"MICE" AT PLAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 12 September 1913, Page 3

"MICE" AT PLAY.

MRS PANKHURST ESCAPES. Boldly defying the police authorities, Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Annie Kenney attended a meeting of the suffragettes at tlio London Pavilion on July 11th. Tho building was besieged by the plae". and whim Miss Kenney appeared at tho door at the conclusion of tho meeting ■she was arrested amid a scene of live wildest excitement. A desperate, straggle took place between the police and the suffragettes, in which blows were freely exchanged. Meanwhile Mrs Pankhurst had taker. advantage of the disturbance and made lier escape. ' It was Mrs Pankhurst's first public appearance since her arrest in March, and her arrival on the platform at the Pavilion was the .signal for a hurricane of cheers. Miss Konney said she had no intention whatever of serving her sentence, because it was not right that women suffragists should bo thrown into prison while Sir Edward Carson anil the rest of the Unionist leaders were allowed to he rebels, PRISON LICENSES SOLD FOR £l2. In conclusion she produced her licenses from Holloway and Maidstone. She didn't intend to tear them up, she said, but to make money out of them. "I am going to sell them," she said. "Tho Holloway one is in larger type, but the wording is the same in, both oases. Who will bid?" * A lady at once offered £1 for the Holloway one. Bidding went up by 10s to £2 10s, when somebody offered £5. A last bid of £6 secured trie license. The bidding for the Maidstone lioenso was equally brisk, and also terminated at £6. A few minutes later Mrs Pankhurst walked on to the stage, and, at. the close of her reception, said that it was i a little over three months since she was on that platform. She then referred to the Old Bailey trial and to her sentence of three years' . penal servitude—(Cries of, "Shame!)" "And,"' she added "in a little over three months I shall stand here again."—(Cheers.) "I come before you from la sick bed," she continued, "because I was determined to speak here, even if I were arrested and taken back to Holloway from the doctor of the Pavillion Mrs Pankhurst went on to say how pleased she was that the police raid on Lincoln's Inn House had not brbken up the movement which would not be crushed as long as there was a woman left to hold up the flag of revolt. Shej would rather be a rebel than a slave. She concluded: ''They will have "to give votes to women or kill the women. I mean to be a voter in the land that gave me my birth, and my challenge to the Government is 'Kill me or give me freedom. I shall force you to make that choice.' " (Cheeks.) Mrs Mansell Moullin, one of the speakers, said it was not often that she "burst into poetry, but she had thought out a poem which was as follows : ' That great torn fool whose name is McKenna, Who becomes a torn cat when in a dilemma. Scotland Yard having learned that Mrs Pankhurst and Mies Kenney were in the hall, the building was immediately surrounded. Officers in uniform and in plain clothes guarded the doors, and several Scotland Yard men were posted inside the doorways. Special watch was kept at the-stage door in Great Windmill Street but it would seem that the police, for all their care, were outwitted. Defectives made a sudden rush for the main entrance in Piccadilly Circus, whither they were followed by crowds so large that the,, thoroughfare was rendered impassable, MISS KENNEY'S ARREST. Miss Kenney was seen to emerge, and was instantly surrounded by a cordon of constables and plain clothes men who sought to place her in a waiting taxi-cab. Losing all sense of sestraint, the suffragettes smashed the officers awoss the head with umbrellas, and even pummelled the officers' faces with their fists. , For nearly two minutes a fierce fight raged. Coats, dresses and hats were ripped and torn, umbrellas and sticks were smashed, and'both police end women, who were aided by a few men, sustained a rough handling. A man who hit »ah officer in,the mouth was felled to • the ground, and women who fought with ferocity got as good as they gave. Miss Kenney was-bundled unceremoniously into /the'; taxi., cab, which immediately drove away, no attempt being made to stop at. The report spread shortly afterwards that Mrs Pankhurst had also been arrested. She was generally supposed to be still inside the pavilion, but when inquiry came to be made it was found that she had disappeared. It was stated that cluring the struggle she slipped out by a Bide'door, and after walking unobserved across Piccadilly Circus and made her escape in I a cab. In the course of the disturbance several persons were arrested and taken to Vine Street station.