CHAPTER III

“Nor dream, nor rest, nor pause Remains for him who round him draws The battered mail of Freedom’s cause.”

It may surprise some of my readers to learn that the first great uprising against legalised vice had much less of the character of the “revolt of a sex” than has been often supposed. We have heard much of late years, and more than we did when our abolitionist movement began, of the great “Woman Question” in all its various phases and developments. I never myself viewed this question as fundamentally any more a woman’s question than it is a man’s. The legislation we opposed secured the enslavement of women and the increased immorality of men; and history and experience alike teach us that these two results are never separated. Slavery and License lead to degradation, political ruin, and intellectual decay, and therefore it was that we held that this legislation and the opposition to it were questions for the whole nation at large.

We arose—we women as well as men—in defence of the grand old principles which happily have prevailed and constantly been revived in the Constitution and Government of our country since very early times until recently. It is to those principles, and to the successive noble struggles for their preservation, that England owes, in a large measure, her greatness; if indeed we may venture to use that word. Those principles, I have ever believed, and continue to believe, have their foundation in the Ethics of Christ; and therefore it is that they have endured so long, and prevailed against repeated and violent attacks. But they are being lost to us now. Slowly, gradually, they have ceased to be respected. They do not readily flow on alongside of all the Democratic tendencies of our times. All political parties alike, it seems to me, now more or less regard those principles as out of date, old-fashioned, impossible as a basis of action. My heart is sorrowful as I record this conviction. I recall the past of our country’s history, with its loyalty and love for those great constitutional principles for which patriots have suffered and died, and for which we, in our struggle, were also ready to suffer and die. I contrast that loyalty and that love with the present prevailing loose notions concerning the worth of the individual, the sacredness of the human person, and of liberty. As I do so it seems to me that I am standing by the side of a bier, and looking on the _face of a dead friend_. If one writes a word concerning those principles now, there is scarcely a reader who does not turn over to another page, finding the subject dry and uninteresting.

It may be that, when present tendencies have developed into something like the fetichism of Socialistic State-Worship, with its attendant tyrannies and sufferings, there will be a reaction, and that men will be driven, in self-defence, to look back and remember the great moral and political truths, the sound and tried principles which have been lost sight of, and that by reviving respect for these, they will be able to plant them firmly once more even in the very heart of the Democracy of the future. But that time is not yet.

A very old-fashioned statesman, who lived more than a century ago, when urging his countrymen to retrace a false step, spoke the following words in Parliament: “If I had a doubt upon this matter, I would follow the example set us by the Reverend Bishops, with whom I believe it is a maxim, when any doubt in point of faith arises, to appeal at once to the great source and evidence of our religion—I mean the Bible. The English Constitution has its political Bible also, by which, if it be fairly consulted, every political question may and ought to be determined. Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, and the Petition of Rights, form the Code which I call the Bible of the English Constitution.” And so, in 1869 and the following years, seeing, as we did, a direct violation of the principles of just law in the enactments which enslaved the poorest and weakest in the supposed interests of a stronger and a less worthy portion of society, and fearing for the future of our country in consequence, we were driven to search the annals of our past history, to inquire into past crises of danger, and into the motives and character of the champions who fought the battles of Liberty. This we did with the keenness of search and singleness of purpose, with which, in an agony of spiritual danger, a well-nigh shipwrecked soul may search the Scriptures and the teachings of Christ, believing that in His Word he has Eternal Life.

It is recorded in Whitelock’s “Memorials” that in the reign of James I. Sir George Crooke obstinately opposed himself to certain corruptions in the Government, while others, though noble men also, wavered. The historian attributes this steadfastness to the influence of Crooke’s wife, Lady Crooke, who continually urged him on, and bade him not fear to do right; and the following words are added by the historian:—“It were well for the country if our daughters as well as our sons were taught and confirmed in the truth, _that public virtue is to the full as important as private morality_, for then we should add a mighty strength to the buttresses of our integrity.”

