so far they had not spoken in any of the larger towns, for in this manufacturing and colliery district it was difficult to collect a crowd in the market-place except on saturday nights, and heretofore heavy rains had kept the men indoors with their pipe and beer. but they distributed their literature on the streets, and in shops and hotel dining-rooms, visited every house to which they could obtain entrance, and scored one signal triumph. the conservative candidate, watching their progress, and having no fixed scruples to violate, came out sonorously for woman. he even called on them personally and promised his active help in parliament if they would canvass for him. they did not place too much faith in his word, but they were out to defeat an enemy, one who was also a member of that party responsible for all the indignities visited upon their cause. by this time that momentous night had come and gone when mrs. pankhurst and her band were forcibly ejected from the latticed gallery above the house of commons, after hearing their bill talked out; and sir henry campbell-bannerman, after receiving the deputation of representative women with amiability and encouragement, had astounded them with the warning that they were to expect nothing from his cabinet. so war had been declared on the government, and this was merely the first of the by-elections which was to give the women an opportunity to exhibit their power.
“we’ve a chance!” said mrs. lime, as the conservative candidate smiled himself out of their presence. her dark eyes were full of light, her sad mouth smiling. “oh, but a chance! if we could only win! there’d be some head-shaking up there at westminster.”
“well!” said julia, also triumphant, “at least we’ve made the liberal candidate look persecuted. i know that every time he catches sight of us he longs to call the police.”
the following day was saturday and they arrived at one of the most important towns in the district. the sun was out and it was immediately decided to take the corner hustings. by this time, julia had quite forgotten her old objection to street corners; it seemed to her that she had forgotten everything she had known on any subject than the one in possession; and she was further inspired by the discovery that her tongue possessed both persuasiveness and power. even bad speakers like to hear themselves talk as soon as they have mastered fright, and never was there a good one that would not rather be on the stump than off it. julia was enjoying this hard fighting as she had never enjoyed anything in her life.
the town was surrounded by cigarette factories, and on this saturday afternoon it seemed to julia that every girl they employed must be promenading the streets with her hooligan swain. they were bold-looking creatures, cheaply and loudly attired, and universally hilarious. by this time julia had concluded that the common people of this section of the midlands were more common, more rude, more offensive than any she had encountered in england, with the possible exception of the barbarians in the london slaughter houses. even mrs. lime remarked sadly that comparative prosperity did not seem to improve her class. but julia had yet to learn that these young people had a brutal license in their natures, a ribald savagery, that was a part of their general indifference to morals or any sense of decency.
she and mrs. lime immediately divided the town into districts, and seeing a group on a corner near to which there was a convenient box, julia mounted her platform and began to address the eight or ten young men and women. at first they merely gave a rough laugh; then one cried out:?—
“w’y, it’s a bloomin’ suffragette! oh, i say, wot a lark! w’y ain’t ’er golden ’air ’anging down ’er back?”
julia had heard remarks of this sort before, although her speaking experience had lain almost altogether in the villages, where the human animal, less sophisticated, is also less aggressive. in a few moments the group had become a crowd that blocked the street, and she quite believed that no speaker had ever looked into so many hard and hostile eyes. the face of every man wore an insulting grin. she went on unperturbed, however, welcoming them at any price, for this was her first opportunity to address a town crowd. the more hostile, the better. she was confident of getting their ear in time.
but it was soon evident that they had no intention of giving her their ear. they roared with laughter, they gave unearthly cat-calls. finally one hurled a vile epithet at her. this was a signal which unloosed their proudest accomplishment. when they had exhausted their vocabulary, and it was a large one when it came to obscenity, they began again; but finding that she looked down at them undisturbed, merely waiting for a pause, they began to grow angry, and pushed forward. julia’s box was already against the wall, there was no possible means of retreat, and there was not a friendly face in that ugly crowd. but she was not conscious of any fear. not only was she fearless by nature, but she had been trained during these last four years to impassivity in any crisis. what she really felt was the profound disdain of the aristocrat for the brainless mob, and although she did not realize this at the moment, it did flash through her mind that here was one section of the poor that might go to the devil for all the help and sympathy it would ever get from her. but of these and other uncomplimentary sentiments she betrayed no more than she did of fear, although she was not sufficiently hardened to suppress an inward quiver at the foul language with which she had now been assailed for some ten minutes.
