But even those Liberal members who had voted on his side were for

the most part quietly acquiescent in the injustice done, regarding

a wrong to one "unpopular" man as a small matter. The only member

who persistently protested was Mr Labouchere, for whose courage and

constancy throughout the whole struggle no words of praise could be

too high. In the circumstances there was nothing for it but to rouse

the country, and this Bradlaugh did as only he could. It is difficult

now to realise the enormous amount of energy he had to spend. While

his cases were pending in the higher courts, he was doing three men's

work outside. Thus in the week 18th to 24th July we find him spending

three days fighting his case in the hot and crowded Court; holding

three night meetings in London; attending a Freethinker's funeral

(where the sight of the grief of the widow and children made him quite

break down); speaking at a great demonstration of miners in the north;

giving three lectures in South Shields; and holding a huge gathering

in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. He knew he was drawing terribly

on a constitution which, though of a giant's strength, had for many

years been doing giant's work; but he never flinched in a battle while

he had any strength left. His plan was to evoke a clear expression of

feeling on behalf of his claim in all the large towns, to hold a mass

meeting in Trafalgar Square, and then again to present himself at the

House; and if the House had been capable of looking at the issue half

as reasonably as the constituencies did, it would have been promptly

settled. Wherever Bradlaugh went, he got unanimous votes in his favour.

At one stage he reckoned that out of a series of audiences amounting

in numbers to 75,000, only two hands had been held up against his

claim. It was wonderful to see how he swayed audiences against their

own prejudices. He must have been listened to by thousands of men

who disliked him and his opinions equally; but they simply could not

resist the appeal for a just judgment. I well remember how, when he

spoke in Edinburgh in 1881, he extorted a vote from a general audience

there. The body of the hall was filled with middle-class citizens, few

of whom had any sympathy with his propaganda, and many of whom must

have strongly resented his "notoriety;" in the gallery were a number

of Tory students, with the manners of their kind; and post-cards had

been freely circulated with a view to an organised opposition. At the

outset the students did their best, but Bradlaugh's voice rose easily

above their din; a quick repartee or two to their interruptions turned

the laugh against them, and soon he was quietly listened to.[158] At

the close he made the usual call for a show of hands on his claim.

As one of the promoters of the meeting, I was interested in watching

the manner of the response; and I can still see the respectable

church-going shopkeepers slowly and as it were compulsorily raising

their right hands at the call of the Atheist and Republican. Only some

dozen, as far as I remember, voted "on the contrary." This was in an

audience mainly unsympathetic. At Trafalgar Square, of course, he was

in a dense army of enthusiastic supporters, including many delegates

from provincial towns. The Dublin _Freeman_ then, owned by Mr E. D.

Gray, and the organ of Mr Parnell's party, intimated beforehand that

"no large assembly can take place within a mile of Westminster Palace

and the police will very summarily dispose of Mr Bradlaugh's ragged

followers." The police made no such attempt; and it was well they did

not, for the followers were neither ragged nor timorous, and their

blood was not just then very cool.

[Footnote 158: In this particular speech he used the phrase "that grand

old man" of Gladstone. It was probably he who set the fashion.]

This was on 2nd August; it was on the next day that Bradlaugh again

presented himself at the House; and then occurred the crowning episode

in the struggle--crowning alike in point of the dastardliness of the

tactic employed against him and the desperation to which it momentarily

moved him.

