WALTON GAOL, LIVERPOOL: MY THIRD IMPRISONMENT
Elsie Howey and I waited together at the Bridewell Police Station for
the greater part of that day (Saturday, January 15). Towards evening
they took us away in a partition van, alone, to Walton Green Gaol, we
arrived at about 7 o’clock at night. The other prisoners must have
journeyed here when we did, though by a different van, for we were
all together again when we were to give our names, vocation, etc., to
the prison warders. We stood up by a wall, all in a row, and waited
our turn. The prisoner with the white boa and the apparently white
gown, I was able to see closely and by a high light. The boa was in
imitation fur and extremely dirty, the white dress was of some thin
cotton, nearly transparent; it was open on her chest and she seemed
to have hardly any clothes underneath. I did not like to think what
she must have suffered this wintry day, in and out of the icy cold
police station cells. The effect of the drink was wearing off, and she
waved her head about as though she had a very bad headache; all her
cheerfulness had gone. Poor little thing, I felt extremely sorry for
her, she had been given plenty of the best brandy and she had done
what was wanted of her; the next day she found herself in prison. When
her imprisonment was over, in all probability, to go the same road of
drunkenness and prostitution would seem the only one open to her.
There were several other prisoners besides those we had seen before.
Some were so familiar with the place that they reeled off their age,
religion, birthplace, calling, without waiting to be asked, and then
walked through into a large hall in which were the waiting cubicles.
Suddenly I felt awed, a feeling of supremest pity almost took my breath
away. Passing in front of me into the larger hall was a woman of great
beauty, her features were intensely refined, and in every part of her
there seemed to be some great determination, not in respect of the
prison she was in now, that was only part of it, but with regard to
her life of shame that went before; the whole face and figure were
virtuous and good. The other woman who had come over from Ireland was
not there, but this was the one, I felt quite sure, who was “wanted by
the police.” I had not heard her tell anything to the officer, I had
not seen her till that moment, and I never saw her again, but I shall
never forget her face which will rest always on my memory, beautiful,
commanding, and of an absorbing sadness.
It was our turn at last. We gave the required details, and then Elsie
Howey said that we should refuse all food and all the prison rules. “We
are sorry if it will give trouble; we shall give as little as possible;
but our fast is against the Government, and we shall fight them with
our lives, not hurting anyone else.” The wardress gave no answer, but
with a wave of her hand showed us towards the cubicles. Before we went
in there we were separated; we had to part, and I never saw Elsie
again till long after I came out. A wardress came and showed me to
a room with two other officers, the place where I was to undress. I
said that I did not bow to the imprisonment and so would not undress
myself, whereupon a wardress began to pull my things off, but I showed
them this was not from disagreeableness but only through the prison
strike. On taking out of my pocket a clean handkerchief I noticed that
it had the initials “C. L.” still upon it, and when next there came a
reel of cotton with the name “Lytton” written quite distinctly round
the top, I felt overwhelmed with horror. Scarcely knowing what I was
about, I seized them both in my hand and put them on the fire which
burnt in a stove near where I was standing. The next moment I thought I
had done wrong and that the attention of the officers would inevitably
be called to my action, but they seemed not to have noticed and never
said anything, so I thanked my stars that I was safe. The look of Jane
Warton was still comic in the extreme, the two wardresses laughed as
they undressed her. Her glasses were the subject of excessive care and
she was allowed to keep them with her. I would most gladly have given
them up, for they hurt the bridge of my nose which was far too wide for
them, but it was good, of course, to help the disguise for some while
longer. I had my bath, and was put into a 3rd Division dress of coarse,
brown serge, and my cap and apron were tied on. I was put before a
large basket of worn boots, not in pairs, and told to pick out two
for myself. I chose the largest I saw, but they were not nearly big
enough, and it was only after a tremendous effort that I got my feet
into them. I was then taken to the large hall and put into a cubicle.
These were like cupboards, without ceiling, giving on to the hall for
light and air, so that they had not the stuffiness of the cells. By
this time I was dropping with fatigue, the seat seemed there for me to
sleep on, and being alone was immensely restful. But the sounds of the
other prisoners made it too painful for rest; one of them sobbed all
the time, and soon I saw we were here only to be inspected. The door
opened and a wardress put in a pair of sheets for me to take to the
cell. Then the Matron came, a capable-looking woman, but severe. She
spoke to me of the hunger-strike, and of how very wrong it was. I said
that of course without an object it was very wrong, but the Government
had been petitioned in every other way, we thought they would not like
hunger-strikes for ever, that now there were still comparatively few,
but later there would, if necessary, be many more; that feeding by
force was horrible, besides it did not meet the difficulty of keeping
the women in prison. When one saw what the wrongs of women were to
redress, it seemed a little thing that some women should die for the
sake of the others. She did not stay to prolong the discussion.
The next to come was a young doctor accompanied by a female officer. He
called me out, and the ordinary questions were put to me. I said that I
was free from any infectious disease, but that I could not answer any
other questions. He seemed to have expected me to say this, and told
the officer to put it down in the book she carried with her. I had
decided, as on the occasion of my previous hunger-strike, to refuse
to answer medical questions, but not to resist medical inspection.
However, to my great relief, it was not attempted. This was the same at
Newcastle, so seemed to me nothing extraordinary.
At last the longed-for moment had arrived, and I was taken off to my
cell. To my joy there was a window which opened a little bit; at night
it was lit by a gas jet that was set in the depth of the wall behind
the door, the passage side, and covered in by a thick glass. I was ever
so tired--I laid down and slept.
The next day was Sunday (January 16), but they did not ask us to go to
chapel. For several days I did not wear my cap and apron in my cell,
but did not in other ways continue my protest against the clothes. The
cold seemed to me intense, and I wore the skirt of my dress fastened
round my neck for warmth. The Governor, accompanied by the Matron, came
to see me, but he was in a temper about our having broken his windows,
so I said nothing. He was in a fury at the way I had fastened my skirt.
