The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-05
THE SUFFRAGETTES
 IN LONDON SUFFER
Are Held Back by Police in
 Street
STUDENTS RAID THEM
One Woman Chains Herself to Tree. Police Unable to Get Her Loose, Uproot Tree and Take Both
 to the Police Station

l London, March 1.-The much advertised
 meeting of suffragettes in Parliament square tonight, to protest against she refusal of Premier Asquith to receive a deputaton, proved a fasco so far as con. cerned any sensational display of militant prowess and the fight which was predict ed by the organizers. About 50 women were arrested, but the damage done was l inconsiderable, compared with Fridays raid.
 | While the militant suffra gettes were vainy endeavoring to break through the cordon of the police roundabout Parlia- ment square, 200 medical students organ ized a raid on the suffragettes. Marching to the building occupied by the women's press in Charing Cross road, where there was big display of suffrage literature, they bombarded it with stones, smashing all the windows to an accompaniment of cheers from delighted spectators Another band, bent on retaliation, at tackled the International suffrage shop in Adams street, the strand, smashing a big | plate glass window and wrecling the 1 front of the building.
 
 baked in all attempts to hold a meeting through elaborate police precautions. Mounted police were stationed at short in- tervas along the main thoroughfaras, leading to parliament, while solid pha- lanxes of officers on foot lined the curbs.
 Long before the hour for the meeting to begin, a huge crowd filled Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and the adpoining streets. Notwithstanding the watchful- ness of the police, one suffragette suc- ceeded in smashing half a dozen windows in the government offices.
 A woman chained herself to tree In Whitehall and. unable to remove the chain, the police uprooted the tree with the suffragette still attached. and car rled both to the police station. The conditions of the streets gave ref erence to the waye the suffragettes had treated the city. Shops were closed and shuttered long before the closing time and others were closed and boarded. Even in remote districts banks and other stores were locked and shuttered, for London has learned that when snffra- gettes are on a rampage it is hard to tell where they will break loose. The most striking testimony to the fear they have caused was the action of Sir Edward Poynter, who announced that the exhibition of the old masters at the Royal academN WOulu De closed today, a. fortnight earlier than planned It was feared that the sufragettes might att tempt to damage the pictures.
 Rolled in their efforts to hold dem onstration a number of suffragettes or ganlzed window breaking expedition in Victoria street.
 London sufragettes resumed today early operations. A small band armed with hammers and stones went through the Knights Bridge and Brompton Road dis tricts in the west end of London, breaking platei glass windows of the big dry goods stores in that neighborhood.
 Owing to the disturbance being unex- pected the police on duty in the district were unable to handle the suffragettes who were distributed over a wide zone r The storekeepers and their staffs of em- ployes were compelled to do sentry duty ! fin front of their premises. but in many cases were unable to keep the women from doing damage.
 l A detachment of mounted police was the | first reinforcement to arrive. One of the | policemen was immediately drawn from | his horse by excited women. On one store | damage to the extent of S3O was done ! Many women were taken in custody. The windows of the Marquis of Crew, l and the lord chancellor's residences were smashed with hammers during the sui | fragettes' raid. Ellen Pitfield. the suf l fregette who attempted to set Ire to the
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