“My dear, why should we?” said a London delegate, leaning forward to answer. “The girl has got them in the hollow of her hand. A born leader of women—a born leader. She voices in her untaught speech the heart-cry of thousands of her dumb and helpless sisters. She——”
The born leader of women continued:
“Ah dunno whoy ah niver thout o’ it before, but ’tis a beawrfeaced robbery neawt to gie us th’ Vote. Oor feythers has it, an’ sells it fur braass.” (Screams, shrieks, and clogging.) “Oor heawsbands has it, an’ sells it fur braass.” (Tempestuous applause.) “Oor lads, theay has it, an’ sells it fur braass. Whoy shouldna’ we ha’ it, an’ sell it for braass tew?”
The enthusiasm with which this brilliant peroration was received nearly wrecked the Cotton Hall. No more speeches were heard that night, though several were delivered in dumb show, and Sal o’ Peg’s awakened upon the morrow to find her utterances reported in the newspapers. To the sarcasm of the leader-writer Sal o’ Peg’s was impervious. She “mun goo t’ Lunnon neixt,” she said, “an’ leawt them tykes at the Hoose o’ Commeawns knaw a bit” of her mind. She wasn’t afraid of Prime Ministers—not she. She called at the branch office of the Union twice a day, imperatively requesting to be forwarded as a delegate to the Metropolis. When her services were declined with thanks, she harangued the populace from the doorstep. When politely requested to move on, she broke a window with one clog, and patted the office-boy violently upon the head with the other. Then she burst into tears and retired, supported by a dozen or so of sympathizing comrades of the factory.
“’Tis a beeawrnin’ sheame!” they said, as they fastened up their chosen representative’s loosened flaxen coils with hairpins of the patent explosive kind, contributed from their own solid braids. “But donnot thee fret, Sal o’ Peg’s, us’ll ha’ nah dollygeat but thee, sitha lass!” And they sent the hat round among themselves with right goodwill. They were not quite sure what a “dollygeat” was, but thought it was something that could walk into the House of Commons, defy a Minister to his nose, dance a clog-dance in the gangway of the Upper House, and receive in chests and bagsful all the good money that women had been defrauded of since the masculine voter first plumped for a consideration; of that they were “as sure as deeawth.”
So Sal o’ Peg’s gave notice at the factory that, being thenceforth called to figure upon the arena of political life, she could not tend frames any longer. She bought a black sailor straw hat with a portion of the subscribed fund, and tied up the most cherished articles of her wardrobe in a blue-spotted handkerchief bundle. She traveled express to London, choosing a “smoking third,” as affording atmospherical and social conditions less remote from her lifelong experience.... The journey was purely uneventful: a young man of unrestrained amorous proclivities receiving a black eye, and a young woman who sneered too openly at the blue-spotted handkerchief bundle suffering the wreck of a bandbox and sustaining a few scratches. The guard—alas! for the frailty of man—being all upon the side of the blue eyes and flaxen coils of hair....
I suppose the reader knows Pelham’s Inn, W. C., where are the headquarters of the National Union for the Emancipation of Working Women? There is no padding to the armchairs, cocoanut matting of a severe and rasping character covers the Committee-room boards; the Committee inkstand is of the zinc office description (the Committee are not there to be comfortable—just the reverse). They are busy women of small spare time and narrow spare means; but when they found Sal o’ Peg’s sitting on the doorstep, they found leisure to be kind. They looked at the clogs with pity, unaware of the pas seul they had performed upon the countenance of a policeman still in bandages, and the great blue eyes yearning out of the small pale face, and the ropes of fair hair tumbling over the shabby shawl that enfolded the childish figure of the little factory-girl who had traveled up to London for the sake of the Cause, won them to practical expression of the sympathy they felt.
“So different a type to the brawling, violent creature,” they said, “who nearly caused a riot at the Smutchester Conference. Her one dream is to see the House of Commons and speak a word in public for her toiling sisters of the factories.” And those of them who wore glasses found them dimmed with the dews of sympathetic emotion. It was such a touching story, they said, of faith and enthusiasm and courage.
It is upon the Records of the Nation that the events I have to relate took place in the Central Hall of the sacred fane of Westminster between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, when twenty or thirty ladies, well-known adherents of the Cause, appeared upon the scene and asked for Suffrage. It was an act of presumption, almost of treason, bordering on blasphemy. Still, the arguments that were not drowned were sound. They were all householders, taxpayers, earners, and owners of independent incomes one daring female said, and as the drunken husband of her charwoman possessed a vote, she thought she had a right to have one also. The Sergeant-at-Arms instantly directed a constable to quell her. Another audacious creature asked for the Vote Qualified. She demanded that the Suffrage should indeed be given to women, but only to those women who should, by passing a viva voce examination on the duties of citizenship, prove themselves fit to discharge them.... She was listened to with some attention until she suggested that male voters should be subjected to a similar weeding-out process; upon which a portly inspector bore down upon her, clasped her in a blue embrace, and carried her, protesting loudly, down the hall, amidst demonstrations of intense excitement. Members cried, “Shame!” Members cried, “Serve her right!” Passing peers put up eyeglasses and stayed to see the fun. Hustled women shrieked, “Cowards!” Pushed women cried, “Let us alone!” Punched women only said, “Owch!” ... It was freely translated “Wretch!” for the occasion. The middle-aged and advanced in years met the same treatment as the younger and more excitable.... All were unceremoniously expelled by the stalwart beings in blue from the sacred precincts where such inviolable order is habitually maintained, and where all the Proprieties find their permanent home. Crushed headgear, scattered handbags, and strange derelict fragments of feminine attire bestrewed the scene of the one-sided fray; the crowds of sympathizers outside cried, “Boo!” and waved white flags in defiance as a dozen arrests were made in a dozen seconds.... And a young woman in a brown plaid shawl and brass-bound clogs danced with shoutings upon the pavements of St. Stephen’s Porch, and while her long, light coils of hair came down and her hairpins were scattered to the winds of Westminster, she asked, in the Lancashire dialect, for admittance to the Bar of the House; for justice for the oppression and downtrodden; for the blood of Ministers, Peers, and Members; and for the viscera of the officials who were their tools. She told the Chancellor of the Exchequer to come out and bring the Treasury with him; and when he did not come, she knocked off one policeman’s helmet and smote another with one of her clogs—toujours those clogs!—upon the nose. Also she relieved a third of half a whisker, bit another in the hand, kicked them all in the shins, and generally made history as six police-constables bore her, shrieking at the full pitch of excellent lungs, to Blunderbuss Row Police Station.
There were newspaper headlines next day—“Bedlam Let Loose!” “The Shrieking Sisterhood!” “The Termagant Spirit!” “No Choice but to Use Force!” The arrested demonstrators were paraded at the police-court; the damaged policemen made an imposing show. Tears choked the utterance of Mr. Vincent Squeers, presiding magistrate, as he asked: “Were thee, indeed, women who had abraded the features, discolored the eyes, bruised the shins, and plucked the whiskers from the gallant constables who stood before him? Nay, but Mænads, Bacchantes, priestesses of savage rites, unsexed Amazons—in two words, emancipated females!” He found a melancholy relief in imposing a fine that had no precedent in cases of brawling, or fourteen days’ imprisonment. He should not be surprised to hear that these hunters after vulgar notoriety preferred to go to Holloway, to luxuriate on prison fare, enjoy calm, undeserved repose on straw beds, and clothe their unregenerate limbs with the drab garments generously provided by the nation.