THE SUFFRAGETTES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9637, 1 November 1909, Page 5

THE SUFFRAGETTES.

STRONGER MEASURES THREATENED.

THE DKENCHING INCIDENT.

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright.

LONDON, October 29

The Women's Freedom League has withdrawn the pickets from the House of Commons, and has written to Mr Asquith stating that the time has arrived to take stronger methods. Tha Home Secretary, Mr Glad' stone, has ordered the release of Mrs Strangways, who was drenched with water in Manchester Gaol for having barricaded her cell. The Visiting Committee authorised the use of the hose.

Mr Keir Hardie has demanded in the House of Commons that the committee shall be suspended.

Sir Henry Lucy, the well-known journalist, believes that the suffragette is a very dangerous woman. Writing on September 10th, he says: --"The attack last Sunday upon the Premier and the Home Secretary revives and strengthens an apprehension that has long weighed upon the police authorities. The women who figure in the episode come nearer to the type of the class prominent at the time of the Commune in Paris than anything yet seen in Downing Street, in Parliament Square, or at public meetings throughout the country. Women who follow hardworking statesmen to their week-end retreats, publicly buffet them, and after dark break their dining-room windows with stones, are not likely to draw the line at these diversions. What Scotland Yard dreads is the appearance on the scene of one inspired with the spirit and personal ambition of Sir Cui*zon Wyllie's asnassin, ready, ever eager, to win the crown of martyrdom in what she believes to be a good cause. There is a particular form of outrage only too common with desperate women against which innocent people passing on their way along the streets are helpless. Since the events of Sun day precautions have been re-doubLd. But the situation is regarded with grave uneasiness."