The debate between Mr Hutchings and Mr Bradlaugh was finally arranged for the 4th and 5th February (1861). On his way to the hall on the first evening, my father received "one evidence of Christianity in the shape of a bag of flour;" this was, of course, intended to soil his clothes, but "fortunately it was flung with too great violence, and after crushing the side of another new hat from Mr Hipwell,[54] covered the pavement instead of myself. I shall need a special fund for hats," wrote Mr Bradlaugh, "if I visit Wigan often." On his return from the debate, although he was followed by a large crowd of men and boys, all hooting was quickly suppressed, and was, in fact, attempted only by a very few. On his first visit to Wigan he had "retired to rest, not only without friends to bid me good-night, but with many a score of loud-tongued, rough lads and men bidding me, in phraseology startling and effective, everything but so kindly a farewell;"[55] but during the three months which had elapsed since Mr Bradlaugh's earliest visit to this Lancashire mining town public feeling had considerably changed and modified; and in the evening, the house where he was staying "was crowded out," he tells us, "with rough but honest earnest men and women, who insisted, one and all, in gripping my hand in friendliness, and wishing me good speed in my work. The change was so great that a tear mounted to my eye despite myself." His was always the same sensitive nature; he was ever moved to the heart by a sign of true sympathy or real affection. Persecution found him stern and unflinching, hypocrisy found him severe and unforgiving, but kindness or affection, instantly touched the fountain of his gratitude and his tenderness.

Out of this debate, which contains nothing particularly noteworthy,[56] arose a lawsuit. The reporter, a person named Stephenson M. Struthers, after having sold "the transcript" to Mr Bradlaugh at 8d. per folio, sold a second copy of his notes to Mr William Heaton, on behalf of Mr Hutchings' Committee, for 3 guineas. This my father did not discover until he had used some of the copy, and paid Struthers £5 on account. He then refused to pay the balance (£11, 16s.), and for this the shorthand-writer sued him. Mr Bradlaugh expressed his willingness to pay for the labour involved in making a copy; but he objected to pay for the sole copy when he had not received that for which he had contracted. The suit came on in the Wigan County Court, before J. S. T. Greene, Esq., on April 11th (1861). After the case for the plaintiff was closed, Mr Bradlaugh entered the witness-box to be sworn—at that time the only form under which he could give evidence. Mr Mayhew (for the plaintiff), after some preamble as to not desiring to be offensive, asked "with regret" if Mr Bradlaugh believed "in the religious obligations of an oath?" Mr Bradlaugh objected to answer any question until he was sworn. The Judge would not allow the objection; and after a considerable interchange of opinion and question and answer between the Judge and Mr Bradlaugh, in which the latter explicitly stated his readiness to be sworn, he asked to be allowed to affirm. This the Judge refused to permit. And this is how the episode ended:—

The Judge, having thus taken advantage of his magisterial position to insult a defenceless man as well as to refuse his evidence, proceeded with consummate injustice to sum it up as an "undefended case," and gave a verdict for the plaintiff for the full amount. After the Case was over, Mr William Heaton wrote to Mr Bradlaugh denying a material point in Mr Struthers' sworn evidence as to what had occurred between them. Thus did the laws of Christian England treat an Atheist as outlaw, and in the name of justice deal out injustice in favour of a man who, as his fellow Christian stated, had spoken falsely under his oath in the witness-box.

Mr Hutchings himself felt the disgrace of this so keenly that he wrote expressing his desire to co-operate in a public movement in Wigan in favour of Sir John Trelawny's Affirmation Bill. "I do feel strongly," he said, "that you were most wrongfully and iniquitously deprived of the opportunity of defending your cause, and this I feel the more strongly that it was done in strict conformity with English law."

Two other polemical encounters arose directly out of the Wigan lectures; these were both held with the Rev. Woodville Woodman, a Swedenborgian divine. The first, at Wigan, upon the "Existence of God," continued over four nights; the second, upon the "Divine Revelation of the Bible," also a four nights' debate, was held at Ashton in the autumn of the same year.

