Meanwhile very great interest had been aroused in the attempt of the Suffragettes to force the Prime Minister to receive them by Constitutional means. There was keen discussion as to what would happen and, when the fateful Tuesday came, vast throngs of people, greater perhaps than at any other demonstration, lined the streets in the neighbourhood of Parliament. In the House of Commons itself there was a strong feeling that the deputation should be received and this was expressed at question time by many Members. Mr. Keir Hardie asked the Speaker whether it was by his instructions that a deputation of eight or nine ladies was to be prohibited from entering the House, but Mr. Speaker replied that this was the first he had heard of it and that he had issued no instructions. When the same question was put to the Home Secretary he also answered, "I gave no instructions," and declared that it was the police who had the responsibility of keeping the approaches of the House open. Mr. Hugh Law asked leave to move the adjournment of the House on a matter of urgent public importance, namely, the refusal of the Prime Minister to receive the deputation and the consequent grave and immediate danger to the public peace, but the Speaker refused, saying that the question had been before the House for at least two years. Mr. Keir Hardie then asked if the Home Secretary would give instructions that so long as the deputation was orderly it should be admitted to St. Stephen's but Mr. Gladstone refused to accept responsibility, saying, "I cannot say what action will be right or wrong for the police to take." [Illustration: Christabel waving to the hunger strikers from a house overlooking the prison, July, 1909] At half past seven the Women's Parliament met and a Petition to the Prime Minister having been adopted Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Saul Solomon of South Africa, Miss Neligan who from 1874 to 1901 had been head mistress of the Croydon Girls' School and was now 76, and five other women were duly appointed to present it straightway. Then Miss Vera Holme was dispatched on horseback with an advance letter announcing that the deputation was about to appear. With all possible speed she rode on, forging her way through the masses of people, until, close to the House itself, she was met by a body of mounted police, who demanded her business. She handed the letter for Mr. Asquith to the Inspector but he merely flung it on the ground where it was lost to sight amongst the crowd.[35]