What a long, weary wait I had before they would let me into the Houses of Parliament. Every time I asked the policeman where the member of Parliament was who had invited me, he smilingly told me they had gone to fetch him. I thought he was joking at first, and threatened to go, but he only laughed, and said, “He will come in time.” Only when I had made up my mind that the tea-party would never come off, and had settled myself on an uncomfortable divan to study the curious people passing in and out, did my host appear. I thought it was only in Turkey that appointments were kept with such laxity, but I was reminded by the M.P. who invited me that I was three-quarters of an hour late in the first place.
A Corner of a Turkish Harem of To-day
This photograph was taken expressly for a London paper. It was returned with this comment: “The British public would not accept this as a picture of a Turkish Harem.” As a matter of fact, in the smartest Turkish houses European furniture is much in evidence.
Turkish Women and Children in the Country
They are accompanied by the negress.
I was conducted through a long, handsome corridor to a lobby where all sorts of men and women were assembled, pushing one another, gesticulating and speaking in loud, disagreeable voices like those outside of the Paris Bourse. Just then, however, a bell rang, and I was conducted back past the policeman to my original seat. What curious behaviour! What did it all mean? I spoke to the friendly policeman, but his explanation that they were “dividing” did not convey much to my mind. As I stood there, a stray member of Parliament came and looked at me. He must have been a great admirer of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, for he wore a monocle and an orchid in his buttonhole.
“Are these suffragettes?” he asked the policeman, staring at me and the other women.