REMARKABLE STRIKE AT A PRISON.

Evening Post, Volume XLVIII, Issue 54, 1 September 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

REMARKABLE STRIKE AT A PRISON.

v A strike lately took place at Wormwood Scrubbs Prison (England) of a somewhat novel character. There ; is at this prison a laundry, in which about fifty female prisoners are daily employed in doing the whole of the washing for the male and female prisoners and the female officers. It has always been the custom to have the coke, of which a considerable quantity is consumed in the laundry, brought in by male prisoners in charge of male warders. The Governor, however, thought well to issue a new order, that the coke should be hencforth conveyed into the laundry by the women themselves. This order raised a feeling of sudden resentment. The Governor's new order was put in force in the morning, and the women resolved to strike. They were put, as usual, into their separate cells for dinner, but when required to return in the afternoon to the laundry they stoutly refused to, budge an inch. They barricaded their cell doors with their plank beds, and would neither come out nor permit the officers to enter. The matron, failing to induce them to come to terms, the situation was reported to the Governor, who sought to persuade them to return to work, but was received with loud and violent language. Every endeavour failed to induce the strikers to return to work until the order was cancelled, when peace was restored.