The Suffragette cases came on next morning before Mr. Horace Smith at the Westminster Police Court, Mr. Muskett, who prosecuted on behalf of the police, then announced that on this occasion the authorities had decided as before to prosecute under the Prevention of Crimes Amendment Act of 1885, which enabled the Magistrate to inflict a fine of £5 or, in default, to order imprisonment with or without hard labour for two months. Throwing down a remarkable challenge to the women, he added that there were greater and stronger powers in reserve which could be enforced to put down disorder, for there was still upon the Statute Book an Act passed in the reign of Charles II which dealt with "Tumultuous Petitions either to the Crown or Parliament." He recalled the fact that it had been stated by the judge at the time of the Lord George Gordon riots that that Act was still good law, and, he said, that the dictum still applied. The Act of Charles II provided that No person whatever shall repair to His Majesty or both or either of the Houses of Parliament upon pretence of presenting or delivering any petition, complaint, remonstrance or declaration or other address accompanied with an excessive number of people, nor at any one time with above the number of twelve persons. Penalties might be enforced under this Act up to a fine of £100 or three months' imprisonment. In holding forth this threat to women who might demonstrate in the future, Mr. Muskett again appealed to the Magistrate to deal with those who were now charged with all the rigour which he would apply to ordinary law-breakers. The prisoners were then one by one brought in. Georgina Brackenbury, tall, fair, and well featured, was the first to be put into the dock. The Magistrate affected to take scant interest in the case, and in spite of her own splendid courtesy of manner, addressed her with pettish rudeness, and finally interrupted her statement with "That is all nonsense." The whole of the proceedings were conducted in the same spirit. But two women out of the fifty had been imprisoned before, and these two, Mrs. Rigby, the wife of a doctor in Preston, and Mrs. Titterington, as "old offenders," were ordered either to pay fines of £5 or to suffer one month's imprisonment in the third and lowest class. The other forty-seven women were ordered to be bound over in two sureties of £20 to keep the peace for twelve months or to serve six weeks' imprisonment in the second Division. With the exception of two, whose absence from home was found to be impossible owing to the serious illness of relatives, all the women chose imprisonment. All these things were of course largely discussed in the Press. The furniture van incident attracted the greatest attention, and the van itself was likened by almost every newspaper to the wooden horse of Troy. The _Daily Chronicle_ said: