STILL FIGHTING.
All this hot fighting on the religious field did not render me blind
to the misery of the Irish land so dear to my heart, writhing in the
cruel grip of Mr. Forster's Coercion Act. An article "Coercion in
Ireland and its Results," exposing the wrongs done under the Act, was
reprinted as a pamphlet and had a wide circulation.
I pleaded against eviction--7,020 persons had been evicted during the
quarter ending in March--for the trial of those imprisoned on
suspicion, for indemnity for those who before the Land Act had striven
against wrongs the Land Act had been carried to prevent, and I urged
that "no chance is given for the healing measures to cure the sore of
Irish disaffection until not only are the prisoners in Ireland set at
liberty, but until the brave, unfortunate Michael Davitt stands once
more a free man on Irish soil." At last the Government reconsidered
its policy and resolved on juster dealings; it sent Lord Frederick
Cavendish over to Ireland, carrying with him the release of the
"suspects," and scarcely had he landed ere the knife of assassination
struck him--a foul and cowardly murder of an innocent messenger of
peace. I was at Blackburn, to lecture on "The Irish Question," and as
I was walking towards the platform, my heart full of joy for the
dawning hope of peace, a telegram announcing the assassination was
placed in my hands. Never shall I forget the shock, the incredulous
horror, the wave of despair. "It is not only two men they have
killed," I wrote, a day or two later; "they have stabbed the new-born
hope of friendship between two countries, and have reopened the gulf
of hatred that was just beginning to close." Alas! the crime succeeded
in its object, and hurried the Government into new wrong. Hastily a
new Coercion Bill was brought in, and rushed through its stages in
Parliament, and, facing the storm of public excitement, I pleaded
still, "Force no remedy," despite the hardship of the task. "There is
excessive difficulty in dealing with the Irish difficulty at the
present moment. Tories are howling for revenge on a whole nation as
answer to the crime committed by a few; Whigs are swelling the outcry;
many Radicals are swept away by the current, and feeling that
'something must be done,' they endorse the Government action,
forgetting to ask whether the 'something' proposed is the wisest
thing. A few stand firm, but they are very few--too few to prevent the
new Coercion Bill from passing into law. But few though we be who lift
up the voice of protest against the wrong which we are powerless to
prevent, we may yet do much to make the new Act of brief duration, by
so rousing public opinion as to bring about its early repeal. When the
measure is understood by the public half the battle will be won; it is
accepted at the moment from faith in the Government; it will be
rejected when its true character is grasped. The murders which have
given birth to this repressive measure came with a shock upon the
country, which was the more terrible from the sudden change from
gladness and hope to darkness and despair. The new policy was welcomed
so joyfully; the messenger of the new policy was slain ere yet the pen
was dry which had signed the orders of mercy and of liberty. Small
wonder that cry of horror should be followed by measures of vengeance;
but the murders were the work of a few criminals, while the measure of
vengeance strikes the whole of the Irish people. I plead against the
panic which confounds political agitation and political redressal of
wrong with crime and its punishment; the Government measure gags every
mouth in Ireland, and puts, as we shall see, all political effort at
the mercy of the Lord-Lieutenant, the magistracy, and the police." I
then sketched the misery of the peasants in the grip of absentee
landlords, the turning out on the roadside to die of the mother with
new-born babe at her breast, the loss of "all thought of the sanctity
of human life when the lives of the dearest are reckoned as less worth
than the shillings of overdue rack-rental." I analysed the new Act:
"When this Act passes, trial by jury, right of public meeting, liberty
of press, sanctity of house, will one and all be held at the will of
the Lord-Lieutenant, the irresponsible autocrat of Ireland, while
liberty of person will lie at the mercy of every constable. Such is
England's way of governing Ireland in the year 1882. And this is
supposed to be a Bill for the 'repression of crime.'" Bluntly, I put
the bald truth: "The plain fact is that the murderers have succeeded.
They saw in the new policy the reconciliation of England and Ireland;
they knew that friendship would follow justice, and that the two
countries, for the first time in history, would clasp hands. To
prevent this they dug a new gulf, which they hoped the English nation
would not span; they sent a river of blood across the road of
friendship, and they flung two corpses to bar the newly-opened gate of
reconciliation and peace. They have succeeded."