Mr Bradlaugh held quite a number of theological discussions about this time. In addition to those I have already mentioned with the Rev. Brewin Grant, Dr Brindley, Dr Baylee, Mr Hutchings, and the Rev. Woodville Woodman, a controversial correspondence between himself and the Rev. Thomas Lawson, a Baptist minister of Bacup, arose out of some lectures delivered by Mr Bradlaugh in Newchurch in October 1860. It was originally intended to hold a set debate upon the subject "Has Man a Soul?" but no hall could be obtained in Bacup for the purposes of the discussion. The correspondence was therefore published in the National Reformer during the spring of the following year. Then a debate upon the credibility of the Gospels was arranged between Mr Bradlaugh and the Rev. J. H. Rutherford, and was held in Liverpool in October 1860; another upon "What does the Bible teach about God?" was held with Mr Mackie in Warrington in April 1861; and a few months later my father also debated for two nights at Birmingham with Mr Robert Mahalm, a representative of the Irish Church Mission in that town.

In the middle of July (1860) he was lecturing for the first time in Norwich. St Andrew's Hall was taken, and the proceeds of the lecture were to go to Garibaldi; but this was one of the places where religious prejudice was strong, and where therefore the receipts did not equal the expenditure. On the second evening Mr Bradlaugh delivered an open-air address at Chapel Field, when "yells, hisses, abuse, a little mud, and a few stones formed the chorus and finale of the entertainment." Nothing daunted, in September he went to Norwich again, and the orderly behaviour of his audience formed a marked contrast to their previous conduct. By November, when he once more visited Norwich, the Freethinkers there had found themselves strong enough to hire a commodious chapel for the winter months, substituting a piano for the communion table. From Norwich his steps turned naturally to Yarmouth, where he was much amused by hearing the town crier follow up his "Oyez! Oyez!" by the announcement that "the cel-e-bra-ted I-con-o-clast" had arrived.

Only a few weeks elapsed before Mr Bradlaugh again went to Norwich and Yarmouth. He went the week immediately before Christmas, and had an eight hours' journey to get there, with the driving snow coming through "the Eastern Counties Railway Company's patent [3rd class] ventilating carriages," which seemed constructed with the express object of making "perfectly clear to the unfortunate passengers the criminality of their poverty." This, his fourth visit to Norwich, was a great success, and the lectures at Yarmouth were also more favourably listened to. By January he found his audiences increasing at Norwich, and the interest perceptibly growing, but at Yarmouth he received a check. There had been much commotion in the local official circles at the repeated visits of the Atheist lecturer, and pressure was used on all sides, so that only a small sale room in a back street could be hired for the lectures. The room was soon overcrowded; Mr Bradlaugh had to be his own chairman, and on going home walked to the music of yells and hootings. This display of intolerance roused up some of the more thoughtful inhabitants, and the theatre was obtained for the following night, when, despite the necessarily brief notice, a large audience—including many ladies—assembled to hear the lecture. A Mr Fletcher was elected to the chair, the proceedings were orderly throughout, and Mr Bradlaugh walked home unmolested.

The matter, however, was not to end here. Both the Yarmouth clergy (or at least one Yarmouth clergyman, the Rev. E. Neville) and magistrates expressed their determination that the lectures must be put down, and so Mr Bradlaugh received information that proceedings were to be taken against him for blasphemy. The Norfolk News and Yarmouth Independent for March 23rd reported a meeting of magistrates at which the subject of "Iconoclast's" visits was under discussion, the letting of the theatre to him was severely commented upon, and the persons responsible for the letting held up to public odium. Not one of the nine or ten magistrates present could be found to say a word on behalf of the Atheist; and the speeches of the Mayor, Mr S. Nightingale, and one other of the magistrates, Mr Hammond, from which I quote, are typical of the attitude of the rest:—

The Mayor found an ardent supporter in Mr Hammond, who

In a leaderette the local journal commented strongly on the course proposed by the wise and learned Dogberries; and when Mr Bradlaugh placarded Yarmouth with an address to the magistrates accepting the gauntlet thus thrown down, and expressing his resolve to lecture within their jurisdiction, it spoke of the "spirited reply" which he had addressed to his would-be persecutors. The upshot of all this was that my father immediately determined to devote a special week to East Anglia, commencing with two nights at Yarmouth.

"On my arrival at Yarmouth," he wrote, "I found myself literally hunted from room to room. The theatre being closed against me, the Masonic Hall was taken, but the mayor personally waited upon the proprietor, and the 'screw' being put on I was also deprived of this room. I was determined not to be beaten, and therefore hired a large bleaching-ground in which to deliver an open-air address." There were present about 1000 persons, "including at least one magistrate and several police officers," and it may be noted as most significant that the action of the magistrates did not meet with popular favour, that the meeting concluded with cheers for Mr Bradlaugh and for the owner of the ground. On the following evening the audience was largely increased, and numbered at least 5000 persons, who were orderly and attentive throughout. Outside the meeting there was stone-throwing, principally by boys. One of the stones struck my mother, who, identifying the lad who threw it, threatened to give him into custody. At which the lad answered, "Oh, please, mum, you cannot; the police have told us to make all the noise, and throw as many stones as we can." This, we will hope, was a liberal interpretation of the police instructions, but at least it shows very strongly that the lads had reason to expect the police to look very leniently upon their escapades. The magisterial bluster ended in bluster, and the only result to Yarmouth from a Christian standpoint was a pamphlet against "Infidelity" written by a Charles Houchen, and whether that can be set down to the credit of Christianity we must leave it to the followers of that creed to judge. Mr Houchen said—

To this my father rejoined that "the whole amount of Iconoclast's receipts from Yarmouth has not equalled his payments for board, lodging, and printing in that eastern seaport; that he has journeyed to and fro at his own cost; and that if his object 'has been money, money,' he has suffered grievous disappointment, and this not because the audiences have been small, but because of that 'rarity of Christian charity' which shut him out of theatre and lecture-hall after each had been duly hired, and prompted policemen to connive at stone-throwing when directed against an Infidel lecturer."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DEVONPORT CASE, 1861.

In the early sixties the Freethinkers of Plymouth were a fairly active body; their hall, the "Free Institute," in Buckland Street, they owed to the liberality of one of their members, Mr Johns, and there were some tolerably energetic spirits to carry on the work. At that time Mr George J. Holyoake was a great favourite in the Western towns, and Mr Bradlaugh was fast winning his way. He was gaining public popularity and private friendships on all sides, when an incident occurred which brought out some of his most striking characteristics and rivetted some of these friendships with links of steel.

He had arranged to lecture at Plymouth for five days during the first week in December 1860. The first three and the last of these lectures were given in the Free Institute; but that for the Thursday was announced to be given in Devonport Park. At the appointed time a considerable number of people had assembled, and Mr Bradlaugh was just about to address them when he was accosted by the Superintendent of the Devonport Police, who stated that he was authorised by the Town Council to prevent such lectures, and "all such proceedings in a place created alone for the recreation of the public." Mr Bradlaugh pointed out that the Temperance advocates used the Park; why should not he? Mr Edwards, the Police Superintendent, not only refused to argue the matter, but said further that if Mr Bradlaugh persisted in his lecture he should use measures to eject him from the Park. There was a little more talk, during which Mr Bradlaugh reflected that he was by no means certain as to what were his rights in the Park; and in the end he decided not to lecture there that evening. To use his own words, he "submitted, but with a determination to do better at some future time." Mr John Williamson (now in Colorado), writing at the time, says: "On Monday, the 3rd. Iconoclast arrived by the 5 p.m. train, very much fatigued, and looking ill; he had to go to bed for a couple of hours before lecturing ... during his stay he suffered much from neuralgia, which interfered with his rest by night." These few words as to the state of my father's health will give us some idea of the strain upon him in all these stormy scenes, added to the anxiety of earning his living. A comparison of dates will show that many of these episodes ran concurrently, although I am obliged to tell them separately for the sake of clearness. I take these incidents in order of their origin; but while one was passing through its different stages others began and ended. In addition to these more important struggles, there was also many a small matter which as yet I have left untouched. All this must be borne in mind by readers of these pages who wish to get a clear idea of Mr Bradlaugh's life. My pen, unfortunately, can only set down one thing at a time, though careful reading can fill in the picture.

The prohibition at Devonport Park was merely a sort of prologue; the real drama was to come, and the first act was played exactly three months later. Mr Bradlaugh had, as he said, determined "to do better at some future time;" with this end in view he set aside a fortnight early in March, to be devoted to the conquest of Plymouth, and the campaign opened on Sunday the 3rd.

A field known as the "Parson's Field," or "Parsonage Field," adjoining Devonport Park, was hired in February for "two lectures by a representative of the Plymouth and Devonport Secular Society," for the first two Sundays in March. Accordingly, about half-past two on the afternoon of Sunday the 3rd, Mr Bradlaugh went thither accompanied by two friends, Mr Steed and Mr John Williamson. He took his place upon a gravel heap, and was just about to speak, when he was informed that the police were coming into the field, and on looking round he saw Mr Edwards (the Superintendent), Mr Inspector Bryant, and several constables. Mr Edwards forbade him to proceed with his lecture, saying that he had authority to remove him from the field. Mr Bradlaugh answered that he had given way in Devonport Park because he was then uncertain as to his rights; now the Superintendent had no right to interfere; he had an agreement with the owner of the field; he was the tenant, and there he should remain unless he was removed by force. He thereupon turned to the audience and commenced his lecture with these words: "Friends, I am about to address you on the Bible——." His speech was here brought to an abrupt conclusion, for, acting under the orders of the Superintendent, he was seized by six policemen,[59] of whom he said:—

D. 19 in particular made himself very objectionable; twice Mr Bradlaugh asked him to remove his hand from the inside of his collar, but D. 19 would not, so at length he had to shake him off. When the six policemen, aided by their Superintendent and Inspector, succeeded in getting Mr Bradlaugh out of the field, Inspector Bryant told him to go about his business. He replied, "My business here to-day is to lecture; if you let me go, I shall go back to the field." The Superintendent said that in that case he would take him to the Station-house. Mr Bradlaugh, who was all this time bareheaded in the keen air of early March, asked for his hat. Mr Williamson stepped forward to hand it to him, but was pushed roughly aside by the police, and Mr Bradlaugh did not get his hat till later.

At the Police Station he was detained for some time whilst the question of bail was under discussion. This was twice refused, once on the ground that there was no power to accept bail on a Sunday; and after being subjected to the indignity of being searched, Mr Bradlaugh was taken into an underground stone cell, without fire, light, chair, or stool. In the cell there was "a straw palliasse, with a strange looking rug and one sheet." This cell, it afterwards transpired, had not been used for two years. In this dungeon-like place he was kept for four and a-half hours, from half-past four until nine o'clock on an evening in the beginning of March. At this hour the Superintendent allowed him the luxury of a stone corridor in which there was a fire; he was placed here in charge of a policemen, and also allowed the company of Mr Steer, a Freethinker, who had attended the meeting and had been taken into custody on a charge of assaulting Mr Edwards while "in the execution of his duty." Mr Bradlaugh was at the outset charged with inciting to a breach of the peace, but on Monday was also further charged with an assault upon Mr Edwards. In the morning he and Mr Steer were brought up, like felons, through a trap-door into the prisoner's dock. Their appearance in court was greeted with a hearty burst of cheering, which the magistrates (of whom there were not less than nine upon the bench) tried in vain to suppress. The Court was very full, and such a great crowd had assembled outside the Guildhall, previous to the opening of the doors, that the Mayor (J. W. W. Ryder, Esq.) decided that the Court ordinarily used for police business was too small, and that the case should be heard in the large hall. The case was opened by Mr Little, of the firm of Messrs Little and Woolcombe, on behalf of the plaintiff, Mr Superintendent Edwards. After he had recited the charges, he said he was instructed by the magnanimous Edwards that he had no desire "to press strongly against the parties, if they would make a promise not again to make an attack upon public morals." Once or twice during the progress of the case, Mr Bradlaugh came into collision with Mr Bone, the magistrate's clerk, but on the whole he carried his points fairly easily. The case lasted the whole day right into the evening, and was adjourned to Friday the 8th to give Mr Bradlaugh time to procure evidence. He and Mr Steer were bound over in their own recognizances of £20 each.

The Court was again crowded on Friday, every part of the building being crammed, and the spectators included several dissenting ministers of various denominations. When Mr Bradlaugh made his appearance in the dock he was, as before, greeted with tremendous and repeated cheering. The magistrate's clerk got quite excited, and called out again and again, "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves." The Mayor commanded the police to keep their eyes on the persons guilty of such manifestations, and to take them into custody if necessary. During the course of the proceedings he gave this order several times in one form or another, and succeeded in provoking a considerable burst of laughter, as occasionally nearly every person in Court was cheering or hissing according to his sentiments, and the Superintendent could hardly have afforded six constables to capture each disturber. However, at my father's request, his friends ceased to cheer. The charge against Mr Bradlaugh was dismissed without hearing the whole of the evidence for the defence.[60] The magistrates found Mr Steer guilty, but said that they did not consider the assault to have been of a severe character, and therefore fined him only 5s. and costs, not to include attorney's costs. Of course, the question of religious belief was raised on the swearing of the witnesses for the defence, but the only two who were questioned happened to be religious persons—one, indeed, was an "Independent Nonconformist," who was on his way to chapel, and was attracted to the field by the crowd and the presence of the police. On the following day (March 9th) notices were served by the authorities, representing the War Department in Devonport, on the Plymouth Freethinkers and others concerned, forbidding the use of the Park for the purpose of lectures; Mr Bradlaugh therefore lectured on Sunday[61] in the Free Institute, while he turned over in his mind a plan for the following Sunday (17th). He announced to his audience that he intended to lecture "very near the Park," but the precise spot would not be made known until it was too late for the police to interfere.

Bills were posted to the following effect:—

Considerable excitement prevailed in Plymouth. Some thought that, in spite of the notice from the War Office representatives, the lecture was to be given in the Park itself; others thought a certain three-cornered field had been hired. All were wrong; private ground could not be had for love or money, the owners and renters of all such having joined the police and the clergy; vacant land belonging to the borough was also out of the question, because my father felt that to have lectured on such ground must have resulted in a collision with the police, and might have ended disastrously for some of his friends. Mr Bradlaugh, Mr Williamson, and Captain Trenaman consulted together, and—who originated the idea I do not know—after ascertaining that all the water was under the jurisdiction of the Saltash Corporation, it was resolved to give the lecture from a boat in such a way that while the audience were in the borough of Devonport, the speaker, only a few yards distant from his hearers, should be outside the Devonport jurisdiction.

"On Sunday morning, unfortunately, it rained in torrents and blew great gales," lamented Mr Bradlaugh, in a brief description of the day's adventures. "We, however, determined to persevere, and on arriving near the Devonport Park Lodge I soon found myself at the head of a considerable number, who, despite the rain and the wind, followed me to Stonehouse Creek, a small tributary of the river Tamar, where I embarked on board the boat previously hired, and on which we erected a sort of platform from which I delivered a short address, the union jack being hoisted at the head of the boat. Directly after I had commenced to speak, Mr Superintendent Edwards made his appearance, and certainly looked most disconsolate when he found the plan I had adopted to avoid his vigilance. As it was still raining very hard, I made my address a very brief one, telling the people that I was very glad of the opportunity of asserting the right of free speech, and promising to assert it again when I next visited Devonport. I was cheered several times notwithstanding the still descending torrent. Mr Edwards, who had nearly captured the cab containing my wife, had under his command no less than twenty-eight policemen besides Inspector Bryant, and the Mayor was prepared with the Riot Act; but all their precautions were set at naught, and the right of open-air propaganda was victoriously asserted. Mr Superintendent Edwards, with scarcely bottled up ire and indignation, endeavoured to find a victim in the licensed waterman, but even here he was defeated, as Captain Trenaman had taken his own crew."

Mr Bradlaugh concluded his account by thanking the friends who had helped him "and the bold Trenamans, father and son, who commanded under me my first marine endeavour at Freethought propaganda." Immediately after the conclusion of the police proceedings Mr Bradlaugh wrote a letter to Superintendent Edwards demanding that he should publish an apology in certain papers and pay £10 to the Devon and Cornwall Hospital, £10 to the Stoke Female Orphan Asylum, and his (Mr Bradlaugh's) witnesses' expenses; but the messenger who delivered the letter was informed by Edwards that he would take no notice of the communication, but would consign it to the wastepaper basket. In fact, all the written reply that Edwards did make was of the shortest and curtest; it consisted merely of these words: "I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this morning." After such a letter, my father put the matter into the hands of his solicitor, who laid it before counsel for advice, with the result that legal proceedings were commenced against Mr Edwards for assault and false imprisonment.

A little later at a meeting of the Devonport Town Council the Watch Committee reported that they had instructed the Town Clerk to take measures for Mr Edwards' defence, and asked the Council's approval of what they had done. After considerable discussion twenty-eight persons voted for the adoption of the report and two against. The names of those voting were formally taken down, and it is rather curious to find that at least four members of the Council who voted that the Town of Devonport should undertake the expense and conduct of the defence of the Police Superintendent, had sat upon the Bench and decided against him without troubling my father to go through the whole of his case. In their capacity as magistrates they were compelled by the evidence to find him wrong: as Town Councillors they allowed their prejudices full scope, and voted that the borough of Devonport should find money to support the Superintendent in his defence of what they themselves had agreed were wrongful acts.

The case against Mr Superintendent Edwards came on at the Devon Lammas Assizes at Exeter, before Mr Baron Channell, on Monday, July 29th. The reports[62] say that

Unfortunately, Mr Bradlaugh made one great and irreparable blunder. Instead of conducting the case himself, he allowed himself to be persuaded into briefing counsel, Mr Robert Collier, Q.C., M.P., and Mr Cole. The nature of this blunder, and its importance before a special jury in a cathedral city, may be realised by reading a few words of comment from a hostile leader on the case which appeared in the Western Morning News for July 31st. This journal, which was so unfriendly towards my father's cause as to aver that the devout Christian looked "to the State to keep the Queen's highway free from Atheist lecturers and infidel propagandists," nevertheless stated in the most distinct fashion that "the counsel for the plaintiff was far more anxious to assert his own orthodoxy than his client's rights." And with this opinion I think most people will agree who read the Counsel's speech for the defence; not, however, that I intend to give the whole of Mr Collier's speech, because it is at once too long, and it goes over ground with which we are already familiar; still, I will quote a few of his expressions to prove that I am not judging him too hardly. Almost in the opening words of his speech Mr Collier said: "I am informed that Mr Bradlaugh desired to deliver a lecture or a sermon—I hardly know which." This was pure prevarication, as the utmost pains had been taken to give Mr Collier the whole facts of the case. A little later he stated:—

This assertion was so monstrous that it immediately brought forth a letter of repudiation from the Rev. Henry Knott, Unitarian Minister of Plymouth; although, to do this gentleman justice, he said he believed that the Secularists were themselves "much too honest to wish to identify themselves with a body of Christians who have frequently opposed them in fair and open controversy." Mr Collier then wrote a letter to the Rev. Henry Knott in reply, regretting that he had misrepresented the Unitarians, and saying further:—

The italics are mine; and if Mr Collier meant to imply that he received this information from his client or his attorney—the only persons from whom he should have received information bearing on the conduct of this case—he still further dishonoured himself, because the utmost candour was shown him in laying the facts before him, and most assuredly no such statement as that quoted could have been made to him by sane men who knew the facts.

But to return to Mr Collier's speech. I will give just two more quotations, and then leave it:—

If Mr Collier had been briefed by the other side also, he could hardly have made a more equivocal speech; and it will be easily understood how much it was likely to prejudice both the judge and jury against a man whose opinions were so well known, and who had made no pretence of concealing them. The defence made every effort to avail themselves of the odium theologicum when it came to Mr Bradlaugh's turn to take his place in the witness-box. Mr Montagu Smith, Q.C., counsel for the defence, wished to cross-examine Mr Bradlaugh on some former lectures in which he expressed his disbelief in the Bible; Mr Collier objected; Mr Smith persisted; Baron Channell then allowed the question, taking note of Mr Collier's objection; Mr Smith again put his question, and my father replied: "I object to answer that question on the ground that if I answer it in the affirmative it will subject me to a criminal prosecution." Then came a little scene, which will strike those who have been in the law courts with Mr Bradlaugh as by no means unfamiliar:—

Six times Mr Montagu Smith put similar questions to Mr Bradlaugh, and six times Mr Bradlaugh answered him in the same words. In his summing-up the judge, Mr Baron Channell, seemed determined not to be outdone by Mr Collier in evoking the religious prejudices of the jury. From Mr Smith, for the defence, such conduct was in some degree pardonable, even if not altogether in accordance with ordinary un-Christian notions of strict honour; but in Mr Collier, counsel for the plaintiff, and Mr Baron Channell, presiding over what was supposed to be a Court of Justice, it was unpardonable. His Lordship regretted "that the constitution of the plaintiff's mind was such as to render him unable to believe in those great truths which afforded so much comfort and satisfaction to others; the notion of going about and delivering lectures on those views he considered fraught with mischief and calculated to produce the greatest possible evil," while he further enlarged upon the "wickedness of disseminating such opinions."

