It was in the second decade of the Twentieth Century, after the Great Plague
had devastated England, that Hermann the Irascible, nicknamed also the Wise,
sat on the British throne. The Mortal Sickness had swept away the entire Royal
Family, unto the third and fourth generations, and thus it came to pass that
Hermann the Fourteenth of Saxe-Drachsen-Wachtelstein, who had stood thirtieth
in the order of succession, found himself one day ruler of the British
dominions within and beyond the seas. He was one of the unexpected things that
happen in politics, and he happened with great thoroughness. In many ways he
was the most progressive monarch who had sat on an important throne; before
people knew where they were, they were somewhere else. Even his Ministers,
progressive though they were by tradition, found it difficult to keep pace with
his legislative suggestions.
"As a matter of fact," admitted the Prime
Minister, "we are hampered by these votes-for-women creatures; they
disturb our meetings throughout the country, and they try to turn Downing
Street into a sort of political picnic-ground."
"They must be dealt with" said Hermann.
"Dealt with," said the Prime Minister;
"exactly, just so; but how?"
"I will draft you a Bill," said the King,
sitting down at his type-writing machine, "enacting that women shall vote
at all future elections. Shall vote, you observe; or, to put it plainer,
must. Voting will remain optional, as before, for male electors; but every
woman between the ages of twenty-one and seventy will be obliged to vote, not
only at elections for Parliament, county councils, district boards,
parish-councils, and municipalities, but for coroners, school inspectors,
churchwardens, curators of museums, sanitary authorities, police-court
interpreters, swimming-bath instructors, contractors, choir-masters, market
superintendents, art-school teachers, cathedral vergers, and other local
functionaries whose names I will add as they occur to me. All these offices
will become elective, and failure to vote at any election falling within her
area of residence will involve the female elector in a penalty of 10 pounds.
Absence, unsupported by an adequate medical certificate, will not be accepted
as an excuse. Pass this Bill through the two Houses of Parliament and bring it
to me for signature the day after tomorrow."
From the very outset the Compulsory Female Franchise
produced little or no elation even in circles which had been loudest in
demanding the vote. The bulk of the women of the country had been indifferent
or hostile to the franchise agitation, and the most fanatical Suffragettes
began to wonder what they had found so attractive in the prospect of putting
ballot-papers into a box. In the country districts the task of carrying out the
provisions of the new Act was irksome enough; in the towns and cities it became
an incubus. There seemed no end to the elections. Laundresses and seamstresses
had to hurry away from their work to vote, often for a candidate whose name
they hadn't heard before, and whom they selected at haphazard; female clerks
and waitresses got up extra early to get their voting done before starting off
to their places of business. Society women found their arrangements impeded and
upset by the continual necessity for attending the polling stations, and
week-end parties and summer holidays became gradually a masculine luxury. As
for Cairo and the Riviera, they were possible only for genuine invalids or
people of enormous wealth, for the accumulation of 10 pound fines during a
prolonged absence was a contingency that even ordinarily wealthy folk could
hardly afford to risk. It was not wonderful
that the female disfranchisement agitation became a formidable movement. The
No-Votes-for-Women League numbered its feminine adherents by the million; its
colours, citron and old Dutch-madder, were flaunted everywhere, and its battle
hymn, "We Don't Want to Vote," became a popular refrain. As the
Government showed no signs of being impressed by peaceful persuasion, more
violent methods came into vogue. Meetings were disturbed, Ministers were
mobbed, policemen were bitten, and ordinary prison fare rejected, and on the
eve of the anniversary of Trafalgar women bound themselves in tiers up the
entire length of the Nelson column so that its customary floral decoration had
to be abandoned. Still the Government obstinately adhered to its conviction
that women ought to have the vote.
Then, as a last resort, some woman wit hit upon an
expedient which it was strange that no one had thought of before. The Great
Weep was organized. Relays of women, ten thousand at a time, wept continuously
in the public places of the Metropolis. They wept in railway stations, in tubes
and omnibuses, in the National Gallery, at the Army and Navy Stores, in St.
James's Park, at ballad concerts, at Prince's and in the Burlington Arcade. The
hitherto unbroken success of the brilliant farcical comedy "Henry's
Rabbit" was imperilled by the presence of drearily weeping women in stalls
and circle and gallery, and one of the brightest divorce cases that had been
tried for many years was robbed of much of its sparkle by the lachrymose
behaviour of a section of the audience.
"What are we to do?" asked the Prime
Minister, whose cook had wept into all the breakfast dishes and whose nursemaid
had gone out, crying quietly and miserably, to take the children for a walk in
the Park.
"There is a time for everything," said the
King; "there is a time to yield. Pass a measure through the two Houses
depriving women of the right to vote, and bring it to me for the Royal assent
the day after tomorrow."
As the Minister withdrew, Hermann the Irascible, who
was also nicknamed the Wise, gave a profound chuckle.
"There are more ways of killing a cat than by
choking it with cream," he quoted, "but I'm not sure," he added
"that it's not the best way."