I answered that it was for warmth and that I would gladly put on more
clothes and warmer ones if he gave them to me. Later on the Senior
Medical Officer came in. He was a short, fat, little man, with a long
waxed moustache. I should have said he disliked being unkind; he liked
to chaff over things; but as I looked at him I thought I would rather
be forcibly fed by anyone in the world than by him, the coarse doctors
at Newcastle and the cross little doctor I had seen the night before. I
said I had not asked to see him, but he made no examination and asked
no questions.
I lay in my bed most of the day, for they did not disturb me, and I
tried to keep warm, as I felt the cold fearfully. They brought me all
my meals the same as usual, porridge in the morning at 7, meat and
potatoes mid-day at 12, porridge at 4.30. When they were hot I fed on
the smell of them, which seemed quite delicious; I said “I don’t want
any, thank you,” to each meal, as they brought it in. I had made up my
mind that this time I would not drink any water, and would only rinse
out my mouth morning and evening without swallowing any. I wrote on
the walls of my cell with my slate pencil and soap mixed with the dirt
of the floor for ink, “Votes for Women,” and the saying from Thoreau’s
_Duty of Civil Disobedience_--“Under a Government which imprisons any
unjustly, the true place for a just man (or woman) is also a prison”;
on the wall opposite my bed I wrote the text from Joshua, “Only be thou
strong and very courageous.” That night I dreamt of fruits, melons,
peaches and nectarines, and of a moonlit balcony that was hung with
sweetest smelling flowers, honeysuckle and jessamine, apple-blossom
and sweet scented verbena; there was only the sound of night birds
throbbing over the hills that ranged themselves below the balcony. On
it there slept my sister-in-law, and on the balustrade, but making no
noise, was a figure awake and alert, which was my brother. My dream
was of a land which was seen by my father in his poem of “King Poppy,”
where the princess and the shepherd boy are the types etherealised.
I woke suddenly. I could sleep a little in detached moments, but this
dream had made the prison cell beautiful to me; it had a way out.
The strain was great of having to put on my shoes, which were too
small, every time I was taken out of my cell to empty slops or to see
the Governor. The Matron was shocked that I did not put the right heel
in at all and every day I was given another pair, but they were all
alike in being too small for my right foot.
The next day, Monday (January 17), the wardress took my bed and bedding
away because I would not make it up, but lay on it in the day-time. I
told her if she wished she must roll me off, but that I did not intend
voluntarily to give it up. She was quite amiable, but rolled me towards
the wall and took the bed and bedding from underneath me. There was a
little table in my cell which was not fastened to the wall. I turned
it upside down and was able to sit in it with my body resting against
one of the legs. It was very uncomfortable, but I felt too ill to sit
up in the chair, and the concrete floor was much too cold without the
bed. Every now and then I got up and walked backwards and forwards in
the cell to get a little warmth into me. The Chaplain came in for a
moment. He was a tall, good-looking man, of the burly, healthy sort.
It seemed to me, from his talk, that he would be very well suited to
be a cricket match or football parson, if there were such a thing, but
he was totally unsuited to be the Chaplain of a prison, or anyhow of a
woman’s prison. He thought it wise to speak to me as a “Suffragette.”
“Look here, it’s no good your thinking that there’s anything to be
done with the women here--the men sometimes are not such bad fellows,
and there are many who write to me after they’ve left here, but the
women, they’re all as bad as bad can be, there’s absolutely no good in
them.” I did not answer, but I felt inclined to say “Then good-bye to
you, since you say you can do no good with the women here.”
Presently an officer came and led me out. The manner of nearly all the
officers was severe; one or two were friends but most of them treated
me like dirt. I was shown along the gangway of the ward, which seemed
to me very large, much larger than the D X at Holloway, and went in
various directions like a star. I was shown into the Governor’s room,
which lay at the end of the gangway. It was warm, there were hot pipes
against which I was made to stand with my back to the wall, and for a
moment, as I put my feet to rest on the pipes, I could think of nothing
else but the delight of their heat. The Governor was very cross. I had
decided not to do the needlework which constituted the hard labour,
for this he gave me three days on bread and water. He would not let
me speak to him at all and I was led out, but, before I had got to my
cell, I was called back into his presence. “I hear you are refusing to
take your food, so it’s three days in a special cell.” I was taken out
and down a staircase till we reached the ground floor. I think my cell
was two stories above, but I am not sure; then down again and into a
short passage that looked as if it was underground, with a window at
the top seemingly only just level with the ground. The door of a cell
was opened, I was put inside and the door locked. It was larger than
the cell upstairs, and the jug, basin, etc., were all made of black
guttapercha, not of tin, placed on the floor. This would have been bad
for the ordinary prisoner; as it was quite impossible to tell whether
the eating things were clean or not and, in any case, it smelt fairly
strong of guttapercha; but as the rule for me was neither to eat nor
drink, I was able to put up with it well. The bed was wider than an
ordinary plank bed and nailed to the ground, so that I was able to lie
on it without being disturbed. Best of all was the fact that it was
nearer to the heating apparatus and so seemed quite warm when I was led
in. I did not notice at first that the window did not open, but when
I had been there six or seven hours it became wonderfully airless. I
only left my cell for minutes at a time, when I was allowed to draw
water, and the air of the corridor then seemed fresh as mountain air by
comparison. I had an idea that Elsie Howey or some of the others would
have been put into a punishment cell too. I called, but in vain, my
voice had grown weak and my tongue and throat felt thick as a carpet,
probably from not drinking anything. I tried signalling with raps on
the wall, “No surrender--no surrender,” Mrs. Leigh’s favourite motto,
but I was never sure of corresponding raps, though sometimes I thought
I heard them. I could not sleep for more than about an hour at a time,
my legs drew up into a cramped position whenever I went off and the
choking thickness in my mouth woke me.
