(I am reproducing here the growing comprehension of
the problem as it shaped in Vivie's mind, under the hat and
waistcoat of David Williams.)
Honoria, faithful to her old resolve, continued to devote the
greater part of the Two Thousand a year she had set aside for the
Woman's Cause to financing the new Suffrage movement; and
incidentally she brought grist to David's mill by recommending him
as Counsel to many women in distress, arrested Suffragists. In 1906,
1907 and 1908 he made himself increasingly famous by his pleadings
in court on behalf of women who with dauntless courage and at the
cost of much bodily pain and even at the risk of death had forcibly
called attention to this grave defect in the British polity, the
withholding of the ordinary rights of tax-paying citizens from adult
women.
Where the Suffragist was poor he asked no fee, or a small fee was
paid by some Suffragist Association. But he gained much renown over
his advocacy; he became quite a well-known personality outside as
well as inside the Law Courts and Police-stations by 1908. His
pleadings were sometimes so moving, so passionate that--_teste_
Mrs. Pankhurst--"burly policemen in court had tears trickling down
their faces" as he described the courage, the flawless private
lives, the selfless devotion to a noble cause of these women
agitating for the rights of their sex--rich and poor, old and young.
Pages:
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187