The Washington herald., 1914-11-01
tcopy4eht. ML,

meaning TOT IhoSc VINO
cared to study life little way beneath
its exterior crust
Among the well-dressed crowd OF
London's fashionable people swarmins
in Hyde Park between midday and I
O'Clock on Sunday a woman, whose
rags were only partially concealed by a
rusty black shawl, was seen suddenly
to reel and fall
She was picked up dead. Upon the
bosom of her threadbare gown were
pinned a few words of writing, which
afforded to the SNUG press of the coun-
Try an opportunity for many rhetorical
hourishes. They led, too, to other and
more serious things, for there were
those who accepted them as mes
sage.
These were the words, written very
correctly in faint but Struggling char
acters upon half sheet of coarse white
paper:
Il am thirty years old. I am going
to die. am tired out There is no
hope in this world for the poor. l have
done my best have husband and
four children My husband earns twen-
ty-one shillings week. / cannot feed
him, myself, and four children on twen-
ty-one shillings a week. l have tried.
MY children are thin and hungry.
My husband never smiles. He, too, is
losing his strength. myself am the
withered remnant of woman. / have
no hope l know that there is life,
but, for some reason, l am not asked
10 share in it. .. "
This morning, for once, go to see
the sunshine / go to see the other
women Perhaps / shall understand
what it is they have done to deserve
life and l have not done. And then
shall rest" ...
When the newspapers had finished
with their stories, and a satisfactory
fund had been raised for the children
of the dead woman, things began to
happen.
A millionaire employer of labor, who
had closed his yards and turned seven
teen hundred people into the streets be-
cause one of the commodities used by
him had reached a price which he de-
clared made his business Improbable,
was shot dead as he crossed the pave
ment from his house in Park Lane to
step into his motor-car. His murderer
:rrned out to be one of his unemployed
workpeople whose wife had gone on the
streets to find bread for her starving
children. The man defended himself
from the dock with a rough eloquence
which paralyzed even the law.
Then a leading daily paper published
a mysterious document which had been
dropped into its letter-box by an TN
known hand It was headed:
ITO THE PEOPLE OF England
There are millions who have been
waiting for a sign. Eleven days ago
a woman died in Hyde Park, and the
message found pinned to the rags which
covered her withered body has been
accepted as that sign. England is gov
erned by laws-laws ill-made by man,
for his kind. The old laws are hard to
break; the new laws are difficult to
frame. From our place in the wilder
ness we who send this message have |
spent many weary hours pondering over
the great subject-how and in what |
fashion shall we make heard the voice
of the sufferers?
"a short time ago hundreds of wo-
men, nourished in comfortable homes,
educated, civilized, apparently respect
able, called attention to a grievance
from which they imagined themselves
to be suffering by great and wsnton
destruction of property. Their griev-
ance is to ours as the fight of a candle
to the burning of the sun There are
those who have approved their methods. t
They have taught us lesson. Cause
and effect shall be ASSOCIATED in our
minds. Until you listen to US we will
kill, burn, and destroy. When the mo-
ment has come we will point to you the
way to freedom.
Tomorrow the King drives through
the city to the Mansion House. The
King tomorrow will be safe. But be-
tween Ludgate Bridge and St Paurs
Cathedral one of the horses drawing
his coach will be destroyed. Il
THE SILENT PEOPLE"
This document was scoffed at BY near
ly every one who read it Even the
editor of the paper was derided for
publishing an anonymous hoax. That
however, halfway up Ludsste
Hill, spectator was seen to break
through the little line and, taking a
deliberate aim, to shoot one of The
horses of the Kings coach through the
mead.
He was at once arrested-in fact he
made no effort to escape. He made no
reply to the charge and remained abso- 1
utely dumb, both at the time and subse-
luently. He was committed to prison
turing the Kings pleasure, fate TO ,