A "SUFFRAGETTE RIOT."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13455, 6 April 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

A "SUFFRAGETTE RIOT."

ARREST OF SIXTY WOMEN.

FEMININE DISLIKE TO BE HURT.

[from our own- correspondent.

London, February 16. A scandalous and unparalleled disturbance was created by a number of the noisy women who call themselves "Suffragettes," at the entrance of the Houses of Parliament, 'on Wednesday afternoon and again in the 'evening, resulting in the arrest of 60 of the feminine-hooligans and in the bruising of several. | The women uudisguisedly resorted to violence in order to effect a forcible entrance ! into the House of Commons, and were utterly scandali."«ed and outraged when force was met with and when this was employed to

prevent them succeeding in their disorderly '(enterprise. It was the case again satirised j by Punch in the Chartist days when a little |weakly,'special constable cautious a. gigan- ■ tic and herculean Chartist: Look here, t you know, if I kill you its nothing, but i if you kill me, it's murder, by jingo!" In ' resisting the violence of the women the po- ! lice necessarily had to use their strength, and so the unfeminine-feminine assailants unavoidably got bruised or otherwise hurt, though in no case seriously. But the out- , cry they set up was most comical; they ■ : went in for blows, but were shocked and ' scandalised when they themselves got hit. : No: all the blows must lie given, but none received by them. But, they've been taught , a different leason now, though its value is ■ being impaired by the silly fuss which some ■ weak-minded men are making becauso the ' female aggressors—or ought I to say ag- ■ gress-esses?— resisted at all. How- ' ever, Lady Frances Balfour, whose letter I ■ quote below, has faced the whole matter | from a purely reasonable and sensible viewpoint. "If women will fight," she says in 1 effect, " they must expect to get hard knocks, and should not whimper if they are. hurt!" I confess I am inclined to think that the police, although perfectly justified in all that as yet they can be authentically ascertained to have done, were a little indiscreet in their methods. . With their vast superiori ity of numbers and strength they could Ihave simply swept away the whole mob of women—whom they greatly outnumbered — Iby merely advancing in a solid phalanx, before which the women could not have held ]their ground for a minute. It was in my 'opinion, and in that of many others in a j position to judge, that in the circumstances ,

which were quite exceptional—this should have been done, and none of the customary crowd-dispersing methods employed, including the arrest of the rioters— "riotresses." And this view is held not from any repugnance to the possible casual infliction of slight bruises upon disorderly viragoes who could have averted such treatment merely by behaving themselves, but simply because the women had courted such with the object of cheap martyrdom. As it is those arrest-j ed are scoring by insisting on undergoingi imprisonment instead of paying fines. One! if them was cleverly "sold" by her fine being paid, which she resents loudly as "a! piece of gross impertinence." It is a ridiculous farce altogether. Yesterday morning, 53 of the prisoners ivere brought before Mi. Curtis Bennett, of ivhom it is said that " being genial, but firm, md possessing a sense of humour, he was exactly the man for the morning's duty." 1 find that out of the total number arrested, >nly 22 belong to London or its suburbs, the majority of the others coming from Lancashire or Yorkshire. The first case called >n was that of Christobel Pankhurst, LL.B., " Organiser,"' who had asked that her case might'be taken first as she was the leader. 'Miss Pankhurst," remarks a susceptible j reporter, "does not fulfill the popular conception of a suffragette, being a graceful, bright-eyed girl, with a soft musical voice." Inspector arris told quietly how Miss Pankhurst was at the head of a crowd of 200 disorderly women in Palace Yard. In a gentle tone Miss Pankhurst put a few questions to the inspector. THE DEFENCE. Being called upon by the magistrate for her defence, Miss Pankhurst said. "We do not wish to charge the police- with exceeding their orders or violently handling the women, though some have suffered severely. The whole of the responsibility lies with the authorities who instructed the police to use every measure to clear the way. It is our way to get votes for women, and at the risk of danger to our lives. It is no fault of the authorities that there are no lives lost. Yesterday was a great day for our movement, and the responsibility does not rest upon us. but upon those who refused to give us what we demanded. If life is lost in this campaign, then the Liberal Government will be directly responsible. There can be no going back for us. It is the beginning of the end, and more will happen if we do not justice." "There are ways and means," said the magistrate, and these disgraceful, disorderly struggles iu the streets must be stopped." "They can be stopped, but only in one way," retorted Miss Pankhurst. "The Magistrate: " Twenty shillings, or 14 days' in the first class." After this the suffragettes were hurried in at a great pace and were fined, as a rule 20s or 10s, with the alternative of 14 days' in the first division, and seven days' in (he second division. All the defendants,* with the exception of Mr. and M.s. McDiarmid, elected to go to prison, and they were removed in eleven prison vans to Holloway Gaol. Mis. Despard, a venerable lady, and sister of General French, made a little speech to the magistrate: '"I want to say 1 did this deliberate! v." She was fined 40s, with the alternative of 21 days' imprisonment. STRIKING A BURLY CONSTABLE. Mrs. Sanders, the delicate-looking young wife of Alderman Sanders, having been accused of striking a burly constable, raised a great burst of laughter by her gentle inquiry, Did I hurt you, constable?" But she did not escape the usual fine. Miss Marion King, a tall young woman in a long-fawn-coloured Newmarket coat, stepped into the dock looking rather bored, and established the record of the morning by saying not a word. A burly constable gave evidence about her trying to force hei way into the House, and she merely regarded him with a tired air, and when asked if she had any witnesses to call, and anything to say, she merely shook her head. When Mr. Curtis Bennett fined her 20s, or 14 days', she simply nodded gracefully, and stepped from the dock, the picture of a silent sufferer. Miss Seruya was a graceful young lady with a laughing confidence, and when she entered the dock, s-he leaned back over the rail and chuckled silently at the tall, grim, policeman in the box about to give evidence against her. " She not only said she would not go away," said Police-Constable 264 A, "but she also struck me with her clenched fist." " What!" exclaimed Miss Seruya, vivaciously; " I struck you with this muff, which had a book inside it." "It seemed like a clenched fist," remarked the magistrate pleasantly. " Well I merely struck back," declared Miss Seruya. " Twenty shillings, or fourteen days'" said Mr. Curtis Bennett. "Oh, the fourteen days' of course," the defendant remarked sweetly, as she stepped into the care of the gaoler. Mrs. Chatterton, a slight, heavily-veiled lady, provided the sensation of the morning. She walked slowly into the dock, and composed herself on the seat. "Stand up, please," said the gaoler. "Thank you," she said. "I prefer to sit." "Yen must stand up," said the magistrate. " Oh, no," she replied coolly, without moving. " I would rather not-. I have been standing outside all the morning, as there was not sufficient accommodation, and I'm tired." The magistrate accepted the defeat, gracefully. "If you tell me that," he said, "I'll allow you to sit down." A sergeant began to tell the tale of Mrs. Chatterton's disorder, when the lady vehemently interrupted him with denials."'"She was asked to keep quiet, and she indignantly' refused. "I have come here," she said, "to tell the truth, and tell ; it at my own time. I am going to select j my own time." " Put her back till the other cases are over," said Mr. Curtis Bennett. -The gaoler touched her on the shoulder. " Don't touch me,'' she exclaimed,

