THE CRAZY MILITANTS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8367, 1 March 1913, Page 4

THE CRAZY MILITANTS

Men of most nations, and British men particularly, are extremely lotih to lay violent hands upon a woman. That is a very fortunate, trait in human character. Speaking generally it requires the greatest provocation to aggravate the stronger sex against the weaker, for the one is the natural protector of tho other. Thus in accounts of disaster, of shipwreck, railway smash, or similar tragic emergency, the order is invariably that women and children must be the first of those in danger to be rescued and the first of the injured to receive succour. Not that women do not also rise to such occasions. They certainly do, and frequently induce the utmost admiration for the display of unsuspected depths of calmness and courage. But, as we say, the men are looked to primarily for chivalry, and seldom fail. It was, however, almost inevitable that the outrageous conduct of the militant “suffragettes” in Britain would lead to reprisals. The public patience is rescuing the. point. of exhaustion at the many and increasing acts of vandalism and criminality committed by these misguided women, and at last they are getting paid hack to some extent in their own coin. Suffragettes have been pelted with tomatoes and eggs, the windows of their headquarters have been smashed, and some men who caught a suffragette painting on public seats smothered her face and hair with green paint. These are deplorable incidents from all considerations, but the militants are becoming unendurable. Their cause, too, must be suffering quite substantially, for in these days of toleration and intelligence the savage tactics of the Pankhursts and the like suggest doubts of their fitness, at all events, to exercise tho franchise.