After the summing-up of this just judge the jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff, with one farthing damages. The evidence was so strong, and some of the witnesses for the defence were so extravagant and unsatisfactory, that in spite of their prejudices the jury could not do other than decide in Mr Bradlaugh's favour; but they did it as grudgingly as they could, and recorded their animus in the "damages" they awarded. On the following morning Mr Baron Channell carried this a step further, and when Mr Collier made the formal application for the plaintiff's costs he refused to certify.

In spite of all the prejudice roused against him, Mr Bradlaugh met with considerable sympathy from the press, from foes[63] as well as friends.

Mr Bradlaugh was not the man to remain content with such an unsatisfactory verdict, and accordingly he moved for a new trial. The motion was heard in the Court of Common Pleas, Westminster, on November 4th and 5th of the same year, before the Lord Chief Justice, Sir William Erle, and the Justices Williams, Byles, and Keating. Mr Bradlaugh asked for a new trial on the grounds of misdirection, improper rejection of evidence tendered by the plaintiff, improper reception of evidence tendered by the defendant; and that the verdict was a perverse one and against evidence. After reciting the course of the trial at Exeter, he pointed out that in that trial he "laboured under a double disadvantage, not only in having all the jury selected from the county [of Devon], where there was great feeling existing in the matter, but that they were selected from among men who had to pay the costs in the action,[64] and who would have to pay further damages and costs if in my favour, which a verdict of the jury would have given me."

After a lengthy discussion, in which all the judges took active part, the Lord Chief Justice said that they would consult "brother Channell" before they gave their answer.

Judgment was given the following day. The rule was refused, and the plaintiff insulted. Said Lord Chief Justice Erle—

The other judges concurred with their leader, Mr Justice Keating making a yet further addition to the remarkable record of intolerant utterances in this case.

This judgment, and even more the bigotry apparent throughout the judgment, was a great blow to Mr Bradlaugh, and he appealed against the decision. The appeal came on before the very same four judges on the following Friday (November 8). In spite of his most eloquent pleading—in which he was repeatedly interrupted by the Lord Chief Justice—the rule was refused; the Lord Chief Justice kept religiously (I use the word advisedly) to his already expressed opinion that a witness "is by implication discredited by his refusal to answer;" and that he could see no "intentional violation of right;" he further clinched the matter by saying that "in the present instance there is nothing which could induce me to interfere."

These proceedings did their work in helping to form public opinion in favour of free speech, but they cost my father several hundreds of pounds, and burdened him with a debt which took long to clear off.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"KILL THE INFIDEL."

In the month of January, 1861, Mr Stephen Bendall was charged by Mr Nicholas Le Mesurier, a constable of St Peter Port, Guernsey, with having upon several occasions in the month before distributed printed papers calculated to bring the Christian religion into contempt and ridicule. The Court sentenced Mr Bendall to give bail in the sum of £20 not to distribute any such tracts during the space of twelve months, or in default to be imprisoned for a fortnight. That the sentence took so lenient a form was doubtless in some measure due to the enlightened remarks of one of the jurats, a Mr Tupper, who warned his colleagues that they should be "very careful not to countenance persecution on the ground of religion, for if we entered upon that course we could not tell where we should stop." Whether he did not feel himself altogether strong enough to oppose the prevailing temper of the bench, or from whatever reason, Mr Tupper did not propose an acquittal, but suggested the above bail, which the Court after some consultation accepted, with the alternative of a fortnight's imprisonment. The Queen's Procureur had asked that Mr Bendall should be imprisoned for a fortnight, "three days in each week solitary and on bread and water, and afterwards to give security in the sum of £50 not to distribute any of the tracts during the next twelve months, or quit the island."

This being the state of affairs in the island of Guernsey as to the freedom of opinion, and, moreover, as some of the tracts distributed appear to have been written by Mr Bradlaugh himself, it is not surprising to find the following notice amongst my father's lecture engagements in the next issue of the National Reformer:—