Tsar"; another interrupter had chained herself to her stall; and others in the galleries showered suffragist literature on the audience. Next day Mr. Lavery's portrait of the King in the Royal Scottish Academy was damaged, and an attempt was made to cut off the aqueduct supplying Glasgow with water from Loch Katrine; but the criminals in this last case escaped. Finally, windows were broken at Buckingham Palace on May 27. The two Felixstowe incendiaries were sentenced at the Suffolk Assizes (May 29) respectively to nine months and two years' imprisonment, but the "Cat and Mouse Act" afforded them a certain, though painful, escape. A more efficient method of suppression was foreshadowed by the raiding of a flat on May 21 at Maida Vale, where several women and a man were arrested, and stones, hammers, and choppers were seized. Two days later, the offices of the Women's Social and Political Union in Kingsway were raided also, and the secretary was charged with conspiring with the inmates of the Maida Vale flat. The accused persons, following the example of the Felixstowe criminals, behaved outrageously in court, and their conduct and, indeed, the whole of the outrages, probably gave a severe set-back to the suffragist cause. The Labour outlook, too, continued alarming. The railway servants' leaders decided on May 16 to demand the recognition by the companies of their trade union, a forty-eight hours' week, and an increase of wages in all grades by 5_s._ weekly; and in the building trade, the ballot taken upon an offer of compromise by the employers, which the men were advised by their leaders to accept, resulted, on the contrary, in its rejection by 21,017 votes to 5,705. The struggle was causing extreme suffering, and was kept up with a determination ominous of its long continuance. And behind all these signs of multifarious social unrest loomed the spectre of civil war. CHAPTER IV. THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE AND ITS CLOSE.