So far as I have been able to study history, I have never found that there was a strong, virtuous and free nation in which the women of that nation were not something more than mere appendages to men in domestic life. They were also strong for public duty, unwavering in principle, and courageous (in crises of danger) for the national defence. In contemplating the present and future of our nation, the dangers ahead, and its resources and means for regeneration, it is impossible not to reckon among the latter the development in the last quarter of a century of a multitude of truly patriotic women, none the less devoted wives and mothers, and an adornment to their homes, because yearning over their country, and far-sighted, not only for _her_ vital interests, but for those of the other nations of the world.

The danger which threatened us, and the tyranny which had invaded us at the time of which I am writing, were of a twofold nature; a moral as well as a very grave political danger. The former, most good men and women instinctively acknowledged. To fully appreciate the latter required probably more instruction in the laws and constitution of our country than most women then possessed; and we were driven continually to urge our fellow-workers to strengthen themselves for the warfare in which we were engaged by trying to master this part of the subject by grave reading and thought. I read again, at that time, attentively, the accounts of the great struggles of our forefathers on behalf of the freedom and purity of our English Commonwealth, and was, more than ever, deeply impressed with the fact that in striving for freedom they ever strove for virtue also, and consciously so, for they knew the vital character of the work they had in hand, and were, for the most part, men who feared God and maintained the purity of private and domestic life, while they defended even unto death, in many cases, the great principles of justice upon which our Constitution was based. And their women stood up side by side with them. Without pausing to wrangle, as has been too much the case in modern times, over the idle controversy concerning woman’s “sphere,” they simply came forward at the call of duty, armed with some knowledge of law and history, as well as of Christian truth, and were able calmly and clearly to meet and confute all who endeavoured to violate the liberty of the subject in his person or his conscience.

There seemed to have been a retrogression in the public spirit of women since that time. But, happily, in God’s Providence, in the early years of our Crusade, the introduction of a great public tyranny again forced upon women equally with men the solemn question, “Where ought human legislation to terminate? At what point are we called on to decide, shall we obey God or man?”

It was clear to us from the first that the character and conduct of our opposition to the immorality and illegality of the vice-regulating laws must be decided by the depth and sincerity of the moral and religious convictions of the mass of our people. It was granted us, in response to the deep desire of our hearts, to perceive already at that time an approaching revival of moral faith and spiritual energy, simultaneously with the rapid advance of a materialism culminating in this frightful expression of medical domination and legislative tyranny. The opposing principles were about to meet in a great encounter; it seemed as if God’s voice was calling us to gird on our armour, to watch and be sober. His eye was upon us. We became aware that from the first His hand had been guiding our action in connection with all this movement, and controlling the adverse elements; and we were about to learn more clearly than ever before the force of a spiritual and moral revival as an agency for political reform.

Our struggle, however, though bearing many points of resemblance to former struggles in defence of freedom and virtue, stood almost alone in one striking characteristic, viz., that in our case we had to combat distinctly a double violation of principles. Formerly, encroachments on our liberties did not always involve a direct outrage on public morality and the sanctities of family life. Tyrannical aggressions in former days were indeed ever the fruit of evil principles or passions in one form or another, of the lust of power or of conquest, the greed of gain, or personal indulgence or revenge; but the effect of such aggressions was not so directly to demoralise the people. The immorality was, more or less, confined to the tyrant and his immediate agents. But the legislation which we had risen up to oppose sowed broadcast the seeds of an immoral principle. It was a legislation which not only proceeded from an evil source, but forced evil upon the people.

By the expression of the above thoughts I am anxious to make my readers clearly understand that our early conflict in this cause was—at least for myself and the considerable group of firm and enlightened women with whom I had the happiness to work—much less of a simple woman’s war against man’s injustice, than it is often supposed to have been. It was wider than that. It was as a citizen of a free country first, and as a woman secondly, that I felt impelled to come forward in defence of the right. At the same time, the fact that this new legislation _directly_ and shamefully attacked the dignity and liberties of women, became a powerful means in God’s Providence of awakening a deeper sympathy amongst favoured women for their poorer and less fortunate sisters than had probably ever been felt before. It consolidated the women of our country, and gradually of the world, by the infliction on them of a double wrong, an outrage on free citizenship, and an outrage on the sacred rights of womanhood. It helped to conjure up also a great army of good and honourable men through the length and breadth of the land, who, in taking up the cause of the deeply injured class, soon became aware that they were fighting also for themselves, their own liberties, and their own honour.

