police that the defendants should be ordered to be bound over to keep the peace.
Stout, red-faced Superintendent Wells, whom we usually found most friendly and obliging, now, looking very cross and uncomfortable, lumbered into the witness box. After taking the oath he gave evidence in regard to a visit of his own to the offices at Clement's Inn. He said that Mrs. Pankhurst had then shown him a copy of a letter which had been sent by the Women's Social and Political Union to Mr. Asquith. This document pointed out that at many large demonstrations all over the country, resolutions had been carried, calling upon the Government to adopt the Women's Enfranchisement Bill and also that, at a succession of by-elections, the voters had shown unmistakably their desire that the Government should deal with the question without further delay. It concluded by asking the Prime Minister to inform the Union as to whether the Government would carry the Bill into law during the autumn session.
After the Superintendent had read the letter, Mrs. Pankhurst had told him that, if Mr. Asquith returned a satisfactory reply to it, nothing would take place on October 13th save a great cheer for the Government, but that, if he did not, there would be a demonstration and the women would get into the House of Commons. "I said, 'You cannot get there for the police will not let you unless you come with cannon,'" the Superintendent went on, looking very imposing, and explained that Mrs. Pankhurst had then stated that "no lethal weapons" would be used. She had also said, "Mr. Asquith will be responsible if there is any disorder and accident."
Superintendent Wells next described the meeting in Trafalgar Square where he had seen Mrs. Drummond distributing the "rush" handbills. He said that he looked upon her as a "very active leader of the Suffragettes" and that she frequently wore a "uniform" with the word "general" or "generalissimo" on the cap. He had told her that she and Mrs. Pankhurst would be prosecuted. When questioned by Mr. Muskett as to the happenings of the previous evenings, Superintendent Wells said that traffic had been "wholly disorganised" in the vicinity of the House of Commons for four hours and that for three hours the streets had been in "great disorder"; that a very large body of police indeed had been required to maintain the peace, that ten persons had been treated at Westminster Hospital and that seven or eight constables and sergeants had been more or less injured.
It was now Christabel Pankhurst's turn to cross-examine the Superintendent and he looked across the dock at her very nervously. She first questioned him as to the statement that had been made that she and her companions in the dock had broken their promise to appear at the court either on the Monday or Tuesday morning, and drew from him the admission that he had not received any undertaking "in actual words." She then changed the subject and brightly asked him whether he was in the habit of reading the official organ of the Union "Votes for Women," to which he replied in the negative. "You are not aware, then," she said, "that Mrs. Pankhurst wrote the following words:"