MARCH OF 40.000 WOMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 14636, 4 August 1911, Page 5

MARCH OF 40.000 WOMEN.

GREAT SUFFRAGE PAGEANT. NEW ZEALAND’S CONTINGENT. [From Ovn Bfeciac Conhe s ro ndsrrr.] LONDON. Juno 23. The suffragists have never organised a more picturesque pageant or a more effective protest than the huge procession that on Saturday last marched from the Embankment to the Albert Hall. Up to the present 10 or 12 thousand has been the record attendance in a suffrage procession. On Saturday between 40 and 50 thousand women—the greatest suffrage procession ever heard of—marched through London garlanded with roses, with banners flying, with some 70 bands tilling tho air with music, and with in thoir midst a pageant of fair and brave and great women of the past, that should press home, more than women in these more prosaic days have, an opportunity of doing, the ridiculousness of woman’s position in England today. Forty thousand is a stupendous figure, and difficult at one gulp to take in, but when one deducts it from one of the large towns of New Zealand and finds how serious a hole in would make in tho population, some idea of its greatness may perhaps ho imagined. So Lugo was it, indeed, that it took three hours to pass any given point on the route. Traffic was partially suspended—that is to say, all that could be diverted from the line of route was—and the slender, white-gowned hosts were escorted by sturdy police on horse and foot. The order and organisation of so great an army were remarkable, and military experts have accorded most generous praise to this side of the arrangements. The women marched well and happily, as befitted a Coronation pageant, and the crowds—how great a change is there in the onlookers since the first suffrage procession, when jeers aud brutal rudeness and impertinence were the order of the occasion! —gave unstinted admiration and even occasional cheers. There j were at least ] —Two Pretty Incidents— !

of the march worth recording. One | was tho dipping of thousands of ban- j ners to Mrs Wolstenholmo Elmy, the oldest suffragette in this country, who j sat in a decorated balcony in the West End, and the other was tho same salutation given Mme Belloc, mother of the popular writer, Mrs Belloc-Lowndes, and of the anti-suffragist Mr Hilaire ; Belloc. Of Mme Belloc (says the writer j of a causorie) the newer group of writers asked something like a blessing at the Masters house in tho Temple, | before the march began. She remeiu- j bered the distant days when the move- : ment had the ban of tho '' Saturday j Review,' and she herself was rebuked j by name in the anti-feminist articles J of Mrs Lynn-Linton, one of the i ablest but most acid writers. The ! Catholic Women's Suffrage Society j dipped banners while passing Bromp-, ton Oratory. The crowd in the j streets was enormous, every available 1 inch of space apparently having its ' claimant, and even the roofs of four- j wheelers and taxicabs being thronged j by sightseers determined to miss no-1 thing. Club balconies wero crowded, maid servants and men servants loaned | from the upper windows of hotels, the ' footpaths were thickly lined for tho ', whole route of the procession, the steps j of the Albert Memorial were full of ; spectators, and many Coronation stands were occupied. The fact thata considerable part of. the journey lay along the Coronation route with streets already gay with hunting and manifold decorations lent yet greater splendor to the pretty scene. —New Zealand,—

as the first country to-give its wonren

equal political rights with men, had the j place of honor in the procession, and ; save perhaps the pageantry, no part was lovelier than this. *Dr Alice Burn, of Dnnedin. acted as standard bearer. The beautiful banner that was sub- ! scribed for by New Zealand women in London, was of white moire silk with a fern tree in gold in the centre, and a little below, on each side, a Rolden kiwi. The inscription " New Zealand ' in gold letters was written across the top, and at both sides and at the top was a band of deep blue silk with Maori designs in gold and white. After the banner followed a company of New Zealand girls under a wonderful latticed canopy of pink roses, and these drew on ribbons a fine triumphal car, also gaily garlanded, and with a tentliko roof of green and mauve tulle, and " manned " by more New Zealand girls, with a pretty Maori girl in a bower of green riding on top. Lady Stout, in a delicate gown and pretty toque, acted as leader from he starting point opposite the Temple to the Park Lane corner of Piccadilly, but there, owing to fatigue, had to drop out and allow her place to be taken by Dr Amy Gibbs. Miss Stout and Miss Val Burn acted as standard bearers, and Miss Van Asch and Miss Davis as banner bearers. Besides these the following New Zealanders took part, while others who were, for reasons of illness, etc., prevented from walking so great a disj tanoo (about five miles altogether), sent contributions 'to mark their sympathy viz., Mrs Searle Grossmann, Mrs Hamelin, Miss Young, Miss T. C. Young. Mrs G. P. Clulee. Miss Morshead, Miss George, Miss Blanch Richmond, Miss Pinkney, Mrs Luxton, Miss Luxton, Mrs Braddon, the Rev. W. Smith and Mrs Smith, Master Marcus Smith, Miss Russell, Mrs H. D. A. Major, Mrs Lilly, Mrs M'Faggart, Miss Gilliatt. Miss Osborne Lilly, Mrs H. Grey, Mrs Harverson, Miss Parker, Miss M'Kenna. Mr Fred. Delamare, etc., etc. Carriages: Mrs 0. C. MaeMillan, Miss Maomillan, and Miss Fosbery (sister of Lady Mils), and others.