Smart ladies in thousand-guinea motors, costers who were forced to leave their carts outside, factory women with babies in their arms, titled dames and girls from the slums, all marched or rode or drove in that great procession. The suffragettes behaved most moderately in Hyde Park. The noisy scenes were all reserved for Westminster, where a Member of Parliament laughingly remarked to me:
“I love women, but I don’t like them when they are carried away by their feelings, and then by the policeman.”
After a suffragist riot outside the House of Commons, a constable was asked by a Member if they had had many people in the row.
“Never saw such a sight here in my life, sir.”
“Really?—Were they very unruly?”
“Awful, just kicking and scratching, and going on anyhow.”
“And you didn’t get hurt?”
“No, thank you, sir. You see, I am a married man, so I know how to handle women.”
For forty years women worked quietly for their rights and got nothing, and so they are determined to proclaim their wrongs from the housetops until they are heard.