Three times this autumn, after making a speech, I had been taken with heart-seizure and incapacitated for about a quarter of an hour. On Thursday morning, November 23, I was ill, on waking, with a heart collapse. In spite of my best efforts, I could scarcely hold up my head or speak. Mrs. Francis Smith, one of my dearest friends, had come to my rooms to see how I was, and she determined to call at Bow Street and find out for me if I could not put off going there till the afternoon. She came back, saying that she had had an interview with Inspector A----, who had already shown great kindness to me, and he had said I was not to trouble about the morning, that it would do quite well if I came in the afternoon. I lay down on my bed till nearly 2 o’clock, when I felt much better. Then I went to Bow Street. The woman who did my room came with me and carried my luggage; she also fetched me milk into the police station. She knew several of the policeman personally, so she managed everything very easily. I went on a deputation with Mrs. Haverfield and Mrs. Mansell-Moulin to Inspector A----, to say that unless the women could be told on leaving whether they would be wanted the next day, they would not go away. As this meant finding cells for all of us--we were 220 women in all--probably we should have to be put four or five in a cell together; it was speedily arranged and we were told that night when we should be wanted; I was one of those who came the following day. I went again that evening to my mother.
The next morning, Friday, November 24, I woke all right and went to Bow Street quite happily. Before our trial we were taken down into the passage next the police court, and put _vis-à-vis_ to the policemen who had arrested us, as at my first trial. The magistrate was Sir Albert de Rutzen, who was too old for his work. Miss Lawless was accused with me. The hammers and stones were shown in witness against us, and the damage estimated at £3 15_s_. Mr. Muskett, the prosecutor, in totalling up my record, mentioned that I had been to Holloway after a deputation to the House of Commons, and in Newcastle I was imprisoned for throwing a stone at a motor car, but he did not mention “Jane Warton” at Liverpool. When I reminded him that he had left her out, he said testily, “Well, I’m very glad if I have.” I said it was quite true that I used a hammer and stones to break windows. I realised that this was the only effective means of protest left to us by a Government which boasts of Liberalism and representation where men are concerned, but ignores the elementary principles of representation where women are concerned. Votes and riot are the only form of appeal to which this Government will respond. They refuse us votes, we fall back on riot. The wrongs they inflict on women are intolerable, and we will no longer tolerate them---- Here the magistrate interrupted me; he could not enter into a discussion on the subject, and referred to the fact that Mr. Asquith had received a deputation last Friday. I said, “I heard Mr. Asquith say he would do nothing in regard to women.” The magistrate then advocated peaceful agitation. I answered that this Government have said they will do absolutely nothing as a Government, and Mr. Asquith is exactly where he was in 1908; all our peaceful agitation has been valueless in his eyes. I said that although we committed the acts alleged, we were not guilty of crime, our conduct being fully justified by the circumstances of the case. “I appeal to you, Sir, to vindicate the fundamental laws of liberty which our country has revered for generations,” and with that I concluded. Miss Leslie Lawless said that if to fight for one’s liberty was a crime, she was guilty, but she pleaded not guilty, as that was the only protest that this Government understood. Our sentence was one of a fine of 40_s._ and 37_s._ 6_d._ damage each, or fourteen days’ imprisonment--half the sentence that I had received when I went to the House of Commons, doing absolutely nothing and being mauled by the police.