Tuesday, January 18, I was visited again by the Senior Medical
Officer, who asked me how long I had been without food. I said I had
eaten a buttered scone and a banana sent in by friends to the police
station on Friday at about midnight. He said, “Oh, then, this is the
fourth day; that is too long, I shall have to feed you, I must feed you
at once,” but he went out and nothing happened till about 6 o’clock
in the evening, when he returned with, I think, five wardresses and
the feeding apparatus. He urged me to take food voluntarily. I told
him that was absolutely out of the question, that when our legislators
ceased to resist enfranchising women then I should cease to resist
taking food in prison. He did not examine my heart nor feel my pulse;
he did not ask to do so, nor did I say anything which could possibly
induce him to think I would refuse to be examined. I offered no
resistance to being placed in position, but lay down voluntarily on the
plank bed. Two of the wardresses took hold of my arms, one held my head
and one my feet. One wardress helped to pour the food. The doctor leant
on my knees as he stooped over my chest to get at my mouth. I shut
my mouth and clenched my teeth. I had looked forward to this moment
with so much anxiety lest my identity should be discovered beforehand,
that I felt positively glad when the time had come. The sense of being
overpowered by more force than I could possibly resist was complete,
but I resisted nothing except with my mouth. The doctor offered me the
choice of a wooden or steel gag; he explained elaborately, as he did
on most subsequent occasions, that the steel gag would hurt and the
wooden one not, and he urged me not to force him to use the steel
gag. But I did not speak nor open my mouth, so that after playing
about for a moment or two with the wooden one he finally had recourse
to the steel. He seemed annoyed at my resistance and he broke into a
temper as he plied my teeth with the steel implement. He found that on
either side at the back I had false teeth mounted on a bridge which
did not take out. The superintending wardress asked if I had any false
teeth, if so, that they must be taken out; I made no answer and the
process went on. He dug his instrument down on to the sham tooth, it
pressed fearfully on the gum. He said if I resisted so much with my
teeth, he would have to feed me through the nose. The pain of it was
intense and at last I must have given way for he got the gag between my
teeth, when he proceeded to turn it much more than necessary until my
jaws were fastened wide apart, far more than they could go naturally.
Then he put down my throat a tube which seemed to me much too wide and
was something like four feet in length. The irritation of the tube
was excessive. I choked the moment it touched my throat until it had
got down. Then the food was poured in quickly; it made me sick a few
seconds after it was down and the action of the sickness made my body
and legs double up, but the wardresses instantly pressed back my head
and the doctor leant on my knees. The horror of it was more than I can
describe. I was sick over the doctor and wardresses, and it seemed a
long time before they took the tube out. As the doctor left he gave me
a slap on the cheek, not violently, but, as it were, to express his
contemptuous disapproval, and he seemed to take for granted that my
distress was assumed. At first it seemed such an utterly contemptible
thing to have done that I could only laugh in my mind. Then suddenly I
saw Jane Warton lying before me, and it seemed as if I were outside of
her. She was the most despised, ignorant and helpless prisoner that I
had seen. When she had served her time and was out of the prison, no
one would believe anything she said, and the doctor when he had fed her
by force and tortured her body, struck her on the cheek to show how he
despised her! That was Jane Warton, and I had come to help her.
When the doctor had gone out of the cell, I lay quite helpless. The
wardresses were kind and knelt round to comfort me, but there was
nothing to be done, I could not move, and remained there in what, under
different conditions, would have been an intolerable mess. I had been
sick over my hair, which, though short, hung on either side of my face,
all over the wall near my bed, and my clothes seemed saturated with it,
but the wardresses told me they could not get me a change that night
as it was too late, the office was shut. I lay quite motionless, it
seemed paradise to be without the suffocating tube, without the liquid
food going in and out of my body and without the gag between my teeth.
Presently the wardresses all left me, they had orders to go, which were
carried out with the usual promptness. Before long I heard the sounds
of the forced feeding in the next cell to mine. It was almost more than
I could bear, it was Elsie Howey, I was sure. When the ghastly process
was over and all quiet, I tapped on the wall and called out at the top
of my voice, which wasn’t much just then, “No surrender,” and there
came the answer past any doubt in Elsie’s voice, “No surrender.” After
this I fell back and lay as I fell. It was not very long before the
wardress came and announced that I was to go back upstairs as, because
of the feeding, my time in the punishment cell was over. I was taken
into the same cell which I had before; the long hours till morning were
a nightmare of agonised dread for a repetition of the process.
The next day, Wednesday, January 19, they brought me clean clothes.
When the wardresses were away at breakfast I determined to break the
thick glass of my gas jet to show what I thought of the forcible
feeding, it seemed the last time that I should have the strength
required. I took one of my shoes, which always lay at my side except
when I moved from my cell, let it get a good swing by holding it at the
back of my shoulder and then hurled it against the glass with all the
strength that I had. The glass broke in pieces with a great smashing
sound. The two wardresses, who were in charge of the whole ward while
the others were away, came into my cell together; I was already back in
my bed. They were young, new to the work, and looked rather frightened.
I told them I had done it with a shoe, and why. “But that is enough,” I
said, “I am not going to do any more now.” This reassured them and they
both laughed. They took away the shoes as “dangerous,” and brought me
slippers instead, and, to my intense relief, I never saw them again. As
the morning wore on, one after the other of the officials proclaimed
that I had done a shameful thing. On being changed to the cell next
door, one of the head wardresses--I never made out exactly who she
was--was in a great temper. I had told her, as I did every one of the
officials, why I had broken my gas jet. “Broken it, yes, I should
just think you had, indeed. And all that writing scribbled over your
cell; can’t keep the place decent.” “I’m so sorry,” I said; “I assure
you there was nothing indecent in what I wrote on the wall.” “No, not
indecent, but----” she hesitated and, as the words would not come to
her assistance, the remark remained unfinished.
