As Mrs Lime had anticipated, a reporter of one of the less conservative London newspapers arrived on the following morning. He was accompanied by the correspondent of a chain of American newspapers, commonly referred to as “Yellow.” Mrs. Lime saw them first and gave a full account of the campaign. Then Julia descended, and having made up her mind to talk, she talked to some purpose. When she finished, there was no confusion in either of the young men’s minds as to her opinion of the Government, the police, and the prison system of England. Her description of the mob was so graphic that the American correspondent nodded with approval.
“Say!” he exclaimed. “You ought to have six months of this experience, and then go over to the U. S. and lecture. You’d make money for your cause all right, all right. Better think it over.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Mrs. Lime, with enthusiasm. “We will think it over.”
During the afternoon the girls once more started off on the heels of the candidate. But their work was almost done. The polling took place on the following Thursday. Almost as much to their own amazement as to that of every one else, the Liberal candidate was defeated by a small majority. But if it was the first demonstration of the power of the Militants in by-elections, it was by no means the last.
There was no question in the London press of ignoring this issue and its cause. With one accord it expressed astonishment, indignation, and righteous wrath, at the unpatriotic selfishness of a set of women that were a disgrace to their country and their sex.
VIII
Mrs. Lime was recalled to London, and Julia, being now full fledged, was ordered to make a tour of certain districts of the north and west, speak in all circumstances, and make converts not only to the cause of Suffrage, but to the Woman’s Social and Political Union.
Julia for the next four months spoke nearly every day, sometimes twice a day. She had encounters with the police, although she tactfully avoided street corners, and they hardly could eject her from a hall she herself had hired. There were towns, however, where the feeling among men was so strong against the new manifestation of Suffrage, that owners refused to rent her their halls, and then she spoke either in a friendly drawing-room, at a working-girls’ club, on the common, or, on Sunday, in an open field. On the whole, however, she had far less trouble with the authorities than she expected and fewer unfriendly demonstrations. Occasionally, the rear benches were occupied by hooligans employed to howl her down, and to these infringements the police were deaf; but in the audience there was usually a sprinkling of respectable men who had come to hear what she had to say; and when they were tired of the interruptions, they arose as one man and disposed of the intruders.
She found herself addressing great and greater crowds, for the north was awakening in earnest; the laboring women had been ready for years, and now the middle class, long torpid, was furnishing recruits every hour. Annie Kenny’s second and long imprisonment caused wide-spread interest as well as indignation, and her release was celebrated by great meetings of welcome both in London and the provinces. After addressing crowds in Lancashire, and receiving an ovation, she went to Wales to speak, and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and Bridgit Herbert, once more whole and belligerent, held a series of meetings in Yorkshire.
Like a heather fire the new gospel of Suffrage swept over the north, and where a few months since the W. S. P. U. had struggled along with a few hundred members, it now reckoned its thousands.