them why
they work, and tell them we are not going to harm them at all--only to
speak about our work.'

"I moved toward them to say this to them. Then the tall man struck Anna
Lunska in the breast so hard, he nearly knocked her down. She couldn't
get her breath. And I went to a policeman standing right there and said,
'Why do you not arrest this man for striking my friend? Why do you let
him do it? Look at her. She cannot speak; she is crying. She did nothing
at all,' Then he arrested the man; and he said, 'But you must come, too,
to make a charge against him.' The tall Italian called a man out of the
factory, and went with me and Anna Lunska and the three girls to the
court."

But when Natalya and Anna reached the court, and had made their charge
against the tall Italian, to their bewilderment not only he, but they,
too, were conducted downstairs to the cells. He had charged them with
attacking the girls he was escorting into the factory.

"They made me go into a cell," said Natalya, "and suddenly they locked us
in. Then I was frightened, and I said to the policeman there, 'Why do you
do this? I have done nothing at all. The man struck my friend. I must
send for somebody.'

"He said, 'You cannot send for any one at all. You are a prisoner.'

"We cried then. We were frightened. We did not know what to do.

"After about an hour and a half he came and said some one was asking for
us. We looked out. It was Miss Violet Pike. A boy I knew had seen us go
into the prison with the Italian, and not come out, and so he thought
something was wrong and he had gone to the League and told them.

"So Miss Pike had come from the League; and she bailed us out; and she
came back with us on the next day for our trial."

On the next morning the case against the tall Italian was rapidly
examined, and the Italian discharged. He was then summoned back in
rebuttal, and Natalya and Anna's case was called. Four witnesses, one of
them being the proprietor of the factory, were produced against them, and
stated that Natalya and Anna had struck one of the girls the Italian was
escorting. At the close of the case against Natalya and Anna, Judge
Cornell said:[17] "I find the girls guilty. It would be perfectly futile
for me to fine them. Some charitable women would pay their fines or they
could get a bond. I am going to commit them to the workhouse under the
Cumulative Sentence Act, and there they will have an opportunity of
thinking over wha