Into this whirl of political and social strife came the first whisper
to me of the Theosophical Society, in the shape of a statement of its
principles, which conveyed, I remarked, "no very definite idea of the
requirements for membership, beyond a dreamy, emotional, scholarly
interest in the religio-philosophic fancies of the past." Also a
report of an address by Colonel Olcott, which led me to suppose that
the society held to "some strange theory of 'apparitions' of the dead,
and to some existence outside the physical and apart from it." These
came to me from some Hindû Freethinkers, who asked my opinion as to
Secularists joining the Theosophical Society, and Theosophists being
admitted to the National Secular Society. I replied, judging from
these reports, that "while Secularists would have no right to refuse
to enrol Theosophists, if they desired it, among their members, there
is a radical difference between the mysticism of Theosophy and the
scientific materialism of Secularism. The exclusive devotion to this
world implied in the profession of Secularism leaves no room for
other-worldism; and consistent members of our body cannot join a
society which professes belief therein."[27]
H.P. Blavatsky penned a brief article in the _Theosophist_ for
August, 1882, in which she commented on my paragraph, remarking, in
her generous way, that it must have been written "while labouring
under entirely misconceived notions about the real nature of our
society. For one so highly intellectual and keen as that renowned
writer to dogmatise and issue autocratic ukases, after she has herself
suffered so cruelly and undeservedly at the hands of blind bigotry and
social prejudice in her lifelong struggle for _freedom of thought_
seems, to say the least, absurdly inconsistent." After quoting my
paragraph she went on: "Until proofs to the contrary, we prefer to
believe that the above lines were dictated to Mrs. Besant by some
crafty misrepresentations from Madras, inspired by a mean personal
revenge rather than a desire to remain consistent with the principles
of 'the scientific materialism of Secularism.' We beg to assure the
Radical editors of the _National Reformer_ that they were both very
strangely misled by false reports about the Radical editors of the
_Theosophist_. The term 'supernaturalists' can no more apply to the
latter than to Mrs. A. Besant and Mr. C. Bradlaugh."
H.P. Blavatsky, when she commented, as she occasionally did, on the
struggles going on in England, took of them a singularly large-hearted
and generous view. She referred with much admiration to Mr.
Bradlaugh's work and to his Parliamentary struggle, and spoke warmly
of the services he had rendered to liberty. Again, in pointing out
that spiritualistic trance orations by no means transcended speeches
that made no such claim, I find her first mention of myself: "Another
lady orator, of deservedly great fame, both for eloquence and
learning--the good Mrs. Annie Besant--without believing in controlling
spirits, or for that matter in her own spirit, yet speaks and writes
such sensible and wise things, that we might almost say that one of
her speeches or chapters contains more matter to benefit humanity than
would equip a modern trance-speaker for an entire oratorical
career."[28] I have sometimes wondered of late years whether, had I
met her then or seen any of her writings, I should have become her
pupil. I fear not; I was still too much dazzled by the triumphs of
Western Science, too self-assertive, too fond of combat, too much at
the mercy of my own emotions, too sensitive to praise and blame. I
needed to sound yet more deeply the depths of human misery, to hear
yet more loudly the moaning of "the great Orphan," Humanity, to feel
yet more keenly the lack of wider knowledge and of clearer light if I
were to give effective help to man, ere I could bow my pride to crave
admittance as pupil to the School of Occultism, ere I could put aside
my prejudices and study the Science of the Soul.
