Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 was viewed as violating basic human rights, not only of the suffragettes but of other prisoners. The Act's nickname of "Cat and Mouse Act", referring to the way the government seemed to play with prisoners as a cat may with a captured mouse, underlined how the cruelty of repeated releases and re-imprisonments turned the suffragettes from targets of scorn to objects of sympathy. The Asquith government's implementation of the Act caused the militant WSPU and the suffragettes to perceive Asquith as the enemy — an enemy to be vanquished in what the organisation saw as an all-out war. A related
Cat and Mouse (Ralph Williams story) Cat and Mouse (Ralph Williams story) "Cat and Mouse" is a science fiction novelette by Ralph Williams. Originally published in the June 1959 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction", it was nominated for, but did not win, the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Short Fiction. The story is set in Alaska. Its main protagonist is Ed Brown, a trapper who has just begun a winter's stay in the wooded mountains. He soon discovers a "hole" into another world. At this point in the story, the reader has already been told about the hole and the other world. The other world, named