in man were
fighting for the cause of all ill-governed, mal-administered,
swindled, exploited people of either sex. The mass of men, _in_ the
mass, is chivalrous. It admires pluck, patience, and persistency. So
the crowd instead of aiding the police to knock sense into the women
began to take sides with the buffeted, brutalized and bleeding
Suffragettes.

Fortunately before the real fighting began, and no doubt as a stroke
of policy on the part of some Police Inspector, Mrs. Pankhurst
convoying the two frail old ladies--Dr. Garret Anderson and Susan
Knipper-Totes--champions of the Vote when Woman Suffrage was outside
practical politics--had reached the steps of the Strangers' entrance
to the House of Commons. From this point of 'vantage a few of the
older leaders of the deputation were able to witness the four or
five hours' struggle in and around Parliament Square, the Abbey,
Parliament Street, Great George Street which made Black Friday one
of the note-worthy days in British history--though, _more nostro_,
it will be long before it is inserted in school books.

Here, while something like panic signalized the Legislative Chamber
and Cabinet ministers scurried in and out like flurried rabbits and
finally took refuge in their private rooms--here was fought out the
decisive battle between physical and moral force over the suffrage
question. The women were so _exaltees_ that they were ready to face
death for their cause. The police were so exasperated that they saw
red and some went mad with sex mania. It was a horrible spectacle in
detail. Men with foam on their moustaches were gripping women by the
breasts, tearing open their clothing, and proceeding to rabid
indecencies. Or, if not sex-mad, they twisted their arms, turned
back their thumbs to dislocation, rained blows with fists on pale
faces, covering them with blood. They tore out golden hair or thin
grey locks with equal disregard. Mounted police were summoned to
overawe the crowd, which by this time whether suffragist and female,
or neutral, non-committal and male, was giving the police on foot a
very nasty time. The four hundred and fifty women of the original
impulse had increased to several thousand. Dusk had long since
deepened into a night lit up with arc lamps and the golden radiance
of great gas-lamp clusters. Flares were lighted to enable the police
to see better what they were doing and who were their assailants.
But the women showed complete indifferenc