SENTENCED

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1780, 19 June 1913, Page 5

SENTENCED

THE SUFFRAGETTE LEADERS.

CONSPIRACY "ERIAL. JUDGE'S DIGNIFIED CENSURE. By Megriph—Prosa Aswclation-CojyrfrM London, Juno 17. All tho Suffragettes who were arrested in tho raid on the headquarters of the Women's Social and Political Union in Kingsway have been sentenced at Old Bailey to terms of imprisonment in the third division.

■ Miss Agnes Lake 'and Miss. Laura Lenox were sentenced to six months' imprisonment; Miss Rachel Barrett to nine; Miss Harriett Kerr to twelve; Mrs. Beatrice Sanders to fifteeai; Miss Ketnnody to eighteen; and Miy Clayton to twenty-one months. Each prisoner; was ordered to pay oneseventh of the costs of the prosecution. (Rec. Juno 19, 0.40 a.m.) London, June 18. Mrs. Annie Kenney, one of seven Suffragette leaders who were arrested on charges of conspiracy, in an address to the jury, referred to the Ulster question and the discovery of rifles. She added: "Had women said 'rifles for womenwomen will fight with rifles,' the Government would have been justified in prosecuting." She would rebel until she got the vote; Tebel against the abominable system—economic, industrial, and political—under which tho women lived. If, like Miss Davison, she must die to get the vote, 6he would do 60, whatever the jury's verdict. Tho Solicitor-General replied that the defendants were prosecuted not for their opinions, but for flagrant breaches of the criminal law in pursuit of objects perfectly legitimate in themselves. Mr. Justioe Phillimore, in summing up, said that this was one of the saddest trials in his experience. It had been urged that great causes had never been won without breaking the law. That was possibly truo in 'Somo cases, but very untrue in others. If every recorded aot of anarchy, were used to justify further act 3 of anarchy, tho human race would 600n reach a position of absolute savagery. The case had been treated as a caso of one sex against the other. He imagined that tho jury would find it not to be a case of women- against men, hut of some women against all other women, children and some men. Tho jury was fifty-seven minutes absent. • Mr. Justice Phillimore, in passing sentence, said ho believed that some of the Suffragists were actuated partly by ambition, pride, and love of power, while otSers of them, young people, were inspired chiefly from a spirit of mischief. Others, again, pursued it as a matter of pay. Many cherished a sincere belief that they were forwarding a good object. VANDALISM IN A LIBRARY. London, June 17. Three hundred valuable books in St. John's College library, Cambridge, have been slashed with a knife. A oard was found inscribed "Votes for Women." CHERCHEZ LA FEMME? BOMB EXPLODES IN THE THAMES. London, Juno 17. A bomb thrown from Blackfria'rs Bridge exploded on striking tho water, and shook tho neighbouring railway bridge, causing great alarm. There is no due to the perpetrators of the outrage. MRS. PANKHURST'S CONDITION CRITICAL. (Reo. June 18, 11.55 p.m.) London, June 18. Mrs. Pankhurst's condition is critical.