I had not been long in the other cell before the doctor and four or
five wardresses appeared. He was apparently angry because I had broken
the jet glass; he seized one of the tin vessels and began waving
it about. “I suppose you want to smash me with one of these?” he
exclaimed. I said to him, so that all the wardresses with him could
hear, “Unless you consider it part of your duty, would you please not
strike me when you have finished your odious job” (or I may have said
“slap me,” I do not remember). He did not answer, but, after a little
pause, he signed to me to lie down on the bed. Again the choice of
the wooden or steel implement, again the force, which after a time I
could not withstand, in the same place as yesterday where the gum was
sore and aching. Then the feeling of the suffocating tube thrust down
and the gate of life seemed shut. The tube was pressed down much too
far, it seemed to me, causing me at times great pain in my side. The
sickness was worse than the time before. As the tube was removed I was
unavoidably sick over the doctor. He flew away from me and out of the
cell, exclaiming angrily, “If you do that again next time I shall feed
you twice.” I had removed my serge jacket and taken several precautions
for my bed, but I am afraid one or two of the officers and the floor
and wall were drenched. I shut my eyes and lay back quite helpless for
a while. They presently brought in fresh clothes, and a woman, another
prisoner, came and washed the floor. It seemed terrible that another
prisoner should do this, it was altogether a revolting business. Two
wardresses came and overlooked her work, one of them said, in a voice
of displeased authority: “Look at her! Just look at her! The _way_
she’s doing it!” The woman washed on and took no notice; her face was
intensely sad. I roused myself and said, “Well, at any rate, she’s
doing what I should be doing myself and I am very grateful to her.” The
wardresses looked surprised at me, but they said nothing.
The Governor came in for a moment to see me. To my surprise his anger
had cooled a little. He had before spoken to me in a rage and, if I
asked questions which implied a complaint, had told me they were not
proper questions for me to ask, or that I must not argue or raise
discussions. After failing to get a definite answer as to under whose
authority the forcible feeding was done, I said it surely could not be
right for him to allow such a thing in the prison over which he had
jurisdiction, unless he had seen it and at least fully realised what
it entailed. With apparently some reluctance, he admitted that he had
witnessed it. I asked, “And after that you sanction and approve of such
a thing being done to prisoners who have committed _only nominal crimes
with no criminal object and in defence of a claim which they have no
recognised constitutional means to enforce_?” The last italicised part
of this remark remained unheard, for the Governor interrupted me with
“That is not a fitting question for you to ask.” Later, I was had up
before him in his room and was severely reprimanded for breaking the
glass of the gas-box and “inspection” glass, and for defacing the walls
of my cell, but I was dismissed with a caution for glass breaking, and
my punishment was reserved for the Visiting Magistrates.
When it was evening the light was lit and the doctor and wardresses
came again to feed me. I asked if I could not sit up in a chair and
the doctor said “Yes.” I told him that I was a small eater, that the
capacity of my body was very limited and if only he would give less
quantities the result might be better. I also begged that he would not
press the tube so far down into my body. He treated the request with
contempt, saying that anyhow my stomach must be longer than his, since
I was taller than he was. This third time, though I was continually
sick, the doctor pressed the tube down firmly into my body and
continued to pour food in. At last this produced a sort of shivering
fit and my teeth chattered when the gag was removed; I suppose that
every vestige of colour must have left my face, for the doctor seemed
surprised and alarmed. He removed the tube and told the wardresses
to lay me on the floor-bed and lower my head. He then came and lay
over my chest and seemed very sorry for what he had done. I told him
I should not faint, that I was not liable to this or any form of
collapse; I did not mention the slight chronic debility of heart from
which I suffered. He called in the junior medical officer, who happened
to be passing at the time, to test my heart. The junior doctor, who
was in a jovial mood, stooped down and listened to my heart through
the stethoscope for barely the space of a second--he could not have
heard two beats--and exclaimed, “Oh, ripping, splendid heart! You can
go on with her”; with that he left the cell. But the senior doctor
seemed not to be reassured and he was kind to me for the first time. He
tried to feed me with a spoon, but I was still able to clench my teeth
and no food got down. He then pleaded with me, saying in a beseeching
voice, “I do beg of you--I appeal to you, not as a prison doctor but
as a man--to give over. You are a delicate woman, you are not fit for
this sort of thing.” I answered, “Is anybody fit for it? And I beg of
you--I appeal to you, not as a prisoner but as a woman--to give over
and refuse to continue this inhuman treatment.” After I had lain quiet
for some time I managed to clean the cell myself. I took out two pails
to the sink, but had only strength to carry them a few yards. As I was
journeying like this, getting on very slowly, a wardress told me to
take only one at a time; her sympathy was moved to this extent, but
no further. I took one pail back to my cell, went on with the other,
and then came back for the first. When I had finished this business
of washing up--which I was glad to do myself, even if it took half
the day, that it might not be given to another prisoner, and also for
the better cleaning of the hideous mess--I fell on my bed and lay
there till evening; they now left me both bed and bedding, which was a
tremendous blessing.
I lay facing the window, which was high up, and very little light
seemed to come from it. As the sun went down I saw the shadow of the
wooden mouldings fall across the glass,--three crosses, and they were
the shape of the three familiar crosses at the scene of Calvary, one in
the centre and one on either side. It looked different from any of the
pictures I had seen. The cross of Christ, the cross of the repentant
thief, and the cross of the sinner who had not repented--that cross
looked blacker than the others, and behind it was an immense crowd. The
light from the other two crosses seemed to shine on this one, and the
Christ was crucified that He might undo all the harm that was done. I
saw amongst the crowd the poor little doctor and the Governor, and all
that helped to torture these women in prison, but they were nothing
compared to the men in the Cabinet who wielded their force over them.
There were the upholders of vice and the men who support the thousand
injustices to women, some knowingly and some unconscious of the harm
and cruelty entailed. Then the room grew dark and I fell asleep. When
the doctor came again with his apparatus he had bovril and brandy, and
the tube was left for only one second in my body. The next morning,
Thursday, January 20, I told him that the brandy, which at first had
the effect of warming me, left me freezing cold after about two hours,
and I thought it was no use. As for the bovril, I had the strongest
objection to it of a vegetarian kind, and I begged him not to give it
to me again; he said he would not. It was only when I was sick that I
knew what were the ingredients put down my body. That morning it was
again milk and plasmon that was given me, and I was horribly sick. The
doctor said to me, “You are absolutely not fit for this kind of thing.
