Out-walking War

A great outcry arose from twenty platforms full of women in Hyde Park, London, last week, and a still greater whine of approbation surged from the lips of 100,000 ladies there assembled. The females, mostly shod in flat heeled shoes, had marched to outlaw war and many a one of them had tramped, Chauceresquely, across the length of England to contribute personally her mite to the splendid idea. There were miners' wives, actresses, professional women, society dames. . . .

Through the rain at the head of the petticoat parades rode equestriennes on white horses, attired in long blue mantles and three-cornered hats, while behind straggled the grim retainers. One delegation wore the regulation pilgrimage "jumper" with the word "Pax" and a dove of peace across the center of the back.

Among the equestriennes could have been seen blonde Mrs. Pethick-Lawrence, grand marshal of the crusade, onetime belle of the Weston-Super-Mare elite, later reclaimed for evangelical uplift among the fallen women of West London, later captured by gaolers for over-strenuous female Suffrage onslaughts, presently flying about speechmaking to the effect that

"The World is a Family Not a Barracks."

Then there would be masculine Maude Royden, famed pulpit female, who has a reputation among the timorous British Christians as a dangerous missionary of socialism and amidst the red-hot socialists as a tame and sentimental apostle of Christianity.

And gospeling from the platforms could have been heard Margaret Bondfield, leader of British working girls. Lady Astor is one of the supporters of the movement, but her Parliamentary duties prevented her from joining the marchers. On arriving in broiling Hyde Park, the processions were met by actors, dancers, children, who gave a symbolic pageant representing the coming of peace. The speeches delivered, the dancing over, a resolution was adopted urging the government to settle all disputes by arbitration. The lady pilgrims expect that law will, or, at least, "should take the place of war."