His unanswerable contention was that the House was bound to do

something to settle the case. It ought either to declare his seat

vacant or take some course to permit of his sitting. To keep an elected

member out of his seat without disputing the validity of his election

was a course which only a majority of professed lawbreakers could

consistently take; and the resolution excluding him from the House was

merely a puerile evasion by the majority of the legislative problem

they had raised. When, however, Bradlaugh presented himself afresh,

that puerile policy was adhered to, only in a fashion that developed

puerility into brutality. The Liberal Government acquiescing in the

vote of the majority, the matter was left to the police, who treated

it as a police question, some of them behaving with that exuberance of

insolence and ruffianism which they so often and so naturally bring

to their task. Their way of seizing him angered him in a way in which

he had never been angered before. A few extracts from the newspaper

accounts of the time will suffice to tell what happened:--

"Mr Bradlaugh, after having waited till the Speaker had taken the

chair, claimed admission to the House. He was in the first place

opposed by the regular officials. 'I am here,' he said, 'in accordance

with the orders of my constituents, the electors of Northampton; and

any person who lays hands on me will do so at his peril!'" Attempting

to enter the House, he was seized by the messengers, but their

resistance being insufficient to overcome the force they roused him to

use, the police were called upon. "It was said by Inspector Denning

that four ordinary men certainly could not have expelled Mr Bradlaugh,

and that the ten constables, all remarkable for strength and activity,

who were engaged in forcing him down the lobby stairs, found their

task far more arduous than they had expected." They had him by the

throat, arms, and collar, and he had some of them in the same hold.

"The strong, broad, heavy, powerful frame was hard to move, with its

every nerve and muscle strained to resist.... The sight, little of

it as was seen from the outside, soon became sickening.... An almost

deathlike pallor had spread over Mr Bradlaugh's sternly-set features;

he was gasping for breath, his body was bent, and he was in a state

of exhaustion painful to see. His black frockcoat was much torn, his

collar and shirt disarranged, and he himself in a condition of intense

mental excitement and bodily prostration.... The Trafalgar Square

phrase that this man might be broken but not bent occurred to minds

apprehensive at the present appearance of him.... His face was deathly

white, and there was about the mouth an expression of determination,

which those who witnessed it cannot readily forget. Overborne by the

desperate struggle, he fainted, but soon recovered when water was

brought to him."

When Bradlaugh appeared at the door in the grasp of the police there

was a cry of wrath from the assembled crowd, which told of a source of

"force" that might conceivably be tapped. At another door Mrs Besant

stood, at the head of a mass of followers, who, hearing vaguely of

what was happening, were urgent in their demand to be let take the law

in their own hands. A word from her, a word from him, would have sent

the multitude headlong into the House. They were not a chance London

mob: they included thousands of staunch working men from all parts

of the country, who had attended the demonstration the day before.

They were wroth with the callous iniquity that had been and was being

worked by the majority inside. And Bradlaugh, standing bruised and

shaken and insulted on the steps, hardly able to breathe, but with the

fury of physical struggle still upon him, had a supreme temptation. In

his first anger, alluding to the brute force used against him, he had

said to Inspector Denning, "I shall come again with force enough to

overcome it;" but he did not carry out his threat, though he might have

done it on the instant. Had he but lifted his hand to beckon, the ten

policemen would have been tossed aside like chaff by the host of his

infuriated friends; the House could have been stormed, and his enemies

could have been kicked wholesale into the river. With a supreme effort,

he controlled himself, and forbade all outbreak; proceeding further

to go through the form of trying again to enter the House, so that

Inspector Denning should have to make a form of resistance, on which

he might found an action. It was well. But it is believed that there

are still some who, perfectly recognising the superiority of the course

actually taken, can never wholly stifle, on retrospect, an obscure and

unreasoned but haunting wish that the multitude had taken its own way,

sacked the House, and thrown, if not the Speaker and his wig, at least

Lord Randolph Churchill, and Sir Stafford Northcote, and Sir Henry

Wolff, comrades three, into the Thames, that ancient river and unclean.

The picture as it stands is memorable enough. I have been told that

James Thomson the poet, the estranged friend of Bradlaugh's youth,

was among those at the gates; that he turned pale at the sight of the

struggling group; and that his companions could hardly withhold him by

force from rushing to his old comrade's help.

English gentlemen in general, of course, did not feel about the matter

in that way. Bradlaugh told:--

"On Wednesday last I saw more than 150 members of the House of Commons

gathered to witness, for the first time in English history, the

cowardly and shameful use of overwhelming brute force in order to

prevent a duly-elected member of that House from complying with the

law. Most of these members seemed to enjoy the scene; one, Montague

Scott, climbed to the top of a pillar, so that he might have a good

(and safe) view; another, Alderman Fowler, actually followed to the

very bottom of the stairs, encouraging with voice and gesture those

who were using force against law. A few, a very few members, protested

against this conduct towards one of their fellow-members."

