Friday, October 28, 2005

Lest We Forget #2

How jealously the reactionaries guard the status quo
(Remember, too, how 'reasonable', how 'scientific', are their arguments against change - at the time!)

A suffragette prisoner being force fed by prison authorities, Britain, 1912.

Mary Leigh was force-fed in September, 1909:
"On Saturday afternoon the wardress forced me onto the bed and two doctors came in. While I was held down a nasal tube was inserted. It is two yards long, with a funnel at the end; there is a glass junction in the middle to see if the liquid is passing. The end is put up the right and left nostril on alternative days. The sensation is most painful - the drums of the ears seem to be bursting and there is a horrible pain in the throat and the breast. The tube is pushed down 20 inches. I am on the bed pinned down by wardresses, one doctor holds the funnel end, and the other doctor forces the other end up the nostrils. The one holding the funnel end pours the liquid down - about a pint of milk... egg and milk is sometimes used."
Letter to The Times (10th October, 1909) signed by Kitty Marion, Constance Lytton and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence:
"We want to make it known that we shall carry on our protest in our prison cells. We shall put before the Government by means of the hunger-strike four alternatives: to release us in a few days; to inflict violence upon our bodies; to add death to the champions of our cause by leaving us to starve; or, and this is the best and only wise alternative, to give women the vote."
Source: Hunger Strikes.

1 Comments:

Blogger Liv said...

deCinabre, I think I love you. ;)

Thanks for the help with the "spam comments". I appreciate it.

12:38 AM  

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