I am half sorry the collection is dispersed. I should have liked to add the one historic number of the New Militant that appeared under Mrs. Millington's fire-and-brimstone editorship. To the collector it is curious, as being the last issue of the paper; by the mental pathologist it is regarded as an interesting example of what is by common consent called "Militant Hysteria." The general public will remember it as the documentary evidence which at last enabled the police to secure a warrant of arrest against the "proprietors, printers and publishers of the newspaper called and known as the New Militant," to raid the printing office in Clerkenwell, and lay bare the private memoranda of the New Militant organisation.
My own copy did not survive my departure from England, and I could not do Mrs. Millington the injustice of trying to reproduce her deathless periods. I remember there was a great deal of "Where is Miss Rawnsley? Where is Master Jefferson? Where is Miss Roden?" Such questions implicated no one, and only annoyed inconsequential persons like myself, who detest being set conundrums of which I do not know the answer by some one who obviously does. The practice is futile and vexatious.
The incriminating words came heavy-typed in the last paragraph of the leading article, and contained an unmistakable threat that the policy of abduction would continue until female suffrage had been secured.
After dinner that night I strolled round to the Club to hear what people were saying.
"They've done for themselves this time," Gartside told me with much assurance when I ran across him in the hall. "Don't ask me where I got it from, and don't let it go any further, but there's a warrant out against some one."
I was conscious of a very uncomfortable sensation of hollowness.
"Is it indiscreet to ask who?"
"I can't tell you, because I don't know. I fancy you proceed against the whole lot, printers included."
"They've not wasted much time," I said.
It was Tuesday night. The New Militant went to press at midday and was on sale next morning throughout the country. In London, of course, it could be obtained overnight, and I had secured an early copy by calling at the office itself.