Fowler had shouted "Kick him out." He afterwards denied doing so.

Bradlaugh on this wrote:--

"I see that Alderman Fowler in his place in the House of Commons

denies my statement. I can only say that it is quite impossible I can

be mistaken, for I saw Alderman Fowler stand, occasionally making

jeering gestures, for nearly ten minutes after this, within four or

five feet from me while I was recovering from the exhausting effects

of the struggle."

Others saw the same. Concerning Fowler it is not necessary to

investigate: his denial may stand for what it is worth; but it is quite

certain that scores of members had looked on gleefully. Such creatures

can our "English gentlemen" become, under the inspiration of their

religion and their politics.

Inside the House the matter was at once raised by Mr Labouchere,

who moved as a matter of privilege that the resolution of 10th May

only excluded Bradlaugh from the outer doors of the Chamber, and not

from the lobbies, and that the officers of the House, in excluding

him completely, had acted without authority. The Speaker stated that

the officers had acted under his directions. Mr Gladstone lengthily

argued that there were "three distinct grounds" on which it was to

him "quite plain that the motion could not be sustained." Northcote

naturally approved altogether of the Speaker's action. Sir Wilfred

Lawson contrived, despite interruptions, to make a good fighting

speech on the main question, under cover of a proposed amendment,

which turned out to be a motion for the rescinding of the resolutions

of 26th April and 10th May. Mr Cowen invited the Government to say

whether they would reintroduce their Oaths Bill next session, but no

response was given; and the discussion drifted on in the usual wasteful

way. Mr Biggar observed that on personal grounds he was indisposed

to vote on Bradlaugh's side in the matter, because Bradlaugh had

voted for the expulsion of Irish members earlier in the year, but he

would vote against it as a bad precedent. The level of the debate was

raised by a dignified speech from Bright, who irregularly appealed

to the Opposition to think of what they were doing; whereupon Lord

John Manners' made the pragmatic reply that might have been expected

from that feudal personage. On the moving of an amendment approving

what had been done, Gladstone diffusely intimated that it would be

out of order for him to answer Mr Cowen's appeal. After much talk a

vote was taken, when 7 voted for Mr Labouchere's motion and 191 for

the amendment, a number of Radicals walking out to avoid voting. To

the amendment, put as a substantive resolution, Mr Ashton Dilke moved

a fresh amendment asserting the need for legislation, but this was

disallowed as irrelevant. Sir Wilfred Lawson tried another, which

fared no better. Mr Callan rose to explain that whereas Mr Bright had

described Bradlaugh as being reduced to a fainting condition, he had

put one of the officers in a far worse condition by his grip of that

officer's throat--a statement which, despite its source, was not wholly

untrue. Finally the resolution approving the course taken was allowed

to pass, whereupon Mr Labouchere gave notice that he would again raise

the main question on going into Committee of Supply.

§ 13.

Thus once more was the day of reckoning put off, the more decisively

because an early result of the scuffle for Bradlaugh was a dangerous

attack of erysipelas in the arm--the same arm which had suffered from

the Tory bludgeons in 1878. He was able, indeed, though sorely shaken,

to speak at the Hall of Science in the evening, when he appealed to

his followers to avoid all violence. He was able to attend the law

courts at Westminster on the 5th, when a House of Commons policeman,

seeing him, fled indoors to give warning. On the same day Bradlaugh

attended at the Westminster Police Court to apply to the magistrate,

Mr D'Eyncourt, for a summons against Inspector Denning for the assault

of the 3rd--not the ejection by the police, but the later formal

resistance to Bradlaugh's entrance. This was a purely formal action,

Bradlaugh having testified in his speech at the Hall of Science that Mr

Denning personally had managed his unpleasant task with all possible

consideration. The magistrate, laying significant stress on the action

of the Speaker and of the House, declined even to grant the summons.

One of his explanations was that "society has a right to protect itself

against intrusion," and his tone throughout showed sufficient animus.

