From the first we found Annie ready with excellent ideas for spreading our propaganda. In Lancashire every little town and village has its "Wakes Week." The "Wakes" being a sort of Fair, at which there are "merry-go-rounds," "cocoanut shies," and numberless booths and stalls where human and animal monstrosities are shown and all kinds of things are sold. In every separate town or village the "Wakes" is held at a different date, so that within a radius of a few miles one or other of these fairs is going on all through the summer and autumn. Annie told us that on the Sunday before the "Wakes" almost all the inhabitants of the place go down to the "Wakes-ground" and walk amongst the booths, and that Salvation Army and other preachers, temperance orators, the vendors of quack medicines and others seize this opportunity of addressing the crowds. She suggested that we should follow their example. We readily agreed, and all through that summer and autumn we held these meetings, going from Stalybridge to Royton, Mosely, Oldham, Lees where Annie lived, and to a dozen other towns. FOOTNOTES: [1] When the School Boards were abolished, Mrs. Pankhurst became the Trades Council Representative on the Education Committee. [2] In Booth's classic book, _Life and Labour in London_, the result of a canvass of the then 186,982 women occupiers, shows that of that number 94,940 were wage earners who were divided into the following categories:-- Charwomen, office-keepers, laundresses 30,334 Dressmakers and milliners 14,361 Shirt and blouse-makers, seamstresses 6,525 Waitresses, matrons, etc 5,595 Tailoresses 4,443 Lodging and coffee-house keepers 4,226 Medical women, nurses, midwives 3,971 Teachers 2,198 On the basis of Booth's figures, Miss Clara Collett, the Government's Senior Inspector for Women's Industries, writing in the _Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_ for September, 1908, estimated that the women occupiers of London might be divided as follows:-- Occupied women (who work out) 51 per cent. Housewives (without servants) 38 " Housewives (with one servant) 5 " Housewives (with two or more servants) 6 " [3] Even a first place is useless if the Government and the Speaker are hostile. CHAPTER II THE BEGINNING OF THE MILITANT TACTICS ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF CHRISTABEL PANKHURST AND ANNIE KENNEY. OCTOBER, 1905.