How could your Union send a woman like you to do a thing of this kind?
It is like sending a wisp of wind to fight against a----” I did not
hear the end of the sentence, but I think he said “a rock.” I was not
able to answer, but the next time he came I said to him, “Our Union
does not send anyone; service of this kind is absolutely voluntary.
In my case not one of the leaders even knew of my action. I did it
entirely off my own bat and only told the local organisers.”
From the third feeding, when the junior doctor had felt my heart on
Wednesday evening, the senior doctor had been much kinder to me; in
fact I noticed a change in the way I was treated generally, so much
so that I concluded my identity had been discovered or was at least
suspected. I left off wearing my hair in a parting, as it was almost
impossible to keep it away when I was sick. I brushed it back and did
it up in a towel every time when I was fed. I left off wearing my
glasses, which were too uncomfortable to be tolerated now that the
necessity for them had worn off and they were forcibly feeding me
quite happily. I then decided to take the utmost advantage of any
privilege, in order to bring the officials to act reasonably, to check
their recklessness as much as possible, and to bring them to strain the
regulations so far as might be--not, as heretofore, in the direction
of brutality, but in the direction of hygiene, if not of humanity. I
pleaded afresh with the doctor to try the experiment of giving me less
quantity of food, of putting less of the tube into the body, of using
less glycerine, which greatly irritated my throat the moment the tube
touched it, or to use oil instead of glycerine. He listened to what I
said, and though except as to the glycerine--he wiped the tube almost
free of it, and called my attention to the fact--there was not much
difference in what he did, yet his manner of doing it was different.
When I was at the sink on Thursday morning, two or three other
prisoners were there, and they hastily whispered to me, “It _is_ your
friend next to you, No. 21.” The kindness which beamed from all their
faces did my heart good, but I could never hear or see Elsie Howey next
door, and eventually I imagined that they must have mistaken me for her
when I threw back my hair after the third feeding.
That day I thought I would clean my window, through which I had
seen such a wonderful vision the evening before. Though the day was
generally spent in loneliness, I knew that I might be visited at any
hour, so I put off till about 3.30, when the ward was generally quiet
for a time. All the furniture in the cell was movable, so I placed the
table in front of the window and the chair on the top, then I climbed
up. Through the small part of the window that opened I looked down, and
in a beautiful red glow of the sinking sun I saw a sight that filled
my very soul with joy. In the gloaming light--it was an exercise ground
that I looked down upon--I saw walking round, all alone, a woman in her
prisoner’s dress, and in her arms she carried another little prisoner,
a baby done up in a blanket. I was too high up to hear her, but I could
see distinctly that she cooed and laughed to her little companion, and
perhaps she sang to it too. I never saw maternal love more naturally
displayed. The words of the Chaplain came back to my mind--“The women,
they’re all as bad as bad can be, there’s absolutely no good in them.”
No good in them! and yet amongst them there was this little woman who,
at least, loved her child and played with it as only a mother-heart can!
I got down and put the table and chair in their place; I felt amazed,
having seen a sight as beautiful as the most beautiful picture in the
world.
The wardress who came most often to my cell was kind to me. I said to
her, “Oh! if you only knew what a nightmare it is, the feeding. I have
never been any good at bearing pain, and each time it comes I feel as
if I simply couldn’t endure it.” “Oh! well,” she answered, “it gets
better, you’ll see.” She said this in a comforting voice, but the
vistas of experience it gave of other prisoners who had gone through
the process made it anything but a comfort to me. Most of them had been
let out half dead before the end of their time, and I had but very
little faith in the assurance that it would “get better.” I asked her
after the other Suffrage prisoners, but she could tell me nothing of
them. This wardress came back to my cell rather late one day and said
to me hurriedly: “I am going away to the other side of the prison.
Will you write to me when you get out?” I told her that I was afraid
my letters might get her into trouble, for I felt sure it would not be
allowed. She said she was quite sure it would be all right, if I sent
it to her name, Miss ----. I said, “Very well, then, I will.”
I was filled with terror in the morning when the gas-jet was put out
and in the evening when it was lighted again; within about half an hour
of these changes in the light came the doctor and wardresses, the gag
and all the fiendish consequences. I walked up and down my cell in a
fever of fear, stopping now and then and looking up at the window, from
which all good things had seemed to come. I said, “Oh, God, help me!
Oh, God, help me!”
After, I think, the sixth meal, I complained to the doctor that the
processes of digestion were absolutely stagnant. I suggested to him
that he should leave out one meal, with a view to allowing the natural
forces of the body to readjust themselves, unhampered by the kind
of paralysing cramp and arresting of the natural functions which
resulted from fear. I also suggested that instead of brandy--he had
given me another meal of bovril and brandy--fruit juice or the water
in which a pear or apple had been stewed should be added to my food.
He did not answer me, but turned to the head assistant, whom he had
already assured me was a fully-trained nurse, and in a half-insolent,
half-contemptuous tone of voice, said: “Do you understand her? I
don’t. Does she mean that she is constipated? If so, you see about it.”
Very likely I had spoken unintelligibly. I seldom had interviewed a
doctor on my own behalf, and am not versed in their technical language.
Whenever I spoke to this doctor it was either immediately before or
after the feeding, so that my nerves were unstrung. Moreover, prisoners
are made to feel in the presence of nearly every prison official that
they are the scum of the earth, suspected of deceit, prejudged and
found wanting; this has a paralysing effect on a prisoner’s powers of
expression. The chief assistant was the woman who took me daily to the
weighing machine. She was kind and refined in her ways. I explained
to her what I wanted, I reminded her several times about this; once I
spoke again to the doctor of it, but I was never given either a drug,
or, so far as I know, the fruit juice in my food.
I asked the doctor if a smaller tube could not be used for the feeding.
