My Lords and Gentlemen,—To prevent any possible misconception, I beg leave, in the name of my fellow-students and myself, to state distinctly that, while urgently requesting your honourable Board to issue to us the ordinary students’ tickets for the Infirmary (as they alone will ‘qualify’ for graduation), we have, in the event of their being granted, no intention whatever of attending in the wards of those physicians and surgeons who object to our presence there, both as a matter of courtesy, and because we shall be already provided with sufficient means of instruction in attending the wards of those gentlemen who have expressed their perfect willingness to receive us.—I beg, my Lord and Gentlemen, to subscribe myself your obedient servant,
Sophia Jex-Blake.
To the Honourable the Managers of the Royal Infirmary.”
Now the managers of the Infirmary were worthy folk as human nature goes, “several” of them, says S.J.-B., known to the women as “just and liberal-minded men,” so it is not surprising that a majority were sufficiently moved by these arguments to desire that the request of the women be granted. On the ground of want of notice, however, the party in power got the matter deferred for a week.
And now, clearly, the moment had come when every effort must be made to turn the women out altogether. If they carried their point at the next meeting, all might well be lost.
It was at this juncture that, for the first time, some of the students began to make themselves unpleasant, “shutting doors in our faces, ostentatiously crowding into the seats we usually occupied, bursting into horse laughs and howls when we approached,—as if a conspiracy had been formed to make our position as uncomfortable as might be.” A students’ petition against the admission of women to the Infirmary was handed about, and 500 students signed it.
So the majority gained their point, and the party in power won an easy victory.
“Follow it up,” said someone. “Don’t stop there. While you are at it, why not get rid of the women altogether?”[[69]]
It was not a surprising suggestion; the presence of the women was making some people very uncomfortable; but those who made the suggestion must have had a pretty good idea of how the students would proceed to carry it out, and what class of student would take the lead.
For a day or two a feeble and cowardly effort was made to obstruct the entrance of women into the class-room, but S. J.-B., followed by her companions, simply failed to see the students who half-heartedly stood in her way, and walked through them.