Footnote:

After what seemed a very long time, a policeman summoned me, and said we were all to have food together in the wardresses’ room. As I was let out I noticed seven of the others being let out too—Winifred Jones, Ellen Wines Pitman, Kathleen Brown, Kitty Marion, Dorothy Pethick and Emily Davison. Mrs. Brailsford was the only one I did not see. The four others—Violet Bryant, Ellen Pitfield, Lily Asquith and Dorothy Shallard—had all done their work the previous evening, and had been sentenced on this, Saturday, morning to two weeks’ imprisonment. It was, of course, a joy to see them. It seemed so very long since that morning. When we had passed the central police office, and were ushered into the wardresses’ room, it appeared that Mrs. Brailsford was shut into the wardresses’ bedroom—whether for a more honourable imprisonment, she being a woman whose public work none could call deficient in selflessness and courage, or whether because she was a “dangerous criminal,” having used a hatchet in making her mark on the barricade, we did not know. I remember catching sight of her as the door was opened to let in a cup of tea. There she sat, calm and erect, and Mr. Brailsford, who had been let in to see her, in piteous trouble, having the one thought—“Will my wife be fed by force—how can they dare to do it? How will she be able to bear it?”

Most of the others I had not seen before, yet I felt exuberant delight at being with them. One only I knew well, and that was Miss Ellen Pitman. She was in the Deputation of February and, after being in prison some ten days, she was brought to the hospital for neuralgic pains in her leg. She was a trained nurse, we had got to know each other well, and her fine face will always be very dear to me. We now got to know the wardresses—they were as kind to us as possible. I was so tired I could scarcely see, and after a time we retired to rest. There was a deafening noise; the cells were filled mostly with drunkards, for it was Saturday. Thundering blows on the doors, accompanied by a string of oaths, went on all through the night. The police were very kind to them, bringing them fresh water to drink, chaffing them and coaxing them. No bedding of any kind or rugs were provided by the police, but our friends outside were most wonderfully good to us, and, when they found we were not to be bailed out, they were busy collecting rugs and blankets. At about 12 they sent me in a rug and a sort of air-cushion bed, which would have been most delightful, but I tried every end in vain, I didn’t know how to put air into it. I was stiff for several days from my rest on the plank, but I owed it to the friends that I did not have two nights of it. On Sunday they brought a mattress instead of the air bed, and my flannel sheets which gave me a restful night.

On Sunday I sent for the district visitor, supposing she would be a woman, but was told there was no district visitor; a police-court missionary? not one either; finally, I sent for the doctor. My complaint was that no toilet paper was provided, and no sanitary towels for the women. Prisoners are kept from Saturday afternoon until Monday. I said, were not these people the same as those who go to prison, they have these necessaries there? “I don’t know about a prison, I’m sure they would never use them in Police Station cells.” Exactly the same remark was made about the prisons, but all the same these things were instituted and now used by prisoners. I begged that, at least, they might be kept in charge of the wardress.

Not long after I had seen the doctor, I was summoned out to see someone else. To my great delight it was Mrs. Pankhurst. She was all sympathy, and it was delightful seeing her.

I was had out of my cell yet another time, for my name, age, etc., to be “taken down” by a policeman in a book. I was able to look over the book as he wrote, and I saw, to my intense surprise, that the law brought three charges against me, first, of assault on Sir Walter Runciman, who was in the car; secondly, of malicious injury to the car at £4; thirdly, of disorderly behaviour in a public place. I felt very exalted to think I had done so much, and thought that three months was the least they could give me. I could not help being pleased to think that the car had contained the host of Mr. Lloyd George, not merely the chauffeur. But what pleased me most was the £4 damage. How I could have done it was indeed a mystery, but I was glad to know that the stone had not gone on the ground, as I had feared. As I went through the central room on one of these occasions, the cage which I had seen before, to my astonishment, was inhabited—by a man, I expected to see some fierce brute, but he was small, frail and miserably degraded, without power to do anyone an injury, with marks of abnormal weakness in his face. When I saw him, the feeling came over me with a great tide, that I should throw myself at his feet and try to bear something of his burden, because if I had done my duty, and if my contemporary women and those who went before had done their duty, we should have given him another life, by securing better, more human conditions, for himself and for his mother who gave him birth. He had lived in that terrible state of things which make it hardly possible to survive. Here, at any rate, was a man intensely feeble in his body, and he was put in an iron cage as the only suitable place!

We were called out and made to stand at the doors of our cells. Presently, the plain-clothes police came to “learn our faces,” and after looking at us steadfastly for some minutes, we were put back again.

The food was brought for us by our friends from outside, who provided for us deliciously, and we had our meals all together in the wardresses’ room. Only Mrs. Brailsford never appeared, being shut in the inner room, but we sent her some of our food. On Sunday night, the wardress had brought us a little basin with some warm water to our cells, which was indeed a boon.