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 polities, 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 L10. 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 L10 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.”