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- Popular name for the Prisoners, Temporary
- Discharge for Health, Act 1913; an attempt by
- the UK Liberal government under Herbert
- Asquith to reduce embarrassment caused by the
- incarceration of suffragettes accused of
- violent offences against property. When they
- embarked on hunger strikes, prison
- authorities introduced forced feeding, which
- proved humiliating and sometimes dangerous to
- the women. Following a public outcry, the
- hunger strikers were released on a licence
- that could be revoked without further trial.
- The government was accused of playing cat to
- suffragette mice by its adoption of powers of
- release and rearrest.
-