The long-continued attempts of Sir Henry Tyler and his friends to
stimulate persecutions for blasphemy at length took practical shape,
and in July, 1882, Mr. Foote, the editor, Mr. Ramsey, the publisher,
and Mr. Whittle, the printer of the _Freethinker_, were summoned for
blasphemy by Sir Henry Tyler himself. An attempt was made to involve
Mr. Bradlaugh in the proceedings, and the solicitors promised to drop
the case against the editor and printer if Mr. Bradlaugh would himself
sell them some copies of the paper. But however ready Mr. Bradlaugh
had always shown himself to shield his subordinates by taking his sins
on his own shoulders, he saw no reason why he should assume
responsibility for a paper over which he had no control, and which
was, he thought, by its caricatures, lowering the tone of Freethought
advocacy and giving an unnecessary handle to its foes. He therefore
answered that he would sell the solicitors any works published by
himself or with his authority, and sent them a catalogue of the whole
of such works. The object of this effort of Sir Henry Tyler's was
obvious enough, and Mr. Bradlaugh commented: "The above letters make
it pretty clear that Sir Henry W. Tyler having failed in his endeavour
to get the science classes stopped at the Hall of Science, having also
failed in his attempt to induce Sir W. Vernon Harcourt to prosecute
myself and Mrs. Besant as editors and publishers of this journal,
desires to make me personally and criminally responsible for the
contents of a journal I neither edit nor publish, over which I have
not a shadow of control, and in which I have not the smallest
interest. Why does Sir H.W. Tyler so ardently desire to prosecute, me
for blasphemy? Is it because two convictions will under the 9th and
10th Will. III. cap. 32, render me 'for ever' incapable of sitting in
Parliament?" The _Whitehall Review_ frankly put this forward as an
object to be gained, and Mr. Bradlaugh was summoned to the Mansion
House on a charge of publishing blasphemous libels in the
_Freethinker_; meanwhile Sir Henry Tyler put a notice on the Order
Book to deprive "the daughters of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh" of the grant
they had earned as science teachers, and got an order which proved to
be invalid, but which was acted on, to inspect Mr. Bradlaugh's and my
own private banking accounts, I being no party to the case. Looking
back, I marvel at the incredible meannesses to which Sir Henry Tyler
and others stooped in defence of "religion"--Heaven save the mark! Let
me add that his motion in the House of Commons was a complete failure,
and it was emphasised by the publication at the same time of the
successful work, both as teachers and as students, of the "daughters
of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh," and of my being the only student in all
England who had succeeded in taking honours in botany.
I must pause a moment to chronicle, in September, 1882, the death of
Dr. Pusey, whom I had sought in the whirl of my early religious
struggles. I wrote an article on him in the _National Reformer_, and
ended by laying a tribute on his grave: "A strong man and a good man.
Utterly out of harmony with the spirit of his own time, looking with
sternly-rebuking eyes on all the eager research, the joyous love of
nature, the earnest inquiry into a world doomed to be burnt up at the
coming of its Judge. An ascetic, pure in life, stern in faith, harsh
to unbelievers because sincere in his own cruel creed, generous and
tender to all who accepted his doctrines and submitted to his Church.
He never stooped to slander those with whom he disagreed. His hatred
of heresy led him not to blacken the character of heretics, nor to
descend to the vulgar abuse used by pettier priests. And therefore I,
who honour courage and sincerity wherever I find them; I, who do
homage to steadfastness wherever I find it; I, Atheist, lay my small
tribute of respect on the bier of this noblest of the Anglo-Catholics,
Edward Bouverie Pusey."
As a practical answer to the numberless attacks made on us, and as a
result of the enormous increase of circulation given to our
theological and political writings by these harassing persecutions, we
moved our publishing business to 63, Fleet Street, at the end of
September, 1882, a shop facing that at which Richard Carlile had
carried on his publishing business for a great time, and so seemed
still redolent with memories of his gallant struggles. Two of the
first things sold here were a pamphlet of mine, a strong protest
against our shameful Egyptian policy, and a critical volume on
"Genesis" which Mr. Bradlaugh found time to write in the intervals of
his busy life. Here I worked daily, save when out of London, until Mr.
Bradlaugh's death in 1891, assisted in the conduct of the business by
Mr. Bradlaugh's elder daughter--a woman of strong character with many
noble qualities, who died rather suddenly in December, 1888, and in
the work on the _National Reformer_, first by Dr. Aveling, and then by
Mr. John Robertson, its present editor. Here, too, from 1884 onwards,
worked with me Thornton Smith, one of Mr. Bradlaugh's most devoted
disciples, who became one of the leading speakers of the National
Secular Society; like her well-loved chief, she was ever a good friend
and a good fighter, and to me the most loyal and loving of colleagues,
one of the few--the very few--Freethinkers who were large-hearted and
generous enough not to turn against me when I became a Theosophist. A
second of these--alas! I could count them on my fingers--was the John
Robertson above mentioned, a man of rare ability and wide culture,
somewhat too scholarly for popular propagandism of the most generally
effective order, but a man who is a strength to any movement, always
on the side of noble living and high thinking, loyal-natured as the
true Scot should be, incapable of meanness or treachery, and the most
genial and generous of friends.