“oh, i say!” cried one of the girls, when her companions finally paused to draw breath. “is she a bloomin’ stature? let’s put some life in ’er.” and another shrieked, “wot’s golden ’air for if it ain’t ’anging down ’er back? let’s put it w’ere it belongs.”
“that’s right.”
the crowd surged forward. julia, looking into those primitive faces, the faces of good old barbarians, full of the lust to hurt, wondered if her time had come. she made no doubt that they would tear the clothes off her back, perhaps trample her underfoot, for they had lashed their passions far beyond their limited powers of restraint. she squared her shoulders. for the moment the world looked to her full of eyes and fists. then she hastily glanced to right and left. down the street two blue-clad figures were advancing, accompanied by the liberal candidate and another man. she drew a long breath of relief. she had grown to look upon the british policeman as her natural enemy, but now she hailed him as her only friend on earth.
she raised her arm and indicated the approach of the law. one of the men followed her gesture, and shouted, “the bobbies.” the clinched hands dropped and the crowd fell back. as the two policemen strode up julia expected to see official fists fly, and as many arrests made as two men of law could handle. to her amazement the policemen pushed their way through the mob and jerked her off the box.
“nice doings, this,” cried one, indignantly. “obstructing traffic and collecting crowds. ain’t you suffragettes ever going to learn sense?”
“i!” cried julia, with still deeper indignation. “you had better arrest your townspeople. couldn’t you hear them using language that alone ought to send them to jail? and couldn’t you see that they would have torn me to pieces in another moment? why don’t you arrest them?”
“it’s you we’re going to arrest. it’s you that’s obstructing traffic and collecting crowds, not them. they’re out for their ’arf ’oliday.”
“but i tell you they threatened me with violence.”
“serves you right. you come along, and if you make any fuss you’ll get hurt, sure enough.”
and julia, filled with a wrath of which she had never dreamed herself capable, was dragged off between the two policemen, while the crowd jeered and howled, and the liberal candidate stood on the other side of the street laughing softly.
once her fury so far overcame her that she struggled and attempted to break away, but one of the men gave her arm such a wrench that she walked quietly to the town hall, thankful that anger had burned up her tears.
at the town hall she was charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing traffic, and promptly committed to a cell, to await trial on monday morning.
so julia spent twenty-four hours in prison. she could have summoned sleep at night had she been disposed, but nothing was farther from her thought. she was too infuriated to sleep and forget for a moment the gross injustice to which she had been subjected by the laws of a country supposed to be the most enlightened on the globe. she had mounted a box to make a peaceable—not an incendiary—speech, something men did whenever they listed, and with no fear of punishment. her denouncement of the liberal candidate and her plea for suffrage would have contained no offence against law and order; but she had been treated as if she had incited a riot, while the vile creatures that had insulted and threatened her were not even reprimanded.
in a mind naturally fair and just, nothing will cause rebellion so profound as an act of gross injustice. had julia, from a safe vantage point, seen mrs. lime or any other woman treated as she had been, her soul would have boiled with righteous wrath; but it takes the personal indignity to sink deep and bear results. julia in that long night and the day that followed, cold, half-fed, alone, in a vermin-ridden cell, forgot her ambitions, her artistic pleasure in playing a part well, and became as rampant a suffragette as any of the little band in park walk. she would war against these stupid brutes in power as long as they left breath in her, fight to give women the opportunity to do better. something was rotten when justice worked automatically without logic; and if men were too indifferent to effect a cure, it was time another sex took hold. no wonder these chosen women were indifferent to femininity, and gowns, and all that had given woman her superficial power in the past. what mortal happiness they missed mattered nothing. they were equipped for one purpose only, to avenge and protect the millions ignored by nature and fortune, and the victims of man-made laws; and if they were mauled, and torn, and despised, and killed, it was but the common fate of the advance guard, the martyrs in all great reforms; they were quite consistent in being as indifferent to sympathy as to the denunciations of the fools that saw in them but a new variety of the unwomanly woman.
and so julia received her baptism of fire.