He answered, “If I fed you through the nose it would be with a smaller
tube.” I suggested that the smaller tube should be used through the
mouth, if he thought that process the easiest. He said, “Well, that
might be,” but the tube was never changed to a smaller one. As to my
suggestion about omitting a meal, he also seemed to think it plausible,
but he promised nothing, and fed me in the evening, saying that I had
again lost weight, so that he could not leave me without food. Of
course, this quite ignored my argument that until I began to keep down
the food I could not profit by it or gain in weight.
My limbs, hands and feet, were stiff with cold at all times. I
was allowed flannel underclothes and an extra blanket. In spite of
continued reproof from the wardresses I kept on my nightdress in the
day time, the only under-garment with long sleeves, and I passed the
night in all my day-clothes. At last I was able to do this without
comment from the authorities. They also, as a great favour, allowed me
yet another blanket when I asked for it after some days; I then had
three. I was allowed to keep the cape, usually only for out-door use,
in my cell. But it was like trying to warm a stone by clothing it. Hot
water was allowed in a pail once a day after the evening feeding.
Most of my friends had been fed by the doctor standing at the back of
the patient, whereas this doctor adjusted the tube and fed me from
the front, a process which he carried out by sitting across my knees.
By this time I could not feel my legs and arms, except just by the
joints where I felt the pain of the cold. At night I used to get up
and walk from time to time to prevent them from becoming useless. But
on Thursday night, my sixth in prison, I fell really asleep and when
I awoke I had an unexpected feeling of ease and freedom from pain or
fear. I was unconscious of my nearly rigid limbs, the beat of my heart
was scarcely perceptible; I supposed I had only a little while to live.
The prospect of release was inexpressibly welcome. Presently I heard,
as distinctly as if the wall of my cell had a mouth and had spoken, the
words which Mrs. Leigh has made glorious in connection with our cause:
“No surrender.” They beat upon my brain with a new meaning; not only to
a repressive Government, not only to heedless laws and their attendant
punishments, but to the temptations of our inabilities, no surrender.
What was I about, to abdicate my job in this ease-loving way? I rubbed
the painful life back into my feet, hands and limbs, and forced myself
to walk up and down my cell. Pictures succeeded each other rapidly in
my mind of our fellow-prisoners in the “Black Maria,” of all undefended
women, of children’s blighted lives, of down-trodden men and women,
undeveloped or ill of body or mind, whose fate women, through their
abject surrender of the woman’s part in the world’s jurisdiction, must
to a certain extent have laid at their door. How misplaced, unrighteous
and unwomanly did non-resistance appear to me then. With every throb
of my returning pulses I seemed to feel the rhythm of the world’s soul
calling to us women to uncramp our powers from the thraldom of long
disuse. My whole being responded and I yearned to hand on the message
as I myself had in spirit received it--“Women, you are wanted. Women,
as women, because you are women, come out in all your womanliness,
and whether or not victory is for your day, at least each one of you
make sure that the one course impossible to you is surrender of your
share in the struggle.” To you, dear, faithful Suffragettes at heart,
whatever the handcuffs of circumstance which may limit your powers of
visible service, I pass on this message.
I had been told that the Visiting Magistrates were due to come to the
prison on Friday (January 21), and that my offences would be judged
by them. On Wednesday morning I asked if I could be allowed to go
to chapel, as on Thursday, probably, I should move with difficulty
and after that I would not have a chance, as they would have me
put in irons for breaking the glass of my gas-jet--they had put my
friends in irons for less than that. The wardress seemed to think
this improbable, but she gave her consent to my going to chapel. That
morning at 10 o’clock, I was taken downstairs and put in a long row
of waiting prisoners, we were close enough to be touching each other,
all perfectly silent. They changed me about, putting me in a different
place each time, for no apparent reason. We had waited about a quarter
of an hour, when the order came to move along, and we went through
several buildings to the chapel. The men, who were much the most
numerous, were seated below, the women in a gallery above with a screen
of wood jutting out, so that nothing could be seen by one of the other.
I was shunted several times from my place, and at last was put in a
row by myself. I looked in vain for any of my companions, they were
not there. The service was short and with several hymns, in which, as
in Holloway, the prisoners joined heartily. Then the Chaplain got up
into the pulpit and preached a sermon with a great deal of energy. He
told of a wreck, evidently a quite recent one, in which the lifeboat
men had behaved splendidly. Many were saved, and they gave thanks to
God and to the lifeboat men. Then he went on to describe how we were
born, helpless and ignorant, in the world. As we thought of it, we must
give thanks to God. I listened with interest, but nothing further was
said. There was apparently no mother to thank, who through nine months
had tended the little one in her body, and through pain, sometimes
excruciating, brought it to birth. These were entirely forgotten. Was
it because the women were “as bad as bad can be”?
The next day, Thursday, January 20, I asked if I could go out. The
longing for more air than I could get in the cell was intense, though
the window of this one opened just enough to let in some air. I found
that I could walk all right, although it seemed as if my legs were
painful things attached to my body. The wardress told me I might go
that afternoon. As I was taken out of my cell that morning to be
weighed, I passed a little girl prisoner. She was not more than a
child. For aught I knew she may have been taken straight from the life
of the streets the night before, but she had at that moment the face
of an angel, and she looked down on me from the steps that she was
cleaning above with a smile which you can never see out of prison. Her
whole face seemed lit up with it and it touched my very soul. I never
saw her again, but I felt that all my resentment and anger were gone.
In a way my physical courage was no greater than before, but at least I
should go on; I knew that I should last out.
In the afternoon the wardress came to let me go out. I saw none of my
companions on the way, and I was put in an exercise yard quite alone.
A pain in my side had by this time grown acutely. I rested against the
wall, but nothing did it any good. The sight of the grey, frosty sky
and the feel of air were a delight, but I could not bear the cold nor
hold myself up, and after a little while I asked to come in.