Thus the peculiar horror and audacity of this legislative movement for the creation of a slave class of women for the supposed benefit of licentious men forced women into a new position. Many, who were formerly timid or bound by conventional ideas to a prescribed sphere of action, faced right round upon the men whose materialism had been embodied in such a ghastly form, and upon the Government which had set its seal upon that iniquity; and so, long before we had approached near to attaining to any political equality with men, a new light was brought by the force of our righteous wrath and aroused sense of justice into the judgment of Society and the Councils of Nations, which encouraged us to hope that we should be able to hand down to our successors a regenerated public spirit concerning the most vital questions of human life, upon which alone, and not upon any expert or opportunist handling of them, the hopes of the future must rest.

My cousin, Charles Birrel, wrote to me at that time as follows:—“You and your companion women have struck a note for which the ages have been waiting, and which even the Church itself, in its organised forms, has never yet intoned.”

The year 1873 was not marked by any great event bearing upon our Cause in Parliament or in the country. But, on the other hand, it was marked by an accelerated movement generally on behalf of our principles in every part of the United Kingdom. The seed was abundantly sown during this year which was destined to bear a rich harvest later. At the end of this year there existed some dozen different societies in the United Kingdom working in accord towards the one object, and having committees and correspondents in more than six hundred towns.

First, there was the National Association, which moved its central offices, about this time, nearer to the House of Commons, and which continued to carry on the most active propaganda throughout the Kingdom, and at the same time to bring strong pressure to bear upon Parliament, and to watch every move of our opponents. Secondly, there was the Ladies’ National Association, followed by the Northern Counties League, the Midland Counties Electoral Union, the North Eastern Association, the Scottish National Association, the Edinburgh and Glasgow Ladies’ Committees, the Dublin Branch of the National Association, the Cork Branch and Belfast Branch of the same, and of the Ladies’ National Association; and, lastly, but not less important than any of the others, was the Friends’ Association, consisting of a number of the leading members of the Society of Friends throughout the Kingdom, with the late Mr. Edward Backhouse as President. I recall some of the most prominent and honoured names in this Association, which gave to our cause from the first the weight of those qualities which seem almost peculiar to that body of Christians—great determination and calmness combined; all the fighting qualities in the highest degree, together with a gentleness of manner and procedure which wins opponents and softens the asperities of conflict. Besides Mr. Edward Backhouse, we had the help and inspiration for many years of the late Mr. George Gillett and Mr. Frederic Wheeler. Many ladies, in fact I may say all the prominent ladies of the Society of Friends, came forward in our work, and those who were less prominent joined heartily and usefully in the rank and file.

This year was also marked by the fact that several other movements were inaugurated which resulted in very important reforms. These movements were begun and carried through by groups of the very same persons who had risen up against the Regulation of vice. The vitality of our Crusade appeared—if I may say so—to cause it to break through the boundaries of its own particular channel, and to create and fructify many movements and reforms of a collateral character. We felt that it was necessary, while combating the State Regulation of vice, and forcing our Government to retrace the false step it had taken, also to work against all those disabilities and injustices which affect the interests of women. Thus a Society was formed, of whom the great mover and promoter was Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy, for obtaining for the poorer class of married women the right to the possession of wages earned by themselves, and which developed into the Married Women’s Property Act. Another reform, which we aimed at and attained, and in which Mrs. Elmy also took a prominent part, was the reform of the Mutiny Act. This Act released soldiers, both married and single, from all responsibility in regard to their children, legitimate or illegitimate. This we felt to be a grave injustice, and it was confessed on all sides to be fruitful of much mischief and misery.

