The time was getting near; we were to wait until the clock struck 8; we were none of us to move before and not much later. At last there was a noise of many people coming round the corner of a street; it was Mrs. Pethick Lawrence walking at the head of her Deputation. A large crowd surrounded them and cheered them on their way to Westminster. Miss Lawless and I had taken up our position already on the steps leading to the post office we had selected. As soon as the Deputation had passed, the clock of Big Ben began striking eight. I said, “I can wait no longer,” and I turned and smashed the glass of two doors and one window. I raised my arms and did it deliberately, so that every one in the street could see. Miss Lawless smashed the windows to my right. We were going down the steps and I was afraid no policemen had been near, when two came from over the way. All was peaceable and friendly. My policeman said to me with a smile, “I’ll take you this way, lady, see? And that won’t inconvenience you.” With that he adjusted his grasp at my elbow. I said to him: “Unless you are obliged, don’t hurry your pace more than you can help,” and he walked at my pace through Westminster to Cannon Row. He also disarmed me, taking my hammer. In Westminster the crowd was immense and at the bottom of Whitehall, but we got through all right, and Miss Lawless kept close behind me.
Cannon Row was already crowded with women. We stood in a closely packed ring to give our names, and afterwards our names were called out before we went upstairs. To my surprise and great delight Lady Sybil Smith was there. I knew she herself had been wishing to go on a deputation for some time. We were taken into the cells to be searched, but this was not the grim business that it sounds. We were left to walk quite by ourselves; a policeman showed us in and we were put four or five together in a cell. The door was left open, and a wardress asked respectfully if she might search us. We said, “Yes, most certainly,” and began to deliver up our stones. The wardress’s face was all kindness, and no sooner had the policeman gone away from the door than she burst out with: “Oh! you ladies, I’d be with you to-morrow if it weren’t for my child. I am a widow with one child. If only these politicians knew what that meant! They can talk fine about the widow, but when it comes to her earning a livelihood they don’t help her.” It seemed wonderful, she understood. Meanwhile she was picking out the stones from our pockets. We were allowed to go back to the central room as soon as it was finished, we left a friend behind us in the wardress. Upstairs, in the policemen’s billiard room, we sat in crowds, and everything was noticeably different from last time. All was joy and triumph, and there seemed the echo of these from the street. I felt quite an old hand, and was going about the room collecting telegrams; I had bought a packet of forms on the chance. A policeman was singled out and stood waiting for them in a meek and respectful attitude. One woman, who looked about sixty or sixty-five, had written a telegram but had put no signature; I asked if there was to be none. She hesitated for a moment and then added: “Well--put Mother.” I thought it must be rather trying when it was a “daughter,” but much more when it was a “mother,” and she getting on in years. There was a girl lying down in the window recess where I had gone with my cough last time; she was ashy pale. I went up to her and asked her if she felt ill. Her face immediately lit up with a radiant smile--“I’m not ill now, but I have been for three months.” I said how wonderful was the feeling of the movement, as one realised the difference which a year had made it was impossible that one should feel depressed, though one might be depressed for oneself. “No,” she said, “I am never depressed now.” Had she a mother? “Oh! mother would be here too, only she is a cripple.”