The next day, Friday, January 21, as I was being fed--the wardresses
had given up holding me--the pain of the tube in my body was more than
I could bear; I seized hold of it and pulled it up. The wardresses
reproved me for interfering, but they did not put the tube in again;
the doctor said nothing. I was overwhelmed with the horror of the
process, and for the first time I was convulsed with sobs. The doctor
was kind to me. I said that I only cried from having no strength to
resist, but that I meant to live out my sentence if I could.
This was the day the Visiting Magistrates were due. Later in the
morning they came to my cell with the Governor, who said, “Have you
any complaint? If only about the forcible feeding, you will have the
opportunity later on in my room; don’t talk of that now.” I answered,
“I have complaints to make not only about being fed by force, but as to
the manner in which it was done.” He said, “Your opportunity for that
also will come later on.” I think it was now, in the presence of the
Visiting Magistrates, that I said to the Governor, “I shall be saying
several things when I am out of prison, and it seems to me more fair
and square to tell you of them now while I am still in your hands, and
you can refute them if you like.” He allowed me to proceed, so I went
on: “About the Governor, I shall say that while he was shocked at
the great wickedness of breaking glass as a protest against forcible
feeding, he sanctioned and approved of the violence and brutality of
the forcible feeding itself.” He almost smiled, and replied hastily
that he had never said anything of the kind. I began to ask which
part of my statement he denied--his condemnation of glass-breaking or
approval of the forced feeding, but he stopped me and would not allow
any further remarks on that point.
Soon afterwards, when summoned before the Magistrates in the Governor’s
room, I was allowed, in replying to the charge of glass-breaking,
to which I pleaded guilty, to make my protest against the forcible
feeding. I said I had been unable to ascertain on whose authority it
was done; if by the order of an individual it seemed to me cruel and
abominable, but if by order of the departmental authority, and in the
name of law, I thought it much worse; then it was sheer barbarism, for
under cover of such an order, kindly and well-meaning subordinates were
made to assist, for the sake of duty, in the performance of many things
which they would never tolerate under different circumstances. As a
protest, I owned a feeble one, against this barbarism I had actually
been guilty of defacing the walls of my cell with inscriptions and of
breaking a valuable piece of glass. The latter part of my remarks, I
think, were scarcely heard, for the Magistrates had begun to interrupt
me. My breath gave out; I looked round at the Magistrates, at the
Governor, at the Matron. They had ordinary faces, neither kind nor
unkind; they were displeased with what I said, they looked angry--that
was all. Then I asked if I might now lodge my complaint against
various points as to the manner in which I had been forcibly fed. The
Governor replied, “No, not now. You will have another opportunity for
that later on.” After a lengthy and severe reprimand for my prison
offences and condemnatory remarks on the subject of the behaviour of
Suffragettes outside, the Magistrates waived the matter of the wall
inscriptions as having been already dealt with by the Governor, and
with regard to the broken glass they deferred judgment _sine die_.
When back in my cell, the Governor presently visited me. I said I had
understood I was to have an opportunity of seeing the Magistrates
again to lodge my further complaint against the manner of feeding.
The Governor said, “You will not see the Magistrates again; but now
is your time, I have come on purpose to hear your complaints.” I had
the impression, probably not uncommon to all prisoners, that the
higher the authority the less likelihood would there be of an appeal
to them taking effect. Certainly there had been nothing in the manner
and remarks of the Visiting Magistrates to alter this impression.
I was therefore well pleased to make my complaint to the Governor
alone. It is no part of the prison protest to plead for merciful or
even rational treatment, and though I had deliberately decided upon a
different course, I was haunted by the fear of breaking our policy and
proving disloyal to my comrades then in prison. The Matron was present,
as always when the Governor visits prisoners in their cells, and he
allowed me to remain on my bed. For the first time he listened to all I
had to say without attempting to interrupt me, or to curtail or change
the drift of my remarks. I reported to him having been forcibly fed
without my heart having been tested or the doctor even feeling my
pulse. I said I mentioned this in no spirit of personal complaint, for,
though suffering from slight chronic heart disease, my heart happened
to have great resisting and recuperative power; but I didn’t suppose
it was possible to diagnose this fact merely from looking at me, and
that on general medical grounds, as a matter of principle, I thought
the heart ought most carefully to be tested before any prisoner who had
been on hunger-strike was forcibly fed, since both these processes were
theoretically believed to tax the heart.
I said, “There is another thing which I think I had better mention.
After the first time of feeding me, the doctor seemed very irritated
and, before leaving, he slapped me on the cheek; he did not hurt me,
but seemed to wish to show his contempt; about this, too, I do not
wish to complain as of an insult to me personally. He no doubt was
irritated by his repulsive job, but this is hardly the right mood for
an official, and what he could do to one woman he might possibly do
to another. I think such things should not be done. I asked him the
next morning, unless he thought it part of his duty, not to do such a
thing again, and he never has.” I made further complaints about too
much food at a time being poured in through the tube, and about the one
occasion when the tube was left in for some considerable time and the
feeding repeated again and again, in spite of my continuous vomiting.
I did not, however, complain of these things in any detail to the
Governor, since they seemed to be matters chiefly suitable for the
medical officer. I think I added, as I certainly did on one occasion
to the doctor himself, what a mercy it was that at least the doctor was
skilled in adjusting the tube into the throat. The Governor made no
reply but listened to all I said.
It was on the afternoon of this day, Friday, that the door of my cell
was suddenly thrown open, and the man who stood outside was announced
to me as the Government inspector. I asked, had he come from London?
“Yes.” He inquired in a hurried way, as if he had a train to catch,
had I any complaint? “Yes,” I replied, “first of all about being fed
by force.” He said, in a hurried and insolent manner, all in one
breath, so that it was scarcely intelligible, “Are you refusing to
take your food--If so, the remedy is in your hands, you have no reason
to complain--Any further complaints?” I hesitated for a moment, then,
as it seemed to me my complaints against the doctor would certainly
in this man’s estimation come under the head of grievances easily
remediable by the surrender of the hunger-strike, I answered, “No, I
suppose not,” upon which he abruptly left me.