Among the new literary ventures that followed on our taking the large
publishing premises in Fleet Street was a sixpenny magazine, edited by
myself, and entitled _Our Corner_; its first number was dated January,
1883, and for six years it appeared regularly, and served me as a
useful mouthpiece in my Socialist and Labour propagandist work. Among
its contributors were Moncure D. Conway, Professor Ludwig Büchner,
Yves Guyot, Professor Ernst Haeckel, G. Bernard Shaw, Constance Naden,
Dr. Aveling, J.H. Levy, J.L. Joynes, Mrs. Edgren, John Robertson,
and many another, Charles Bradlaugh and I writing regularly each
month.
1883 broke stormily, fights on every hand, and a huge constitutional
agitation going on in the country, which forced the Government into
bringing in an Affirmation Bill; resolutions from Liberal Associations
all over the land; preparations to oppose the re-election of disloyal
members; no less than a thousand delegates sent up to London by clubs,
Trade Unions, associations of every sort; a meeting that packed
Trafalgar Square; an uneasy crowd in Westminster Hall; a request from
Inspector Denning that Mr. Bradlaugh would go out to them--they feared
for his safety inside; a word from him, "The Government have pledged
themselves to bring in an Affirmation Bill at once;" roar after roar
of cheering; a veritable people's victory on that 15th of February,
1883. It was the answer of the country to the appeal for justice, the
rebuke of the electors to the House that had defied them.
Scarcely was this over when a second prosecution for blasphemy against
Messrs. Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp began, and was hurried on in the
Central Criminal Court, before Mr. Justice North, a bigot of the
sternest type. The trial ended in a disagreement of the jury, Mr.
Foote defending himself in a splendid speech. The judge acted very
harshly throughout, interrupted Mr. Foote continuously, and even
refused bail to the defendants during the interval between the first
and second trial; they were, therefore, confined in Newgate from
Thursday to Monday, and we were only allowed to see them through iron
bars and lattice, as they exercised in the prison yard between 8:30
and 9:30 a.m. Brought up to trial again on Monday, they were
convicted, and Mr. Foote was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, Mr.
Ramsey to nine months, and Mr. Kemp to three months. Mr. Foote
especially behaved with great dignity and courage in a most difficult
position, and heard his cruel sentence without wincing, and with the
calm words, "My Lord, I thank you; it is worthy your creed." A few of
us at once stepped in, to preserve to Mr. Ramsey his shop, and to Mr.
Foote his literary property; Dr. Aveling undertook the editing of the
_Freethinker_ and of Mr. Foote's magazine _Progress_; the immediate
necessities of their families were seen to; Mr. and Mrs. Forder took
charge of the shop, and within a few days all was in working order.
Disapproving as many of us did of the policy of the paper, there was
no time to think of that when a blasphemy prosecution had proved
successful, and we all closed up in the support of men imprisoned for
conscience' sake. I commenced a series of articles on "The Christian
Creed; what it is blasphemy to deny," showing what Christians must
believe under peril of prosecution. Everywhere a tremendous impulse
was given to the Freethought movement, as men awakened to the
knowledge that blasphemy laws were not obsolete.
From over the sea came a word of sympathy from the pen of H.P.
Blavatsky in the _Theosophist_. "We prefer Mr. Foote's actual position
to that of his severe judge. Aye, and were we in his guilty skin, we
would feel more proud, even in the poor editor's present position,
than we would under the wig of Mr. Justice North."
In April, 1883, the long legal struggles of Mr. Bradlaugh against Mr.
