A PADLOCKED PAIR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 440, 3 November 1908, Page 4

A PADLOCKED PAIR.

London, October 29

The House of Commons was startled last evening by seeing a suffrage placard thrust through the iron trellis of the ladies’ gallery, from which issued shrill cries of “ Votes for women.”

Two women were found padlocked to the grating with a chain engirdling their bodies, and declined to unlock themselves. They continued to shout and upbraid the male legislators below them until the police removed a portion of the grating and conveyed the offenders, still attached to the sections of the grating, to a committee room, where locksmiths filed away the links of the chain. Both women were then liberated in the Old Palace Yard.

Simultaneously with their demonstration, a man in the strangers’ gallery opposite demanded ‘‘Justice for women,” and threw leaflets on the floor of the House. He was expelled. Later, another man shouted ‘‘Justice for the unemployed, votes for women,” and showered pamphlets on the heads of the Commoners below. He was expelled, shouting and struggling fiercely. Meanwhile, members of the Women’s Freedom League, who in twos and threes had penetrated far into St. Stephen’s Hall, pretending that they were waiting to see individual members of the Commons, suddenly made an ineffectual concerted rush for the lobby. Fourteen were arrested, including several who were outside.

Notable among tbe latter was Miss Maloney, of a bell-ringing fame. She mounted on top of the pedestal of the Richard Coeur de Leon Statue near the entrance of the House of Lords, and tried to harangue the crowd iu the Palace Yard.

The Speaker (Hon J. W. Lowthei) has ordered the ladies’ and the strangers’ galleries to be closed in future.

Miss Muriel Matters, one of the padlocked women, informed an interviewer, after her release, that she had voted twice iu Australian elections. At a later stage she was arrested for participating in the disturbance iu the yard.

Her companion, Miss Fox, who was not arrested, disappeared.