Not counting the cost.”

CHAPTER XI
NEWCASTLE PRISON: MY SECOND IMPRISONMENT

The next morning, Monday, October 11, we got up early, with a sense of excitement that we were to be “tried.” We were allowed to wash in a basin arrangement all together. The water was cold, but clean and fresh. The roll towel was horrible, I have never seen anything so dirty—blood had freely been wiped upon it. Nothing could surpass the kindness and civility of the wardresses. One, who thought only of the hunger-strike, cried as we left. We were then led off to the cells upstairs, which were rather cleaner and much lighter. A man came to mend something outside my window; it was open and I could see out by two or three square inches. He looked in at me with great curiosity, but without ill-will. I had the policeman’s pencil still, and wrote on a paper to hand up to him that he should not be afraid of the Suffragettes, but help them to get the vote. I was still thinking about it when the police began to rattle the keys, so I refrained, although it was some time before they came to fetch me.

They led us forth to the other side of the building where the court was. We waited in a passage underneath it, and were led up in turns to the prisoner’s box. The others, who had done nothing but break glass, were sentenced to the 3rd Division and hard labour for fourteen days, and some a month, without any option. Mrs. Brailsford and I were both given the alternative of being bound in money sureties for a year. In reality, this offered us no alternative, but in the estimation of the magistrate, I, who had done deliberately most harm, was given the option of going free, while the others, who were many of them younger than I was, first offenders and all had done much less damage than I had, were prisoners beyond their recall.

When it was my turn, I was prepared for the three charges I had seen on the paper the day before. First came the charge of assault on Sir Walter Runciman. I said that I did not know it was Sir Walter Runciman in the car, and that I threw the stone low down, so that it should not hit the chauffeur or anyone. They did not take up this charge. Then came the charge of damage, at which I was well pleased. But the man facing the magistrate, the clerk, who conducts most of the affairs in several courts I have been into, would not let this charge come on. He said that I had evidently not intended the damage to the car, and that part of the case was dismissed. I tried to tell him that I had no concern for the motor-car, and, though I didn’t know how a stone so small could have done so much harm, I was not in the least concerned over the £4 worth of damage, but he would not let me speak and passed on to the third charge, “disorderly behaviour in a public place.” I put in, with a loud voice, “My disorderly behaviour of throwing a stone with violence in a public place was deliberate and intentional.” After this, they could not but go on with it, since the whole court had heard what I had said. They apparently treated me as a lunatic, and began to ask if it was through not knowing what I was doing that I had thrown a stone? “If I had not known what I was about to do, I should not have held a stone in my hand,” I answered.

I had made up my mind, at one time of the trial, that I would deny the tales that had circulated about the Suffragettes and Mr. Lloyd George’s children. It had been said that we tried to kidnap them, that we had wished for their illness, and all kinds of invented evil. Who are the Suffragettes that they should make war on children? If the child of Mr. Lloyd George were ill or in any way suffering, we were sorry, we were sympathetic, as with every other child, and we were sad for him as the loving father of that child. I tried to speak, when I first was called on, and repeatedly afterwards, but I was always stopped and could get no innings. Finally, the magistrates convicted me of “disorderly behaviour with intent to disturb the peace,” and bound me over, myself in the sum of £50 and two sureties of £25 each, to be enforced for twelve months; in default, one month’s imprisonment in the 2nd Division. I, of course, had no option of finding sureties for twelve months, and was sentenced to the month’s imprisonment. My companion, Miss Davison, was dismissed, as she had literally done nothing.

Mrs. Brailsford, who had struck at the barricade with an axe, was also given the option of being bound over, which she, of course, refused, with the alternative of a month’s imprisonment in the 2nd Division. She had not, as I had, committed any offence before. She was a splendid woman who had gone out to help with the Macedonian relief fund in 1903. She had fed the hungry and nursed the sick and wounded until she contracted typhus fever. The whole “trial” was unworthy of the name—it was a device whereby Mrs. Brailsford and I should be separated from the others and treated with more respect, I having been the only one to do a glaring act and an, apparently, harmful or greatly risky one. The others, without exception, were treated to the 3rd Division.

We were put again into a van, but had only a short way to drive. We were shown into a passage of the prison where the governor came and spoke to us. He was very civil, and begged us not to go on the hunger-strike. Then the Matron came, a charming and very refined woman, who walked with a stick, being lame. Miss Davison had headed our little band of twelve; when she was dismissed, Miss Dorothy Pethick, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence’s youngest sister, was our head and spoke for us. Her face had all the beauty that freshness, youth and grace could give it, and with it all for her age—she was twenty-seven—there was a wonderful strength about it. She spoke civilly to the Governor, but in a very determined way. He could not do enough for us. “Don’t break your windows—please don’t break your windows.” “We will not break them if they can open. You must understand that we have come here, not to please ourselves; we have pleaded for windows to open in the cells through two years in vain. Now we break the glass to make more sure. It is for the poor things who are shut up in these little cells for weeks and months at a time. Whether they know it or not, their bodies know it—it is all that is bad for them to sleep and live in a room supposed to be ventilated, without a window, and to be given a book telling them elaborately how a window may be kept open in all weathers by placing a board in front of it on a slant, will not make things any better. And what is more, if you feed us by force, we shall break every window we can lay hands on.” “Very well,” said the Governor, “choose your own cells; come round and see.” Then, with the Governor and Matron, we went round. Several cells were shown to us. We were left in some that were small but new—the windows did not open. Finally, Mrs. Brailsford and I were taken to different cells on the ground floor where we were separated completely from the others. We were allowed to have our doors open all the time, and some iron gates only shut us in. Compared with Holloway, their good manners made a great difference, but the kindness about the cells was mostly put on; at least, they had not windows that opened, so they could do little. Mrs. Brailsford and I had cells next door to each other, we spoke together frequently all day. The wardresses were dear northern women, affectionate in their ways. The Matron we found to be even more charming than she looked. She took Mrs. Brailsford and me for exercise, and we talked to her nearly the whole time. She was quite a Suffragette and understood our rebellion.