Newdegate and his common informer, that had lasted from July 2, 1880,
till April 9, 1883, ended in his complete victory by the judgment of
the House of Lords in his favour. "Court after Court decided against
me," he wrote; "and Whig and Tory journals alike mocked at me for my
persistent resistance. Even some good friends thought that my fight
was hopeless, and that the bigots held me fast in their toils. I have,
however, at last shaken myself free of Mr. Newdegate and his common
informer. The judgment of the House of Lords in my favour is final and
conclusive, and the boasts of the Tories that I should be made
bankrupt for the penalties, have now, for ever, come to naught. Yet
but for the many poor folk who have stood by me with their help and
sympathy, I should have long since been ruined. The days and weeks
spent in the Law Courts, the harassing work connected with each stage
of litigation, the watching daily when each hearing was imminent, the
absolute hindrance of all provincial lecturing--it is hardly possible
for any one to judge the terrible mental and pecuniary strain of all
this long-drawn-out struggle." Aye! it killed him at last, twenty
years before his time, sapping his splendid vitality, undermining his
iron constitution.
The blasphemy trial of Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Foote, and Mr. Ramsey now
came on, but this time in the Queen's Bench, before the Lord Chief
Justice Coleridge. I had the honour of sitting between Mr. Bradlaugh
and Mr. Foote, charged with the duty of having ready for the former
all his references, and with a duplicate brief to mark off point after
point as he dealt with it. Messrs. Foote and Ramsey were brought up in
custody, but were brave and bright with courage unbroken. Mr.
Bradlaugh applied to have his case taken separately, as he denied
responsibility for the paper, and the judge granted the application;
it was clearly proved that he and I--the "Freethought Publishing
Company"--had never had anything to do with the production of the
paper; that until November, 1881, we published it, and then refused to
publish it any longer; that the reason for the refusal was the
addition of comic Bible illustrations as a feature of the paper. I was
called as witness and began with a difficulty; claiming to affirm, I
was asked by the judge if the oath would not be binding on my
conscience; I answered that any promise was binding on me whatever the
form, and after some little argument the judge found a way out of the
insulting form by asking whether the "invocation of the Deity added
anything to it of a binding nature--added any sanction?" "None, my
Lord," was the prompt reply, and I was allowed to affirm. Sir Hardinge
Giffard subjected me to a very stringent cross-examination, doing his
best to entangle me, but the perfect frankness of my answers broke all
his weapons of finesse and inuendo.
Some of the incidents of the trial were curious; Sir Hardinge
Giffard's opening speech was very able and very unscrupulous. All
facts in Mr. Bradlaugh's favour were distorted or hidden; anything
that could be used against him was tricked out in most seductive
fashion. Among the many monstrous perversions of the truth made by
this most pious counsel, was the statement that changes of publisher,
and of registration of the _Freethinker_ were made in consequence of a
question as to prosecuting it put in the House of Commons. The change
of publisher was admittedly made in November; the registration was
made for the first time in November, and could not be changed, as
there was no previous one. The House of Commons was not sitting in
November; the question alluded to was asked in the following February.
This one deliberate lie of the "defender of the faith" will do as well
as quoting a score of others to show how wickedly and maliciously he
endeavoured to secure an unjust verdict.
The speech over, a number of witnesses were called. Sir Hardinge did
not call witnesses who knew the facts, such as Mr. Norrish, the
shopman, or Mr. Whittle, the printer. These he carefully avoided,
although he subpoenaed both, because he did not want the real facts to
come out. But he put in two solicitor's clerks, who had been hanging
about the premises, and buying endless _National Reformers_ and
_Freethinkers_, sheaves of them which were never used, but by which
Sir Hardinge hoped to convey the impression of a mass of criminality.
He put in a gentleman from the British Museum, who produced two large
books, presumed to be _National Reformers_ and _Freethinkers_; what
they were brought for nobody understood, the counsel for the Crown as
little as any one, and the judge, surveying them over his spectacles,
treated them with supreme contempt, as utterly irrelevant. Then a man
came to prove that Mr. Bradlaugh was rated for Stonecutter Street, a
fact no one disputed. Two policemen came to say they had seen him go
in. "You saw many people go in, I suppose?" queried the Lord Chief
Justice. On the whole the most miserably weak and obviously malicious
case that could be brought into a court of law.
