Votes for Women in those days was regarded by the majority of sober, level-headed men as a ladies' fad which would never come to anything and the idea that it could ever be a question upon which governments would stand or fall, or be associated with persecution, rioting and imprisonment had been alike unthinkable to them. Therefore, for many reasons, this trial and imprisonment came as a tremendous shock to the general public of Manchester. Questions addressed to political speakers by men in the audience both during and at the close of the speeches were, as everyone knew, the invariable accompaniment of every public political meeting in this country. These questions were almost always replied to. When dissatisfied with the answer the interrogators frequently began a running commentary of disapproval, which sometimes terminated in their ejection, but not until they had become a source of general disturbance to the meeting. These facts were of course a matter of common knowledge, but the newspapers now ignored them and treated the questioning of Sir Edward Grey in the manner adopted by the two women in the Free Trade Hall as an absolutely new and entirely reprehensible departure. They were all agreed that such behaviour would inevitably injure the Women's Suffrage Cause of which, though they had hitherto boycotted it, most of them now implied that they were supporters. Extracts from two newspapers are enough to convey the attitude which in varying degrees of severity was adopted by them all. The _Evening Standard_: The Magistrates were lenient in inflicting a small fine.... If Miss Pankhurst desires to go to gaol rather than pay the money, let her go. Our only regret is that the discipline will be identical with that experienced by mature and sensible women, and not that which falls to the lot of children in the nursery. The Birmingham _Daily Mail_:-- If any argument were required against giving to ladies political status and power, it has been furnished in Manchester, and by two of the people who are most strenuously clamouring for the franchise.