On March 4, Judge Van Orsdel handed down the opinion, which was concurred in by the other two judges of the court, that in the case of those pickets who appealed, no information had been filed justifying their arrest and sentence. Since the offense of every other picket who was arrested was identical with that of these twelve who appealed their case, they were all illegally arrested, illegally convicted and illegally imprisoned. The Appellate Court thus reversed the decision of the District Police Court. In addition, it ordered the cases dismissed. All of the costs involved in the cases, it was decided, should be paid by the Court of the District of Columbia, for which an appropriation would have to be made by Congressional enactment. Later, the case of Mrs. Harvey Wiley came up. It will be remembered that Mrs. Wiley was one of the forty-three women who picketed the President on November in the last picket line demonstration. She was sentenced to serve fifteen days in the District Jail. Dr. Wiley, her husband, appealed her case. Early in April the Court decided that there was no information filed justifying her arrest. So that she also was illegally arrested, illegally convicted, and illegally imprisoned. Yet in spite of the brutalities to which the Courts sentenced the pickets, unconsciously they furthered the Suffrage cause. The women turned the Court sessions into Suffrage meetings. In defending their case at one of the early trials, the pickets, each taking up the story where the other left it, told the entire history of the Suffrage movement. Crowds thronged the Court. People attended these trials who had never been to a Suffrage meeting in their lives. 5. _The Strange Ladies_ THE EMPTY CUP Evening at Occoquan. Rain pelts the workhouse roof. The prison matrons are sewing together for the Red Cross. The women prisoners are going to bed in two long rows. Some of the Suffrage pickets lie reading in the dim light. Through the dark, above the rain, rings out a cry. We listen at the windows. (Oh, those cries from punishment cells!) A voice calls one of us by name. “Miss Burns! Miss Burns! Will you see that I have a drink of water?” Lucy Burns arises; slips on the coarse blue prison gown. Over it her swinging hair, red-gold, throws a regal mantle. She begs the night-watch to give the girl water. One of the matrons leaves her war-bandages; we see her hasten to the cell. The light in it goes out. The voice despairing cries: “She has taken away the cup and she will not bring me water.” Rain pours on the roof. The Suffragists lie awake. The matrons work busily for the Red Cross. KATHERINE ROLSTON FISHER, _The Suffragist_, October 17, 1917. WOMAN’S PARTY SONG _Composed in Prison by the Suffrage Pickets_ SHOUT THE REVOLUTION OF WOMEN