One witness, however, must not be forgotten--Mr. Woodhams, bank
manager. When he stated that Mr. Maloney, the junior counsel for the
Crown, had inspected Mr. Bradlaugh's banking account, a murmur of
surprise and indignation ran round the court. "Oh! Oh!" was heard from
the crowd of barristers behind. The judge looked down incredulously,
and for a moment the examination was stopped by the general movement.
Unless Sir Hardinge Giffard is a splendid actor, he was not aware of
the infamous proceeding, for he looked as startled as the rest of his
legal brethren.
Another queer incident occurred, showing, perhaps more than aught
else, Mr. Bradlaugh's swift perception of the situation and adaptation
to the environment. He wanted to read the Mansion House deposition of
Norrish, to show why he was not called; the judge objected, and
declined to allow it to be read. A pause while you might count five;
then; "Well, I think I may say the learned counsel did not call
Norrish because ..." and then the whole substance of the deposition
was given in supposititious form. The judge looked down a minute, and
then went off into silent laughter impossible to control at the adroit
change of means and persistent gaining of end; barristers all round
broke into ripples of laughter unrestrained; a broad smile pervaded
the jury box; the only unmoved person was the defendant who proceeded
in his grave statement as to what Norrish "might" have been asked. The
nature of the defence was very clearly stated by Mr. Bradlaugh: "I
shall ask you to find that this prosecution is one of the steps in a
vindictive attempt to oppress and to crush a political opponent--that
it was a struggle that commenced on my return to Parliament in 1880.
If the prosecutor had gone into the box I should have shown you that
he was one of the first then in the House to use the suggestion of
blasphemy against me there. Since then I have never had any peace
until the Monday of this week. Writs for penalties have been served,
and suits of all kinds have been taken against me. On Monday last the
House of Lords cleared me from the whole of one set, and, gentlemen, I
ask you to-day to clear me from another. Three times I have been
re-elected by my constituents, and what Sir Henry Tyler asks you to do
is to send me to them branded with the dishonour of a conviction,
branded not with the conviction for publishing heresy, but branded
with the conviction, dishonourable to me, of having lied in this
matter. I have no desire to have a prison's walls closed on me, but I
would sooner ten times that, than that my constituents should think
that for one moment I lied to escape the penalties. I am not indicted
for anything I have ever written or caused to be written. As my Lord
at the very first stage this morning pointed out, it is no question
with me, Are the matters indicted blasphemous, or are they not
blasphemous? Are they defensible, or are they not defensible? That is
not my duty here. On this I make no comment. I have no duty here of
even discussing the policy of the blasphemy laws, although I cannot
help thinking that, if I were here making my defence against them, I
might say that they were bad laws unfairly revived, doing more
mischief to those who revive them than to those whom they are revived
against. But it is not for anything I have said myself; it is not for
anything I have written myself; it is not for anything I have
published myself. It is an endeavour to make me technically liable for
a publication with which I have nothing whatever to do, and I will ask
you to defeat that here. Every time I have succeeded I have been met
with some new thing. When I first fought it was hoped to defeat my
election. When I was re-elected it was sought to make me bankrupt by
enormous penalties, and when I escaped the suit for enormous penalties
they hope now to destroy me by this. I have no question here about
defending my heresy, not because I am not ready to defend it when it
is challenged in the right way, and it there be anything in it that
the law can challenge. I have never gone back from anything I have
ever said; I have never gone back from anything I have ever written; I
have never gone back from anything I have ever done; and I ask you not
to allow this Sir Henry Whatley Tyler, who dares not come here to-day,
to use you as the assassin uses the dagger, to stab a man from behind
whom he never dares to face."
The summing up by Lord Coleridge was perfect in eloquence, in thought,
in feeling. Nothing more touching could be imagined than the conflict
between the real religious feeling, abhorrent of heresy, and the
determination to be just, despite all prejudice. The earnest effort
lest the prejudice he felt as a Christian should weigh also in the
minds of the jury, and should cause them to pervert justice. The
absolute pleading to them to do what was right and not to admit
against the unbeliever what they would not admit in ordinary cases.
