The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910Pankhurst, E. Sylvia (Estelle Sylvia)
History
The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910
Pankhurst, E. Sylvia (Estelle Sylvia)
Women -- Suffrage -- Great Britain
Miss Garnett now unpinned the portcullis brooch which since April of
that year had been presented as a badge of honour to every member of
the W. S. P. U. who had suffered imprisonment for the cause, and which,
like a genuine portcullis, had five sharp little tooth-like projections
at its base.
"Here is the brooch," she said, handing it to the magistrate, "you
can look at it for yourself. I have only this to add that if, in spite
of the true facts which I have narrated to you, you send me to prison
on account of the charges which have been made against me, I shall go
there prepared to carry out afresh my protest against the treatment in
prison."
Mr. Fordham said that evidently there had been a great struggle and
that at such times it was difficult to say exactly what had taken
place. He believed that the wound had been caused accidentally, though
he thought it was more likely that the wardress's hand had been struck
against Miss Garnett's teeth than that the wound had been caused by
the brooch. He therefore dismissed the case, but though Miss Garnett
had been acquitted of this charge Mr. Gladstone never retracted the
statements which he had made in Parliament as to the Suffragette
prisoners having bitten the wardresses.
As soon as this first case against Miss Garnett had been disposed of, a
second charge of striking one of the wardresses was preferred against
her. She then said:
On the day following that on which the visiting magistrates came to
Holloway, the wardress entered my cell and ordered me to get up off
the bed. I did not do so and she seized hold of the bedding and rolled
me on to the floor, injuring my knee. I then said to her, "Is this
what you do?" and she said, "It is." I said to her, "In a civilised
country?" and she said, "You are a set of uncivilised women." I then
asked her to leave the cell and she refused to do so, whereon I pushed
her without using any unnecessary violence out of the cell. Later in
the day she was exceedingly insolent to me in her behaviour and she
further reported me to the Governor and I was moved into a more severe
punishment cell. I informed the Governor of the manner in which she
had treated me and from that time onwards her behaviour was marked by
ordinary courtesy.
Mr. Fordham then sentenced Miss Garnett to a month's imprisonment in
the third division.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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