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
The Old Cat and the Young Mouse six years later, when the young composer was studying in Paris, and became his first work to be published. The Old Cat and the Young Mouse The Old Cat and the Young Mouse ("Le vieux chat et la jeune souris") is a late fable by Jean de la Fontaine (XII.5). Written towards the end of his life, its grim conclusion is that 'Youth thinks its every wish will gain success; Old age is pitiless.' La Fontaine prefaces his poem with a dedication to the young , who had asked the poet for a fable on a cat and mouse theme.