On this day, Friday, the Governor before he left me had suggested
that under certain conditions he would allow me to write a letter.
“For instance,” he said, “if you had a mother you were anxious about,
perhaps I could give you leave to write to her.” I had so arranged
matters before being arrested that I knew my people, if they had
traced me, would conclude that by this time my hunger-strike had been
superseded by forcible feeding; that those most dear to me had implicit
faith in the reasonableness of all officials, that if at any moment
they chose to take advantages of the privileges available to them,
they could hear all about me; and, finally, that if they were anxious
to the point of disregard for those of my principles which they did
not share, they could pay my fine; but hastily on these reflections
there followed the panic fear that it was my mother who was ill, and
the Governor was breaking the news to me. He, however, reassured me on
this point and he left me. The permission reeled in my brain. My mother
would by this time certainly suspect something. If I could write to her
and yet not let her know where I was! The prison paper would alone make
this impossible. I thought about it all night. The next day, Saturday,
January 22, I determined to eat my breakfast so that I might be in a
fit state to write, otherwise my hands trembled and I could not steady
my mind to a letter. I told the wardress very early that morning that
I would eat my breakfast, and that I should like someone to witness
it. The little woman, whom the doctor had told me was a nurse, brought
me in a cup of milk and a piece of white bread and butter. It was the
most delicious food I have ever tasted; the “nurse” was very kind to
me and stayed till I had finished. Then I wrote my letter; it was only
on the slate, of course; I must ask the Governor’s leave before I was
allowed writing-paper. I asked to see the Governor, by letter written
on another slate. I said that, if it were the same to him, might I go
to his room to see him, as there I could stand near the hot pipes,
which was a great luxury. He came to my cell, and I told him I would
gladly avail myself of the privilege to write to my mother, provided
he would grant the same privilege to my fellow Suffrage prisoners. I
assumed, too, that he had done the same in the case of Elsie Howey as
in mine, omitted to punish her for glass-breaking--I believed, from the
sound, that someone besides myself had broken glass--and I reminded him
of a remark he had made as to the law being no respecter of persons. By
this time I had an almost certain conviction that he knew who I was.
But he would not give me any assurance as to like favours being granted
to other prisoners, so I refused to avail myself of the letter-writing
privilege. In the afternoon, however, I had decided that I could convey
news to my mother without revealing my identity to the officials,
supposing that they were not yet fully aware of the truth, and that I
had better use every available privilege offered, since I was in the
dark as to the grounds on which it was made. I determined to write to
the nurse of my sister’s children, who lived in Bloomsbury Square,
telling her to forward my letter at once to my mother. I asked to see
the Governor again, but he had left. I was taken before the Matron, who
told me the privilege would anyhow be conditional, dependent upon to
whom my letter was addressed and the urgency of the motive for writing
it. I said there was no extreme urgency; she answered I must await the
Governor’s return on Monday morning.
I wrote in my letter on the slate that the forcible feeding was “only
pain,” and that my mother would think that good for me. I made no other
complaint, but said the short sentence would soon let me be with her.
My only object was to conceal all that I endured. In the evening I was
again fed by force.
On Sunday morning, January 23, the cold was intense. I asked for some
hearthstone to polish my tins--they had taken everything of the kind
away and the tins were dull and spotted. I hoped to keep some sense
of life in my hands and arms by trying to scrub with them. But it did
not come. Presently the door opened and the Governor appeared; I could
not think why he came so early. Then I saw the doctor behind him, and
the thought of the forcible feeding blocked my mind. I supposed the
Governor had come to see it. He was nervous about startling me, I
suppose, for he told me the great news twice before I understood. He
told me of my release and that my youngest sister, Emily Lutyens, had
come to fetch me away. I felt stunned with the quite unexpected shock
of joy, it was too good to be true. After ascertaining that my fine
had not been paid, but that I had been released on medical grounds,
and that it had nothing to do with my mother’s health, the chief aim
for which I tried to pull myself together was to obtain what news I
could of my fellow-prisoners. The Governor and doctor, however, left
me without giving me any information. Again I was brought white bread
and butter and milk for my breakfast, and the “nurse” stayed with me
while I ate it. They brought me my clothes, but the more I realised the
news the slower my movements became; all strength seemed to have ebbed
from my body. The wardresses knew nothing of the other Suffragette
prisoners, whether they were released or not. When dressed I was taken
out far away to what was called “the Governor’s room,” but it was not
the same one that I had seen before. The doctor came and talked to me,
then after a little while my sister came. We greeted each other, of
course, by a tremendously warm embrace. The doctor looked away like a
witness in a melodrama. I sat there as in a dream talking to him and
to the Governor, who presently came in. The doctor said, “I have been
kind to you?” “Latterly you were,” I answered, “if you had not fed me.
At first you were angry and not kind.” I told the Governor that the one
thing I wanted to know about was the other Suffragette prisoners, were
they fed--were they released? He answered that they were not released,
that one of them was in hospital, that they were all quite well. I said
that was a curious answer; if they were all quite well, why was one
in hospital? He said that he could tell me nothing more. The doctor
said they were none of them as bad as I was over the feeding. That was
all that I could get from them about the other prisoners. I did not
go over again with them the points about which I had protested, while
still a prisoner, as to my own treatment. The Governor and doctor were
courteous to me after my release and to my sister, and the Governor’s
wife had been very kind to her on her arrival in the early morning.
Why we waited I do not know, but in about half an hour we drove away
in a four-wheeler. The Chaplain was just coming in to the prison as
we drove out through the gates; he bowed to me. I went to the station
first and got my trunk, or rather my sister got it for me, then we went
to the hotel. We telephoned to Dr. Kerr that I was released and going
with my sister to London. She sent her young daughter and man-servant
to see us at the hotel, and we left word with them for Miss Flatman,
who was not on the telephone and whose Sunday address we did not know.
I had a long bath, which was a tremendous luxury, although my legs were
so thin I could not sit down without pain. My dear sister stayed with
me the whole time; my voice shook and I could not speak properly. We
had a meal before we left.