It was at this juncture that, for the first time, some of the students began to make themselves unpleasant, “shutting doors in our faces, ostentatiously crowding into the seats we usually occupied, bursting into horse laughs and howls when we approached,—as if a conspiracy had been formed to make our position as uncomfortable as might be.” A students’ petition against the admission of women to the Infirmary was handed about, and 500 students signed it. So the majority gained their point, and the party in power won an easy victory. “Follow it up,” said someone. “Don’t stop there. While you are at it, why not get rid of the women altogether?”[69] Footnote 69: This is a neutral and harmless paraphrase of the arguments some of the professors actually used in talking to the students, but one does not want to perpetuate the memory of words used in an angry conflict. It was not a surprising suggestion; the presence of the women was making some people very uncomfortable; but those who made the suggestion must have had a pretty good idea of how the students would proceed to carry it out, and what class of student would take the lead. For a day or two a feeble and cowardly effort was made to obstruct the entrance of women into the class-room, but S. J.-B., followed by her companions, simply failed to see the students who half-heartedly stood in her way, and walked through them. And then came about the “riot at Surgeons’ Hall”, of which so much has since been said, and of which Charles Reade made picturesque use in his novel, _The Woman Hater_. In order to get a plain, unvarnished account of what took place, we cannot do better than quote the _Courant_[70] (the only Edinburgh morning paper which was unfavourable to the women) and the very brief record in S. J.-B.’s diary: