SUFFRAGIST RAID

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10574, 4 March 1912, Page 5

SUFFRAGIST RAID

EXCITING SCENES PREMIER'S HOUSE ATTACKED. NUMEROUS ARRESTS. (ReceivecTTast night, 5.5 o'clock.) LONDON, March 2. A Suffragist raid occurred quite- unexpectedly wheni hundreds sallied outcarrying large muffs, which concealed hammers. At a preconcerted signal they smashed hundreds of windows from the Strand to Bond Street. A hundred and twenty-one arrests were made, including Mrs Pankhurst, who broke the windows in tho Prime Ministers's house. After smashing the windows, Mrs Pankhurst wrenched her arm free from a constable who was holding her and broke the Homo Office window. Meanwhile other women broke the Colonial Office windows, and various parties made a rapid descent upon private premises and large stores at different points. They wrecked windows, including those of Mesrs Stewart Dawson, the Canadian. Pacific Company, Civil Servico Stores, Messrs Duveen Brothers, Liberty Hall, and leading drapers, furniture warehouses in Oxford Street, and the Post Offices in Regent Street. From Charing Cross railway station women arrived in fashionable vehicles, and entered shops ostensibly to purchase, and suddenly smashed the windows of rows of shops in Bond Street.

Carpenters were employed throughout the night 'barricading the broken fronts.

It is estimated that £4OOO damage hao been caused.

Miss Christaibell Pankhurst stated that as miners were getting legislation, because they made themselves a nuisance, women were incited to act similarly.