“No,” was the quick reply; “we are going to put down public-houses and build nice _homes_.” After some more remarks of a like kind the old lady sat down, and one of the suffragettes, who had lately taken a change and rest at the expense of the Government, rose and edified the company by a series of remarks, which she apparently thought smart and clever, but which were only calculated to do harm to her cause. Promiscuous men and women speakers in the Park are generally cranks, who do no good to the cause they advocate. The women, however, who organised that gigantic meeting in 1907 marked an epoch not only in the position of the women of Great Britain, but of the whole world. A great demonstration, with its twenty or fifty thousand people, is an occasional event. When agitators are busy there may be two or three such in a year. But never a week passes without the free air of Hyde Park being disturbed by the strident cries of somebody or other, airing the grievances of himself or his class, while there is a set of publicists—well-known figures—to whom the opportunities to hear their own voices, afforded by the Park, seem to be their meat and drink and vegetables. Assuredly they would die in oblivion were the gates closed against them. You will find them at the same spots year in year out, proclaiming theology or agnosticism, socialism, and a dozen other “isms,” beating the air with their fists, exhausting their physical powers by gesticulating, and not infrequently shouting repartees at one another. They are loud but unobtrusive, and in these broad acres really disturb nobody. I recall a recent Sunday, just an ordinary day, no special gatherings of any kind, and a chill, grey afternoon towards the end of September, the leaves fluttering down from the trees, and the few people who had donned summer garments looking cold and blue, while occasionally a drizzling rain fell. At the Marble Arch end of Hyde Park groups of people had gathered at the railings of the semicircular gravel sweep. The first group encircled a short, stout old man, who was holding forth, Bible in hand. One of his hearers interrupted, and interrupted again. I could hear neither preacher nor questioner, but as I approached, the old man broke off his discourse: “Shut up! I say, shut up!” he shouted in a tone of command. The disturbing one in the audience persisted. “Shut up! again I say shut up! or I’ll silence you, as I did those men on the other side just now.” Then he continued his address in a wailing tone, while his troublesome listener still had his say. The next group were clustered round a little man in a somewhat clerical dress, holding up a written paper, perhaps eight inches square, with the word “£2000” in large figures at the top, and smaller writing underneath; but he was quite inaudible.