Having thus done what he could, Bradlaugh had to own himself disabled,

and go to the seaside under medical treatment. On his arrival at

Worthing, when he had wearily taken his place in the fly, a clergyman

walked up, stared hard at him, and then said in a loud voice: "There's

Bradlaugh; I hope they'll make it warm for him yet." The enemy in

general behaved with their accustomed generosity. The _Irish Times_ led

the way with an intimation that he was malingering, stating further

that the Irish members had opposed him because he "supported the

Coercion Bill." The _North Star_ repeated the charge of malingering

with exuberant brutality. The _St James's Gazette_ spoke of Bradlaugh

as having behaved "like a drunken rough," further repeating the lie

that he had "originally refused" to take the oath. Others rated him for

his constant appearances in the law courts. The _Standard_, on being

courteously asked to insert a letter correcting a misrepresentation,

suppressed it. Liberals, professing to deprecate the course taken, yet

palliated it; and Professor Thorold Rogers, among others, declared that

nothing the House of Commons could do was illegal. The ministerial

journals, of course, condemned him, telling him he had "lost friends"

by his attempt. He was to sit still and wait till the Ministry should

have the courage to make an Affirmation Bill a Cabinet question--a

course which they refused from first to last to take, though it

would at once have compelled their deserters to return to their

allegiance. On this it may here suffice to say, once for all, that the

justification given for Gladstone's course in the matter simply serves

to show how low are the standards of our "Christian" statesmanship

down to the present day. The justification is that Gladstone was bound

to refrain from "compromising" his party by making the admission of

the Atheist a Cabinet question. The good of the party must override

the claims of justice. Mr Gladstone's memory is welcome to all the

credit which such an argument will gain him from a posterity probably

devoid of his sense of religious enlightenment. It will be a doubtful

certificate of the foundations he claims for his morality, that while

conscious of "bloodguiltiness" in the matter of the Transvaal, he

declined to incur for conscience' sake the trivial and transient odium

of having made justice to an Atheist a decisive demand as between

him and certain of his followers. I am not here putting the opinion

of Bradlaugh--whose chivalrous respect for Gladstone prevented him

from passing any such criticism, whatever he may have thought in his

heart--but laying down what seems to me the only doctrine worthy of

conscientious democrats.

It is satisfactory to be able to record that whilst the worst of the

Tory and clerical party exulted in Bradlaugh's physical ejection, many

religious men were moved by it to new sympathy with him. One esteemed

Churchman wrote as follows:--

"After reading of the violence unjustly perpetrated on you yesterday

by the order (or, at least, with the sanction) of a so-called Liberal

majority, I desire, though an entire stranger to you, to offer you

my sympathy. I never read anything which warmed me more than this

account. If the present Cabinet does not secure your admission to

the House in some way or other, I can only wish they may be turned

out of office. The name of 'Christian' and the religion of 'Christ,'

which _I_ venerate, they make odious. As if Christianity could ever be

_less_ than common justice! I don't know what more I can do than say,

'Go on!' and 'Go in!' And if others feel as I do, you will be pushed

into your place by a whole nation, with a much more irresistible force

than has been used by a contemptible clique to keep you out.--I am,

very respectfully and heartily, your well-wisher,

"E. D. GIRDLESTONE."

Needless to say, a number of Liberal journals, though less

emphatically, protested likewise. All along, indeed, there were more

voices for justice in the Liberal press than in the House, despite the

common sense of a need to disclaim sympathy with the wronged man's

"opinions." On the other hand, a number of pious persons, none giving

their names, but all stating that they were Christians, wrote to assure

the disabled man that he was going to hell. One promised to help him

thither by shooting him if he again tried to take his seat. Two wrote

that they prayed he might not recover, and many imbeciles sent tracts

and religious books.

Of another order was the enmity of Sir Henry Tyler, who, feeling now

safe in Bradlaugh's enforced absence, made an attack in the House of

Commons on the Hall of Science science-classes and their teachers--an

attack which he might have made while Bradlaugh sat, but did not.

