Footnotes:
[30] This, as Mr. Jarvis afterwards admitted, was a mistake; Mrs. Pankhurst really said that women had no representation in the House of Commons.
CHAPTER XVII
OCTOBER TO THE END OF 1908
The Trial of Mrs. Baines. The Mutiny in Holloway. The Taking-down of the Grille.
Mrs. Drummond was right, for though she and her companions had left a great blank in the work of the Union, as she had predicted at the dock at Bow Street, other women eagerly volunteered to raise up the flag that they had been compelled to lay down. In addition to the newcomers, every member of the staff cheerfully undertook some extra task, and the movement grew like a living flame. The office at Clement's Inn was indeed fortunate in its abundance of willing and able workers. Beside Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and her husband, and charming Mrs. Tuke, Mrs. Pankhurst's co-secretary, there were a host of others, amongst them dignified, business-like Miss Kerr, with her rosy face and pretty white hair, thoughtful, reliable Miss Hambling, Mrs. Drummond's secretary, and Mrs. Sanders, who, though financial secretary, was now finding time to keep a list of Cabinet Minister's engagements for us. There was also Jessie, the London organiser, earnest and serious like all the Kenneys, who, showing a grasp of the political situation and an organising capacity indeed remarkable in a girl of twenty-two, marshalled the force of women to ask of members of the Government those constant questions.
The very greatest difficulty was now experienced in getting into Cabinet Ministers' meetings, for women were now almost entirely excluded. The expedient of issuing a limited number of special women's tickets, the recipients of which were obliged to sign both name and address to a pledge neither to disturb the meeting nor to transfer the ticket, was first resorted to for Mr. Haldane's meeting at Sheffield, on November 20th, 1907. The practice had now become general and in some cases the women's tickets had also to be countersigned by a Liberal official to whom the applicants were personally known. But in spite of such precautions the Suffragettes frequently still succeeded in getting into the meetings and that without having given any promise, and when they could not get inside, they invariably raised a protest in the street.
When Cabinet Ministers, cast as they were in unheroic mould, discarded, to a large extent, the custom of delivering their pronouncements to great public gatherings where all might come, and instead frequently made their weighty utterances at bazaars, private or semi-private banquets and receptions and meetings of a few tried and trusted friends, the Suffragettes were always there even though the world and Mrs. Grundy might be shocked. On November 5th, for instance, a well-known Liberal hostess, Mrs. Godfrey Benson, gave a reception in honour of the Prime Minister. As they stood together at the head of the stairs receiving the guests, there came amongst the ladies and gentlemen in evening dress, streaming upward towards them, one strikingly tall and handsome lady in white satin with abundant dark hair, who said as she took the Prime Minister by the hand, "Can I do anything to persuade you to give votes to women?" Then, still holding his hand in hers, she proceeded to read out to him some clauses of Magna Charta, explaining that these had been intended to apply to women as well as to men. Mrs. Godfrey Benson did not for some moments notice Mr. Asquith's dilemma, but as soon as she did so, she seized a police whistle which was attached to a ribbon at her waist, and, by blowing loudly, summoned an officer of the law, who conducted the lady out of the house.