The food was brought for us by our friends from outside, who provided for us deliciously, and we had our meals all together in the wardresses’ room. Only Mrs. Brailsford never appeared, being shut in the inner room, but we sent her some of our food. On Sunday night, the wardress had brought us a little basin with some warm water to our cells, which was indeed a boon. That Sunday night the police were most kind, they allowed me to sit at a table outside my cell and write. My cell was much too dark for writing. To-night the place was more full of noise than it had been before. The wild yells, and blows on the doors, made my hand shake so that at first I could not write, but by holding the pencil, lent to me by the police, over the paper, it came sufficiently legibly at last. I wrote to my mother and my sister. I also wrote to the _Times_ the following letter, from the eleven[11] who were imprisoned:-- “SIR,--We ask you to give us our last opportunity, before we go through the ordeal awaiting us in Newcastle Prison, of explaining to the public the action which we are now about to take. “We want to make it known that we shall carry on our protest in our prison cells. We shall put before the Government by means of the hunger-strike four alternatives: To release us in a few days; to inflict violence upon our bodies; to add death to the champions of our cause by leaving us to starve; or, and this is the best and only wise alternative, to give women the vote. “We appeal to the Government to yield, not to the violence of our protest, but to the reasonableness of our demand, and to grant the vote to the duly qualified women of the country. We shall then serve our full sentence quietly and obediently and without complaint. Our protest is against the action of the Government in opposing Woman Suffrage, and against that alone. We have no quarrel with those who may be ordered to maltreat us. “Yours sincerely, “LILY ASQUITH. “JANE E. BRAILSFORD. “KATHLEEN BROWN. “VIOLET BRYANT. “ELLEN PITFIELD. “DOROTHY SHALLARD. “WINIFRED JONES. “CONSTANCE LYTTON. “KITTY MARION. “DOROTHY PETHICK. “ELLEN W. PITMAN. “CENTRAL POLICE STATION, “NEWCASTLE, “_October 10, 1909_.” FOOTNOTE: [11] I handed this letter to a friend on Monday morning. At the trial Miss Davison was dismissed, so her name was taken from the signatures. I wrote on the wall of my cell my name and the words which rung in my head over and over again, from the Book of Joshua: “Only be thou strong and very courageous.”