Perhaps the most important of the Societies formed at this time was the Association for the Defence of Personal Rights, which embraced a number of points bearing directly upon the interests of women, and aimed at the destruction of many abuses which tended directly or indirectly to foster the great evil of prostitution.

I do not here mention the Women’s Suffrage Movement, which took its rise before our Abolitionist Crusade began, and has continued to pursue its own distinct and separate aim unceasingly throughout the years which followed up to the present time, receiving an additional impulse, however, from the enactment of the injustice which the Abolitionists were banded together to overthrow, and from every other enactment which attacked or ignored the interests of one-half of the human race.

I cannot, without departing from the immediate subject of my Reminiscences, enter into the details of these or other movements which were carried on simultaneously with our central one, and only mention them in passing.

In this year an immense number of petitions were sent to Parliament, and also Memorials to individual members of the Government and the House. The working population of the country began to increase their activities, which resulted somewhat later in the formation of the Working Men’s League for Repeal, beginning with a list of names of 50,000 working men, who enrolled themselves as members in a very brief time, and of which Mr. Edmond Jones, a working man of Liverpool, was the indefatigable and able President for a number of years.

In the autumn of 1872 an opportunity again arose, through an election at Pontefract, of reminding the Government once more that the claims of the Abolitionists could not safely be ignored. The Right Hon. H. Childers was obliged, by certain changes in the Ministry, to seek re-election. He had been first Lord of the Admiralty, and in that office it had fallen to his lot to administer the obnoxious regulations in connection with our Naval Stations. Several orders had been issued from the Admiralty during his term of office concerning the administration of the system at Plymouth and Portsmouth—orders which had shocked the moral sense of many persons who had not previously been able to see clearly through the conventional wording of the Law itself, the iniquity of the principles on which it was based.

Personally, however, Mr. Childers never seemed to me a very devoted adherent of the evil system. His advocacy of it appeared rather to express a confused comprehension of the matter than perverse moral obliquity. His official responsibility, however, made it impossible for our party to allow him to be re-elected without question or opposition. We did not hope to secure his rejection as a Parliamentary candidate. All we aimed at was the arousing again of the attention of the Government to a sense of the importance of our demands. A certain number of us, therefore, went to Pontefract.

On the first day of his canvass, Mr. Childers having engaged the Town Hall at Knottingley, to address the electors there at nine o’clock on the evening of the 13th August, the Abolitionists, wishing to have the first word, secured the same Hall for seven o’clock, agreeing to move out in time to leave the building clear for their opponents. Then Mr. Childers’ party attempted to checkmate them by announcing that he would address the electors at a much earlier hour, and from the windows of the Buck Inn instead of the Town Hall. This enabled us to be present, and to hear what Mr. Childers had to say. He made the customary excuses concerning the delicacy of the subject, and asked those who desired it to be dropped to hold up their hands. Mr. H. J. Wilson here enquired whether he, as a non-elector (for Pontefract), might ask a question, and the reply from the window was, “No! you are not an elector, you are not wanted.” Groans followed this answer, and a hubbub ensued. Mr. Wilson would have been roughly handled had not a body of working men placed themselves on each side of him, saying, “Stand still; don’t move an inch; you shall be heard; ask your questions; we want to hear the answers.” During this time Mr. Childers’ chairman, carried away with passion, was trying to reach Mr. Wilson’s head in order to castigate him with his umbrella. The crowd swayed backwards and forwards, and Mr. Wilson stood firm, with a smile upon his face. Some questions were asked from the crowd, and not at all satisfactorily answered by Mr. Childers.

