Society
women found their arrangements impeded and upset by the
continual necessity for attending the polling stations, and
week-end parties and summer holidays became gradually a
masculine luxury. As for Cairo and the Riviera, they were
possible only for genuine invalids or people of enormous
wealth, for the accumulation of
10 fines during a
prolonged absence was a contingency that even ordinarily
wealthy folk could hardly afford to risk.
It was not wonderful that the female disfranchisement
agitation became a formidable movement. The
No-Votes-for-Women League numbered its feminine adherents by
the million; its colours, citron and old Dutch-madder, were
flaunted everywhere, and its battle hymn, ``We Don't Want to
Vote,'' became a popular refrain. As the Government showed
no signs of being impressed by peaceful persuasion, more
violent methods came into vogue. Meetings were disturbed,
Ministers were mobbed, policemen were bitten, and ordinary
prison fare rejected, and on the eve of the anniversary of
Trafalgar women bound themselves in tiers up the entire
length of the Nelson column so that its customary floral
decoration had to be abandoned.
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