WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2915, 26 January 1910, Page 24

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.

LONDON, January 20. The Manchester County Court awarded Miss Davison, a. suffragist, 40s damages against the visiting justices to Strangeways Gaol, Manchester, who ordered the hose to be played upon her cell. On October 27, while the Visiting Committee of Manchester Prison was present at the prison for one of its ordinary meetings, Miss Davison barricaded herself in bar call with the plank bed and refused to open the door. An attempt was made to break into the coll. but the Visiting Committee was afraid that the heavv wooden door, &£in thick, and lined with sheet iron, might fall suddenly into the cell (as had recently biappened in la eas» in the male division of the prison), and might injure the prisoner, and the committee unanimously passed a resolution directing the officers o f the nrison to play the water hose into the cell in the hope of compelling the prisoner to remove her banrioade. At first the water was plaved on to the ceiling. As thiat had no effect it was subsequently turned on to the prisoner's shoulders for two o«r three minutes. In the meantime am officer succeeded in removing one of tbe< hinges and effected a.n entrance into the cell, and •fc-'e was carried out. She was promptly taken in charge by the matron'

and the female warders, wrapped in blankets, removed to the hospital, and every ruecessa<ry attention paid to her health. The affair was the subject of an inquiry, and early in November a debate took place in Parliament. Mr Gladstone declared th(at he was satisfied that the Visiting Committee acted from a desire to support the authority of the prison officers and to secure entrance into the prisoner's cell in tie way likely to cause least risk to herself, but, in. his opinion, the' committee was guilty of a grave error of judgment in the measures it adopted. He was commiunioatiing wiiitih the committee. Mr Snowden asked tihe Hoime Secretary to have the names of the J.P.'s who comprised thka Visiting Committee removed from the roll, but Mr Gladstone declined to make any special communication to the Lord Chancellor.