Then the protest against prosecution of opinions; the admission of the
difficulties in the Hebrew Scriptures, and the pathetic fear lest by
persecution "the sacred truths might be struck through the sides of
those who are their enemies." For intellectual clearness and moral
elevation this exquisite piece of eloquence, delivered in a voice of
silvery beauty, would be hard to excel, and Lord Coleridge did this
piece of service to the religion so dear to his heart, that he showed
that a Christian judge could be just and righteous in dealing with a
foe of his creed.
There was a time of terrible strain waiting for the verdict, and when
at last it came, "Not Guilty," a sharp clap of applause hailed it,
sternly and rightly reproved by the judge. It was echoed by the
country, which almost unanimously condemned the prosecution as an
iniquitous attempt on the part of Mr. Bradlaugh's political enemies to
put a stop to his political career. Thus the _Pall Mall Gazette_
wrote:--
"Whatever may be the personal or political or religious aversion which
is excited by Mr. Bradlaugh, it is impossible for even his bitterest
opponents to deny the brilliance of the series of victories which he
has won in the law courts. His acquittal in the blasphemy prosecution
of Saturday was but the latest of a number of encounters in which he
has succeeded in turning the tables upon his opponents in the most
decisive fashion. The policy of baiting Mr. Bradlaugh which has been
persisted in so long, savours so strongly of a petty and malignant
species of persecution that it is well that those who indulge in it
should be made to smart for their pains. The wise and weighty words
used by the Lord Chief Justice in summing up should be taken seriously
to heart: 'Those persons are to be deprecated who would pervert the
law, even with the best intentions, and "do evil that good may come,
whose damnation" (says the apostle) "is just."' Without emulating the
severity of the apostle, we may say that it is satisfactory that the
promoters of all these prosecutions should be condemned in costs."
In the separate trial of Messrs. Foote and Ramsey, Mr. Foote again
defended himself in a speech of marked ability, and spoken of by the
judge as "very striking." Lord Coleridge made a noble charge to the
jury, in which he strongly condemned prosecutions of unpopular
opinions, pointing out that no prosecution short of extermination
could be effective, and caustically remarking on the very easy form of
virtue indulged in by persecutors. "As a general rule," he said,
"persecution, unless far more extreme than in England in the
nineteenth century is possible, is certain to be in vain. It is also
true, and I cannot help assenting to it, that it is a very easy form
of virtue. It is a more difficult form of virtue, quietly and
unostentatiously to obey what we believe to be God's will in our own
lives. It is not very easy to do it; and it makes much less noise in
the world. It is very easy to turn upon somebody else who differs from
us, and in the guise of zeal of God's honour to attack somebody of a
difference of opinion, whose life may be more pleasing to God and more
conducive to His honour than our own. And when it is done by persons
whose own lives are not free from reproach and who take that
particular form of zeal for God which consists in putting the criminal
law in force against others, that, no doubt, does more to create a
sympathy with the defendant than with the prosecutor. And if it should
be done by those who enjoy the wit of Voltaire, and who do not turn
away from the sneers of Gibbon, and rather relish the irony of Hume,
our feelings do not go with the prosecutors, and we are rather
disposed to sympathise with the defendant. It is still worse if the
person who takes such a course takes it, not from a kind of notion
that God wants his assistance, and that he can give it less on his own
account than by prosecuting others--but it is mixed up with anything
of partisan or political feeling, then nothing can be more foreign to
what is high-minded, or religious, or noble, in men's conduct; and
indeed, it seems to me that any one who will do that, not for the
honour of God but for the purpose of the ban, deserves the most
disdainful disapprobation."
The jury disagreed, and a _nolle prosequi_ was entered. The net
results of the trials were a large addition to the membership of the
National Secular Society, an increase of circulation of Freethought
literature, the raising of Mr. Foote for a time to a position of great
influence and popularity, and the placing of his name in history as a
brave martyr for liberty of speech. The offence against good taste
will be forgotten; the loyalty to conviction and to courage will
remain. History does not ask if men who suffered for heresy ever
published a rough word; it asks, Were they brave in their
steadfastness; were they faithful to the truth they saw? It may be
well to place on record Mr. Foote's punishment for blasphemy: he spent
twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four alone in his cell; his only
seat was a stool without a back; his employment was picking matting;
his bed was a plank with a thin mattress. During the latter part of
his imprisonment he was allowed some books.