Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors and misprints have been corrected. Blank pages present in the printed original have been deleted in the e-text version. Text in Italics is indicated between _underscores_ whereas text in small capitals has been replaced by regular uppercase text. Chapter XVI appears to be missing in the printed original. In Chapter I, the sentence starting with "Many other women's societies..." has been retained as printed in the original. * * * * * THE SUFFRAGETTE [Illustration: Sylvia Pankhurst designing a part of the decorations of the Prince's Skating Rink] THE SUFFRAGETTE THE HISTORY OF THE WOMEN'S MILITANT SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT 1905-1910 BY E. SYLVIA PANKHURST "You have made of your Prisons a temple of honour." W. E. GLADSTONE New York STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY 1911 _All rights reserved_ Copyright 1911 BY STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1911 PREFACE BY MRS. PANKHURST This history of the Women's Suffrage agitation is written at a time when the question is in the very forefront of British politics. What the immediate future holds for those women who are most actively engaged in fighting for their political freedom no one can foretell, but one thing is certain: complete victory for their cause is not far distant. When the long struggle for the enfranchisement of women is over, those who read the history of the movement will wonder at the blindness that led the Government of the day to obstinately resist so simple and obvious a measure of justice. The men and women of the coming time will, I am persuaded, be filled with admiration for the patient work of the early pioneers and the heroic determination and persistence in spite of coercion, repression, misrepresentation, and insult of those who fought the later militant fight. Perhaps the women born in the happier days that are to come, while rejoicing in the inheritance that we of to-day are preparing for them, may sometimes wish that they could have lived in the heroic days of stress and struggle and have shared with us the joy of battle, the exaltation that comes of sacrifice of self for great objects and the prophetic vision that assures us of the certain triumph of this twentieth-century fight for human emancipation. E. PANKHURST. 4, Clement's Inn, W. C., _London_. JANUARY, 1911. PREFACE