I was promptly threatened with an action for libel, but nothing came of it; it was easier to strike at the girls, and a few days later Fleet Street was enlivened by the irruption of a crowd of match-girls, demanding Annie Besant.  I couldn’t speechify to match-girls in Fleet Street, so asked that a deputation should come and explain what they wanted.  Up came three women and told their story:  they had been asked to sign a paper certifying that they were well treated and contented, and that my statements were untrue; they refused.  “You had spoke up for us,” explained one, “and we weren’t going back on you.”  A girl, pitched on as their leader, was threatened with dismissal; she stood firm; next day she was discharged for some trifle, and they all threw down their work, some 1,400 of them, and then a crowd of them started off to me to ask what to do next.  If we ever worked in our lives, Herbert Burrows and I worked for the next fortnight.  And a pretty hubbub we created; we asked for money, and it came pouring in; we registered the girls to receive strike pay, wrote articles, roused the clubs, held public meetings, got Mr. Bradlaugh to ask questions in Parliament, stirred up constituencies in which shareholders were members, till the whole country rang with the struggle.  Mr. Frederick Charrington lent us a hall for registration, Mr. Sidney Webb and others moved the National Liberal Club to action; we led a procession of the girls to the House of Commons, and interviewed, with a deputation of them, Members of Parliament who cross-questioned them.  The girls behaved splendidly, stuck together, kept brave and bright all through.  Mr. Hobart of the Social Democratic Federation, Messrs. Shaw, Bland, and Oliver, and Headlam of the Fabian Society, Miss Clementina Black, and many another helped in the heavy work.  The London Trades Council finally consented to act as arbitrators and a satisfactory settlement was arrived at; the girls went in to work, fines and deductions were abolished, better wages paid; the Match-makers’ Union was established, still the strongest woman’s Trades Union in England, and for years I acted as secretary, till, under press of other duties, I resigned, and my work was given by the girls to Mrs. Thornton Smith; Herbert Burrows became, and still is, the treasurer.  For a time there was friction between the Company and the Union, but it gradually disappeared under the influence of common sense on both sides, and we have found the manager ready to consider any just grievance and to endeavour to remove it, while the Company have been liberal supporters of the Working Women’s Club at Bow, founded by H.P.  Blavatsky.

[Illustration:  STRIKE COMMITTEE OF THE MATCHMAKERS’ UNION.]

The worst suffering of all was among the box-makers, thrown out of work by the strike, and they were hard to reach.  Twopence-farthing per gross of boxes, and buy your own string and paste, is not wealth, but when the work went more rapid starvation came.  Oh, those trudges through the lanes and alleys round Bethnal Green Junction late at night, when our day’s work was over; children lying about on shavings, rags, anything; famine looking out of baby faces, out of women’s eyes, out of the tremulous hands of men.  Heart grew sick and eyes dim, and ever louder sounded the question, “Where is the cure for sorrow, what the way of rescue for the world?”