Suddenly a voice shouted, “To the Town Hall!” (for our meeting). The cry was taken up, and the crowd started in that direction. With some other ladies I had been watching the scene from a window, when several gentlemen came up to us, and proposed to escort us to the Town Hall by way of a quiet back street. Thereupon some of the working men cried out, “No; never go down by a back way. Come along through the middle of the crowd, and before their windows; we will protect you.” Our progress to the Town Hall was thus converted into a sort of triumphal procession, Mr. Wilson walking first, with the Blue Book of the Royal Commission under his arm, attended by Mr. Edmondson and others, and loudly cheered by the crowd of men and women in whose midst they moved; while Mr. Childers and his friends looked with perplexed faces from the windows of the Buck Inn upon their retreating audience, which had gone wholly over to the opposition. It was not an encouraging scene for a Parliamentary candidate.

One of Mr. Childers’ friends had, however, hurried to the Town Hall, and, reaching the platform before we arrived, offered himself as chairman. Mr. Wilson proposed another chairman, and a new disturbance arose, which lasted for about half an hour. Eventually, however, Mr. Wilson and others were heard with much attention and applause.

Mr. Childers’ party retorted by attacking and dispersing a meeting of women the following day. We had arranged to hold this meeting of women in the afternoon, when Mr. Childers was again to address a large concourse from the window of a house. We had decided to hold our meeting at the same hour, thinking we should be unmolested. We had been obliged to go all over the town before we found anyone bold enough to grant us a place to meet in. At last we found a large hay-loft over an empty room on the outskirts of the town. We could only ascend to it by means of a kind of ladder, leading through a trap-door in the floor. However, the place was large enough to hold a good meeting, and was soon filled. Mr. Stuart had run on in advance and paid for the room in his own name, and had again looked in to see that all was right. He found the floor strewn with cayenne pepper in order to make it impossible for us to speak, and there were some bundles of straw in the empty room below. He got a poor woman to help him, and with bucket of water they managed to drench the floor and sweep together the cayenne pepper. Still, when we arrived, it was very unpleasant for eyes and throat. We began our meeting with prayer, and the women were listening to our words with increasing determination never to forsake the good cause, when a smell of burning was perceived, smoke began to curl up through the floor, and a threatening noise was heard below at the door. The bundles of straw beneath had been set on fire, and the smoke much annoyed us. Then, to our horror, looking down the room to the trap-door entrance, we saw appearing head after head of men with countenances full of fury; man after man came in, until they crowded the place. There was no possible exit for us, the windows being too high above the ground, and we women were gathered into one end of the room like a flock of sheep surrounded by wolves. Few of these men, we learned, were Yorkshire people; they were led on by two persons whose _dress_ was that of gentlemen.

