Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1913-04-01
(Special to The Herald.)

LONDON, April Mrs. Emmeline
7ankhurst. dauntless leader OF the mill
LIANT suffragettes and perhaps the best
known woman in England, today faced
the stern-visaged, sOmber gowned mag
istrates i'm Old Bailey. This time the oft
esprosecuted and much jailed chiefteness
of the shi-bazeukesses, as she has been
ribaldly dubbed by the crowd, faces IA
years Imprisonment.
She is charged with melting to NAL
icious destruction of property, and it IS
generally expeced that King George him
self is behind the prosecution. Mrs.
Pankhurst was arrested for alleged in
stigatiOn of the bomb plot that partly
wrecked the new country homo of Chan
cellOr of the EXchequer, David Lloyd
George, at Walton Heath and her arrest
came Immediately after Home Secretary
Reginald McKenna left a private audi
ence with the king.
The trial that began today marks a
crucial point in the battle for the ballot
waged by British women. On its outcome
depends their right of militancy. In de-
Gliding the fate of Mrs. Pankhurst, the
magistrates of Old Bailey indirectly will
decide whether the women who blew up
LLOYD Georges house. burned down the
country seat of Lady White, demolished
Kew Gardens and smashed innumerable
windows, were merely miscreants in the
ewes of the law. or were honorable revo-
lutionists fighting for their rights.
Old Bailey perhaps never saw q more
intense crowd than that which thronged
the historic old courtroom today to see
Mrs. Pankhurst tried.
If the suffragette is convicted it will
main evidence against her is her own
u%tteranccs at Cardiff, Wales. the day
after the Walter Heath explosion. In her
speech. Mrs. Pankhurst declared that
she would gladly assume all responsible
lily for the bomb. and the police of Car
diff, at the bequest of Home Secretary
McKenna. made q stenOgraphic copy of
Ms. P~ankhursts remaks.
The militant su~ffragettes of England
now are ION the map officially. Fearing
Quith abandoned the time honored re
ceptiOn to parliament members at the
recent opening of the new parliament,
and when that body convened a few days
ago, the houses Of parliament were sub
jected to a more rigid search and Wig
.l~,x -,,.pI tLa,, @I,,- HI .oo,, -. $500,
generations. Fear of suffragettes caused
this surveillance Cabinet ministers are
guarded i'll their offices, at home and on
the streets. "Something awful that
would "stagger humanity was the pro
mise of the militants for the new par
lament unless the government put
through another franchise reform bill
providing votes for women.
Apparently the London publis has
undergone a revulsiOn Of feeling on the
suffrage question. From the amusement
with which the people at first received
The suffrage activities because Of their
novelty, the feeling gradually changed
20 mere tolerance. But with the bomb in
Cidents. tolerance has become actual
hostility. At Hyde Park and Wimbledon
recently, the women had their clothes
torn from them. their hats torn off and
trampled on and some of the anti -suffra-
gists even spit in their faces.
Home Secretary Mckenna had caused
the cOunsellors to prepare several new
bills relating to the suffragetteS to be
introduced in this parliament. The home
office proposes to give the courts power
to punish the militants more drasticallv
than is possible under present laws
which contemplated no such outbursts as
have shattered the peace of the island.
The Home Secretaryhas conferred much
with King Gorge and it is supposed the
king and queen are suggesting many of
tie steps the government is taking to
combat the spirit of violence that has
been making England feel uneasy if not
fearful.