Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 The Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act, commonly referred to as the Cat and Mouse Act, was an Act of Parliament passed in Britain under Herbert Henry Asquith's Liberal government in 1913. Some members of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU, commonly referred to as suffragettes) had been imprisoned for acts of vandalism in support of women's suffrage. In protest at being imprisoned some of the suffragettes undertook hunger strikes. The hunger strikers were then force-fed by the prison staff leading to a public outcry. The act was a response
The drunken mouse and the cat during the Middle Ages, appearing in the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and John Skelton, among others. The drunken mouse and the cat The story of the drunken mouse and the cat who rescued him was a joke that appeared in several mediaeval collections of stories. It is numbered 615 in the Perry Index as among those that were only recorded in the Middle Ages. A mouse falls into fermenting beer and cries for help. A passing cat offers to pull it out if it will give him a reward when asked. However, when the cat later becomes hungry, the mouse