SUFFRAGISTS RELEASED.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 154, 24 March 1908, Page 3

SUFFRAGISTS RELEASED.

When the four suffragists who were .sentenced to , three .weeks' imprisonment, for raiding, No. 10, Downing Street, ,tho meet-, ing-place of tho Cabinet, wero released from Holloway one hundred and fifty other 'Suffragists met them at tho .prison gates. A brass band (of mere men) played heroic airs,, breaking ;• in cheerily .--uppn , what : Miss New' afterwards (described. las'; '/tho punish? ment of three weeks' silence."'' ' ; The* music was appropriate. .Beforev.the heroines appeared- the band, playqd '.'There's no place like homo," and followed .it with the, pathetic melody "Only to See Her Face Again."... . t ■ / Suddenly, as the released women appeared, the dreamy melody quickened into "Rule Britannia," and passed thence intotho stirring strains of "Seo, the Conquering Hero Comes." . , ' ' - The women onlookers cheered, ,and, : someone started singing "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow," but the attempt at joviality failed. The "feminine voices died away in a weary wail- : ■ ' "Hurry up; we're hungry,',' said the practical Mrs. Drummond,.; who ' added/ :> "We/ want our. breakfast." V , , ;Thoy went to breakfast —in cabs. At'-the ''welcome-home feast," held in tho Eustace Miles Itestaurant, v Miss Christabel Panic-, hurst'cheered the ox-prisoners by the assuranco that the two. Government, defeats in'tho- by-elections were caused by 'tho'.suffragists, and. that the friends of ; tho "cause" had increased during the time the -heroines , were undergoing prison disciplino and diet.'' ( Miss Pankhurst was Hard on ,'j\lr. Gladstone. ' "Wo could • not imagine him going to prison'for any principle, ever heard of,-" she said. \ ' ' "We. are made of very, different stuff," she'added proudly. , Nurso Smith boasted that she rebuked a curate who came to her in her cell, by the assurance that "women havo .long enouiih submitted to tho idea that man is tho superior 'animal." , ' .. "I made mail baets for His Majesty's Post Office." she. said, which-,' drew .-.from a facetious svmpathiser the' indicnant comment that "even the bags'are mail."