"I'm not lame; I can walk." She slowly] made her way out of the dock, and was requested to move more quickly. She stopped to argue the point. Immediately a policeman lifted her off her feet and carried her out. Mrs. Chatterton shouted jubilantly, "Oh, isn't it lovely!" She was not so defiant when she came up later. Having |a' previous conviction in connection with a suffragette disturbance she was fined 40s, or a month

Miss Olivia Smith, in spick-and-span' nurse's costume, gave the court a few mo-' ments of comedy. Police-Constable 21 A.R. said that at a-quarter past nine the prisoner was " pushing and shoving about. She deliberately went up and got hold of the bridle of a mounted officer's horse and shoved it about," he explained. Thereupon Miss Smith in gentle tones explained: "I had already shoved one horse off the footpath, and the policeman said, ' There's another there; go and shove that.' Not liking to break the law I went and did as I was told." "Forty shillings or a month," was the magistrate's decision.

Lady Frances Balfour, sister-in-law of the ex-Premier, who is also sister of the Duke of Argyll, and consequently sister-in-law also of Princess Louise, and who is, further, (herself a warm sympathiser with the cause of woman's franchise, has written to the Times, Morning Post, and other leading papers."

On the other side of the case, the following letter signed " Ethel Colquhoun" appears in the Morning Post immediately below Lady Frances Balfour's communication : " I have no sympathy either with the aims or the action of the ' suffragettes,' and I was one of the two women who voted against the resolution passed at the meeting in Caxton Hall on Wednesday. For that very reason I deprecate the action of the police in assisting these women to gain a cheap martyrdom. I was a spectator of some of the disgraceful scenes in front of the strangers' entrance, and, with all my prepossession in favour of the force of law and order, with the deepest disgust for the emotional clap-trap, without one word •of reasonable argument, to which I had been listening in Caxton Hall, I was obliged to own that the police acted with unnecessary violence. The fighting force of the ' suffragettes' did not hurl itself as a body upon the police. It was dispersed in little groups without leadership or organisation (after the ejection of the first 11 from the House itself).

" These scenes," continues the writer, " are disgusting to any right-minded person, but I fear they will continue unless the police can find I some way of dealing with the ' suffragettes' which will not inflame their passions by rousing the fighting instinct dormant in all of us, and so help them to a martyr's crown. In conclusion may I advise any woman who is inclined to sympathise with the 'suffragettes' to attend one of their meetings?"

General Sir Robert French has publicly expressed his regret that his sister, Mrs. Despurd, mixed herself up with the suffragette disturbance and his strong disapproval of her conduct. He has pointed out that he could not exercise any control over her actions.