The question of these trials was raised in the House of Commons by Mr. Keir Hardie, who declared that it was stretching the law too far to forbid a deputation to approach a private house. He also pointed out that Mr. James Kendall, one of the magistrates who had tried the case of the Manchester Suffragettes, and had been Chief Steward at the Liberal meeting from which they had been ejected, Mr. Cremer and Mr. Maddison both delivered vindictive speeches against the Suffragettes, the former describing the sentence passed upon them as "extremely lenient" and the latter referring to them as "female hooligans." The more sensational and less reputable of the newspapers adopted a similar line speaking of the women as "Kenney," "Knight" and "Sparborough," calling them "mock martyrs" and "martyrettes" and publishing hideous and libellous drawings of them. Even the staider and more serious periodicals gave one-sided and biassed accounts of what had taken place, rebuking the Suffragettes for what they termed their "disgraceful behaviour," telling them that they were "ruining" their cause, and urging them to save it by returning to "Constitutional" and "orderly" methods of propaganda. The following interesting and valuable letter to the press from Mr. T. D. Benson, the Treasurer of the Independent Labour Party cleverly exposed the hypocrisy of these strictures:-- _Dear Sir_: Having had, through illness, plenty of time on my hands this last week, I have made a calculation of the number of years which the lady Suffragettes have put back their movement. I find that it amounts to somewhat about 235 years. The realisation therefore, of their aims is, according to this mode of chronology, as far off in the future as the Plague and the Fire of London are in the past. Nevertheless, I shall not be surprised if they succeed within the next twelve months, or two or three years at the most.