We have received from Lady Constance Lytton, who was released from Walton Gaol, Liverpool, on Sunday, after serving the greater portion of a sentence of 14 days' imprisonment under the name of Jane Warton, a statement for publication, in the course of which she says:-
"In October of last year the Home Secretary stated in the House of Commons that I was released from Newcastle Prison, after 2 and a half days' hunger-strike, and without being subjected to forcible feeding, solely because I suffered from 'serious heart disease,' and he regarded the statement that my release had anything to do with rank or social position 'as a wilful and deliberate misrepresentation.' I admitted at the time that I had a slight chronic heart weakness, but various incidents of my trial and release in Newcastle proved unmistakably the gross partiality with which I was treated compared with other suffrage prisoners.
"Since then the refusal on the part of the Government to treat the women's question seriously has continued, and the ill-treatment of the suffragist prisoners has increased. Horrified at the cruelties practised on some of these, and more especially on two prisoners on remand in Walton Gaol, Liverpool, I took part in a protest meeting outside that prison on Friday, January 14. Having frequently experienced the futility of appealing for justice in any matter concerning the suffrage movement, this time I took the precaution of disguising myself, and, on the following day, under the name of Jane Warton, was sentenced, with the option of a fine, to 14 days' third division, with hard labour, charged with urging the crowd to follow me to the Governor's house, refusing to desist when called upon by the police, and with stone-throwing, though without damage. . .
"After a hunger-strike of nearly four days (89 hours) I was fed by force without my heart being tested or my pulse felt. I was fed twice a day through the mouth by means of the stomach tube (the mouth being forced and kept open by a gag) until my release on Sunday morning, January 23. The operation invariably induced vomiting. In spite of the first-hand accounts I had heard of this process, the reality surpassed all that I had anticipated-it was a living nightmare of pain, horror, and revolting degradation. The sensation is of being strangled, suffocated by the thrust-down of the large rubber tube, which arouses great irritation in the throat and nausea in the stomach. The anguish and effort of retching while the tube is forcibly pressed back into the stomach and the natural writhings of the body restrained defy description. There is also a feeling of complete helplessness, as of an animal in a trap, when the operators come into one's cell and set to work. . . . I think, while I live, I shall not forget the sensation with which I watched the changes of light and listened to the sounds that foretold the return of the visitors to my cell.
"The inability to conceal my great physical cowardice was one of my trials; I hope it gave a certain satisfaction to the operators. Except in the way of clenching my teeth I offered no resistance, and after the fourth or fifth time I succumbed to the pain of being forced by the steel gag and opened my jaws with a very brief protest. After the first time the doctor, as he left me, gave me a slap on the cheek, not violently, but apparently to express his contemptuous disapproval. I said to him the next day - 'Unless you consider it part of your duty, would you please not strike me when you have finished your odious job.' He gave no answer, but never repeated this probably half-unconscious insult. The second time the vomiting was more excessive than the first. . . . The doctor was angry, and left my cell hastily, saying - 'You did that on purpose; if you do it again tomorrow I shall feed you twice.' The next day I remonstrated with him. . . . I also begged that he would not press the tube so far down into my body. He treated these suggestions with contempt. . . . He, however, granted my request to sit up in a chair instead of lying flat on my back. This third time I vomited continuously. . . . The result seemed to surprise and slightly to alarm the doctor, and he called in his assistant to test my heart. After a brief and very superficial investigation it was pronounced quite sound and the pulse steady. . . . In Newcastle a specialist had been called in and my heart tested with elaborate paraphernalia for 10 to 15 minutes; but now the same heart belonged only to Jane Warton. From that time, however, the doctor's manner became more considerate and even kind, and I noticed a change in the way I was treated generally. . . .
"The morning after I had first been fed by force I protested by breaking the thick glass of the 'gas-box' between my cell and the passage. I expected, of course, to be put in handcuffs for this, as others had been for the breakage of much less valuable window-glass. The Governor, however, deferred my punishment to the judgment of the Visiting Magistrates, who again deferred the matter sine die. It will be interesting to see what steps are eventually taken against Jane Warton for this offence, a graver one than that for which two women are now serving several weeks of imprisonment, although they had already suffered prison punishment at the time. . ."
Miss Leslie Hall, who was sentenced to a month's imprisonment in connexion with the bottle-throwing incident at the time of Mr. Asquith's visit to Liverpool, was released from Walton Gaol yesterday and came to London in charge of a nurse.
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