It is difficult to describe in words what followed. It was a time which required strong faith and calm courage. Mrs. Wilson and I stood in front of the company of women, side by side. She whispered in my ear, “Now is the time to trust in God; do not let us fear”; and a comforting sense of the Divine presence came to us both. It was not personal violence that we feared so much as the mental pain inflicted by the rage, profanity and obscenity of the men, of their words and their threats. Their language was hideous. They shook their fists in our faces, with volleys of oaths. This continued for some time, and we had no defence or means of escape. Their chief rage was directed against Mrs. Wilson and me. We understood by their language that certain among them had a personal and vested interest in the evil thing we were opposing. It was clear that they understood that “their craft was in danger.” The new teaching and revolt of women had stirred up the very depths of hell. We said nothing, for our voices could not have been heard. We simply stood shoulder to shoulder—Mrs. Wilson and I—and waited and endured; and it seemed all the time as if some strong angel were present; for when these men’s hands were literally upon us, they were held back by an unseen power. There was among our audience a young Yorkshire woman, strong and stalwart, with bare muscular arms, and a shawl over her head. She dashed forward, fought her way through the crowd of men, and, running as fast as she could, she found Mr. Stuart on the outskirts of Mr. Childers’ meeting, and cried to him, “Come! Run! They are killing the ladies.” He did run, and came up the ladder stairs into the midst of the crowd. As soon, however, as they perceived that he was our defender, they turned upon him. A strong man seized him in his arms; another opened the window; and they were apparently about to throw him headlong out. Some of us ran forward between him and the window, thus just giving him time to slip from between the man’s arms on to the floor, and glide away to the side where we were. He then asked to be allowed to say a few words to them, and, with good temper and coolness, he argued that he had taken the room, that it was his, and if they would kindly let the ladies go he would hear what they had to say. A fierce argument ensued. Meanwhile stones were thrown into the window, and broken glass flew across the room. While all this was going on (it seemed to us like hours of horrible endurance), hope came at last, in the shape of two or three helmeted policemen, whose heads appeared one by one through the trap-door. “Now,” we thought, “we are safe!” _But no!_ These were Metropolitans who had come from London for the occasion of the election; they simply looked at the scene with a cynical smile, and left the place without an attempt to defend us. My heart grew sick as I saw them disappear. Our case seemed now to become desperate. Mrs. Wilson and I whispered to each other in the midst of the din, “Let us ask God to help us, and then make a rush for the entrance.” Two or three working women placed themselves in front of us, and we pushed our way, I scarcely know how, to the stairs. It was only myself and one or two other ladies that the men really cared to insult and terrify, so if we could get away we felt sure the rest would be safe. I made a dash forward, and took one leap from the trap-door to the ground-floor below. Being light, I came down safely. I found Mrs. Wilson with me very soon in the street. Once in the open street, these cowards did not dare to offer us violence. We went straight to our own hotel, and there we had a magnificent women’s meeting. Such a revulsion of feeling came over the inhabitants of Pontefract when they heard of this disgraceful scene that they flocked to hear us, many of the women weeping. We were advised to turn the lights low, and close the windows, on account of the mob; but the hotel was literally crowded with women, and we scarcely needed to speak; events had spoken for us, and all honest hearts were won.

On the day before the voting day we held a serious consultation of friends in our hotel, and agreed to work all that day and night, and leave the town early in the morning, before the polling began; as after that we could be of no further use. We drew up a last appeal to the electors of Pontefract, and had it printed quickly. The appeal was short, and printed in large type. When night came, the gentlemen, about half a dozen in number, obtained a plan of the town, and mapped out their operations, each taking a certain district with the intention of going to every house, and pushing this appeal under the doors, so that it might catch the eye of every householder first thing in the morning. It was already too late to secure its delivery in time by the post. The appeal was as follows:—

“ELECTORS OF PONTEFRACT.

“Pause, before you exercise your solemn trust, to consider whether the man can be worthy of your support who, for eight years, has been deeply implicated in the immoral, cruel, and treacherous policy embodied in the Acts we oppose, and in the Government Bill of 1872, which proposed to extend the principle of these Acts to the whole country.

“If you vote for Mr. Childers you endorse the sentiment that a holy life is impossible for unmarried men, and that women must be provided for them by the State, and sacrificed, both body and soul, to their lust—a sentiment which blasphemes God, insults manhood, and destroys both men and women, body and soul.

“As you will have to answer at God’s judgment bar, will you uphold the man and the Government who would thus demoralise and ruin the nation?

“If you are Liberals, save your party by forcing the present Cabinet from their suicidal policy.”

The night was fine and calm, and the moon shone down upon the quiet streets. The citizens seemed all to have retired early to rest after the heat and excitement of the day. I was sitting at my open window in the silence, and watched one after another of our scouts pass out of the hotel door and quietly glide away each to his respective district, carrying packets of our appeal to slip under the doors of the houses. When they had all disappeared, a solitary figure passed beneath my window, and a man paused, looking up. It was a member of the Town’s Police. In a low but distinct voice he begged my pardon for addressing me, and then went on to express his sympathy and that of his fellow policemen in regard to the treatment we had received from the mob of assailants at our women’s meeting and from the members of the Metropolitan Police. He spoke indignantly of the latter, and begged me to believe that had the Pontefract Police known of our situation they would have acted very differently towards us women, even if our cause had not been so just and good a cause. I felt grateful for these furtive words of kindness spoken in the silent night.

