No sooner had the second Women's Parliament been concluded than Mrs. Pankhurst had hurried off by the night train to take command of the Suffragette forces against the Government at a by-election at Hexham in Northumberland, where the Liberal majority was reduced by more than a thousand votes. This election was scarcely over when it was followed, with scarcely a week's intermission, by no fewer than seven others, at six of which the Suffragettes were to the fore. From Hexham our militant army was transferred to Stepney and then to Rutland, the smallest English County. Writing at the beginning of the Rutland contest, the _Daily News_ correspondent said: "Each of the three parties (the third being the Women's Social and Political Union) opened its campaign with meetings in the Rutland Division to-night." Thus recognised from the start as one of the three forces to be reckoned with in the Election, the W. S. P. U. kept its important position right through until the end. In every hamlet and village the women speakers were cordially received and their speeches were listened to with earnest attention and respect. After the meetings, men and women clustered round to ask questions and tell how, before the passing of the 1884 Reform Act which had enfranchised the agricultural labourers, in the days when voters were scarce, widows and daughters whose fathers were dead, had been frequently turned out of their farms, not because they could not pay the rent, but because they could not vote. Even to-day the people said that a woman tenant was sometimes looked upon with disfavour on that account. Though the wages of the agricultural labourers in this district were exceedingly low, there was hardly a single member of the audience who did not buy at least one badge or penny pamphlet, whilst the free leaflets were eagerly seized upon, and labourers would come hurrying across the fields to the roadside in order to secure them. As the days went by the journeyings of the Suffragettes from meeting place to meeting place throughout the constituency became a sort of triumphal progress. We were cheerily hailed from afar by distant workers amongst the crops and by drivers of passing carts. Men, women and children ran to the cottage doors to see us pass, and everywhere we were greeted with smiles and kindly words. Only in the towns, at Oakham, the capital, and at Uppingham, did we meet with any opposition, but here most of the working men were deeply anxious that the Liberal should be returned. Rightly or wrongly they believed in the Liberal Party, believed it to be the party of progress and the one that would stand by the poor man. Nevertheless the majority listened courteously to our arguments, and admitting at last that our policy was logical and right for us, although inconvenient to them. Many of the staunchest Liberals were even won over to go all the way with us and to help us to "keep the Liberal out."