Old Baggage

by Lissa Evans

and received the bottle full in the mouth.

‘But we still await parity. It was our most basic aim, and it’s not yet been achieved.

can’t say that I have ever “dug in” with any party,’ said Mattie. ‘My fight has always been for the right of women to be treated as equal citizens.’

‘The enemy hasn’t changed in the slightest – this country’s still run by stuffy old club-men who’ll be rubbing their hands together at the prospect of women voluntarily forgoing their vote for the sake of patriotism.’

On the many occasions I was arrested, I never once offered resistance and yet was treated like a dunghill cur, with nary a protest from the officers in charge as their men acted like hired thugs. I have seen the so-called upholders of justice, and I have realized that the word “justice” is simply and only that: a word.’

things from a different angle, as if they were on stilts; they didn’t realize how much easier it was for them to step over obstacles, or catch someone’s attention, or keep out of the mud. The best of them might think that they were looking at you eye to eye, but they never were, they were always peering down, watching you mop, as if mopping was the thing that made you what you were, the identifier, like spotting a white throat on a crow and knowing that meant it was really a rook.

‘I will say only that she was human. A most magnificent human, but possessed of human failings. And, in the end, she paid no heed to those who had followed her most loyally. Did you have anything to eat this morning?’

campanology,

‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘My name is Matilda Simpkin. I hope, over the next hour or so, to convey something of the history and methods of the militant suffragette movement .