After several hours, and towards dawn, our friends began to return and quietly re-enter the hotel. Mr. Stuart had had some adventures. His district of action included an old Church and graveyard. The moon had set, and he, missing his way, wandered into this dark cemetery. After stumbling about for some time over the crowded graves, with difficulty he found an exit and regained the street.

We left the town betimes the next morning. The result of the voting was such as to prove to the Government that we Abolitionists were on the alert and determined, and the incidents of the Election contributed to open the eyes of Mr. Childers himself to the true nature of the question at issue, for he became later a convert to our principles.

The following letter was written to me after the Election by a working man of Leeds. He had gone over to Pontefract from Leeds after his day’s work was done, solely for the pleasure of aiding our efforts by the distribution of papers and leaflets, though well aware that, in order to accomplish his purpose without failing in his duties on the following day, he would be obliged to perform the journey home (a distance of nearly twenty miles) on foot.

I say nothing of the self-sacrifice required to undertake such fatigue after the labours of the day. We were well used to such proofs of devotion on the part of our working-class supporters, and we knew that it brought with it its own reward:—

“MADAM,—I venture to give you a short outline of my proceedings. When passing down Bridge Street, Pontefract, with the bundles under my arm of papers which I got from Mr. Edmondson, they were noticed by people in the streets, and more than one called after me, saying that if I went to Knottingley with them I should be thrown into the river. An incident occurred whereby I was on the brink of being torn to pieces. In distributing papers I spared neither distance nor persons—men or women—and after going the rounds of Ferrybridge and Knottingley, I called at an Inn. I got permission from the landlord to distribute in his house. I went round the room with the _white_ papers first, and so far all was well; but I no sooner commenced with the red bills (Mr. Childers’ colours) than the whole company rose up and surrounded me for the purpose of demolishing me and the few bills I had left. The uproar brought to my rescue the landlord and landlady, who remonstrated with their customers, saying, ‘Fair play amongst Englishmen! one dog, one bone!’ etc., during which I mounted upon a stool, and at the top of my voice shouted out that, with their permission, I would be glad to tell who and what I was, and would be happy to answer any question anyone liked to put to me at the close of my observations.

“In addition to this uproarious meeting, I held two open-air meetings, and have promised to send books and papers, etc., to certain addresses which I took down. My thoughts were now directed towards home. To say I was _tired_, to start with, is to give but a faint idea of my condition; it was a case of _must be_; therefore I cheerfully accepted the task, and, walking on through the night, I arrived home at 4.30 a.m., suffering more from want of food than the distance, for I could not get anything before I left, as everything was locked up. The road to Leeds I knew not; so, to get over the difficulty, when I came to finger-posts, I lighted matches and paper to read them by. The silence of my journey was only broken occasionally by the fluttering of game birds, or the sudden dart of a hare across my path. For a part of the time it was extremely foggy and dewy, so much so as to completely saturate my clothes, as though I had really been dipped in the river at Knottingley. I was a little drowsy during the forenoon, took a good sharp four-mile walk in the evening, and am now glad to say that I never was better in my life; and, if necessary, I am fully prepared to accept the same amount of pleasure again in endeavouring to rid my country of these Satanic Acts.”

In the winter of this year the annual meeting of the Trades Union Congress was held in Leeds. A Conference and a Public Meeting of our Associations were arranged to take place simultaneously. Prominent members of the Northern Counties League (Abolitionist) attended. My husband and I were there. We met in friendly conference, and by arrangement, the leaders of the working men, who were present in considerable numbers. There were Joseph Arch, Henry Broadhurst, George Howell, Mr. Pickard of Wigan, Mr. Banks of Newark, etc.; several of these afterwards were elected members of Parliament, and their names are held in honour for their services rendered to the cause of labour. It is needless to say that their sympathies were wholly with us. At the public meeting in the evening the speeches made by some of these men were weighty and pathetic. I was most struck by that of Joseph Arch; he was followed by my husband, who expressed his own and my deep sympathy with the daughters of the working classes and the poor, from whose ranks so many of the victims of the social evil are drawn.