The argument was that science classes taught by atheists should be

excluded from the South Kensington system. Of the teachers, three were

women, viz. Mrs Besant and the Misses Bradlaugh; and as even the pious

majority did not care to back up such an outrageous attack, it came

to nothing. Mr Mundella, the Minister concerned, even went out of his

way to vindicate the classes; and the press mostly supported him. As a

matter of course, the classes had been taught on strictly scientific

lines.

In a few weeks from the date of his injury Bradlaugh was about again,

lecturing, and speaking at demonstrations. His doctor advised him to go

abroad, but he had his law cases before him, and felt he must buckle

to work. At the beginning of September he published a fresh appeal

"to the people," and on the 5th of that month he spoke at a potters'

demonstration at Hanley, despite continued suffering in the arms. In

his own journal, too, he once more took up the cause of Ireland--which

indeed had all along been advocated in its columns--disregarding

entirely the treatment he had had at the Irish members' hands. But

stiffer work was before him, in the trial of his appeal against the

decision of Justices Denman and Watkin Williams, on the legal or

technical point, as to the validity of a writ dated on the day of

the ground of action. This appeal was argued before Lord Coleridge

and Lords Justices Baggallay and Brett, on 12th and 14th November,

partly on different lines from those gone upon in the first instance.

Bradlaugh was complimented by the judges on his "able and ingenious

argument;" and the discussion between him and them is indeed a very

pretty piece of high-class legal fencing. Sir Hardinge Giffard, who

throughout these cases makes no great show as a pleader, did not

attempt to deal with the most difficult point at all, and his junior

did still worse; but their lordships dealt with it fully and carefully;

and Bradlaugh handsomely acknowledged their rectitude, though they

decided against him. His first care was to make sure that the plaintiff

should not be allowed to tax his costs until final judgment on the

other appeals to the House of Lords; and this was granted. The wolves

were thus still kept at bay.

Next came on the pleading on the rule _nisi_ for a new trial on the

point of fact as to whether Clarke's writ (which specified no act

of voting) had not been issued before the act of voting on which

it was afterwards formally founded. This was heard on 2nd and 3rd

December by Justices Denman and Hawkins, who went into the details

with minute circumspection. Bradlaugh explained that his argument

involved a charge of wilful perjury against James Stuart, the clerk

employed by Newdegate's solicitor, who had been a principal witness

in the previous trial. He further pointed out that Newdegate's

secretary, Hobley, had given a hopeless set of contradictions in

cross-examination; and after the notes of that evidence had been read,

Mr Justice Denman observed: "I am bound to say that after the searching

cross-examination, which no counsel could have conducted more ably, it

is hardly wonderful that Mr Hobley was very confused." It required no

more than the reading of the rest of the evidence to satisfy the judges

that the case for a new trial was fully made out; and they stopped

Bradlaugh in his argument to say so. In regard to the special point

of the time of the division in which he voted, the actual evidence of

reporters was against Bradlaugh, making it earlier than he did; but

when the judges checked his calculations they could find nothing wrong

with them; and the evidence discrediting that of Stuart was too strong

to be dismissed. After a good deal of vacillation, Clarke and Newdegate

decided to appeal against the decision allowing a new trial, Newdegate

in particular having reason to avoid one if possible.

§ 14.

Northcote's excluding resolution of 10th May being only valid for

the session in which it was passed, Bradlaugh was free to enter the

House as before, on the first day of the new session. He announced his

intention to do so; and on the day of reassembling he kept his word.

In the interim an incessant discussion on the case had been going on

in the press and on the platform. Tory speakers, as a rule, alluded

to him with insult, sometimes of the basest description. One, Lord

Ebrington, described him as a person who, but for a legal quibble,

"would be in jail at this moment for publishing an obscene, indecent

book." Another, Mr Orr-Ewing, spoke of Bradlaugh as circulating "filthy

books, calculated to ... drag hundreds down as low as the brute beasts

that perish." Most of the Tory speakers dwelt either on his having

"first refused to take the oath" or "obtruded his views on the House,"

or "declared the oath would not bind his conscience;" and scarcely one

omitted to add untruth to insult. The "profanation of the oath" was

never alluded to without a shudder. On the Liberal side some members

altruistically urged upon Bradlaugh to stand aside "for a few years"

to let opinion ripen; and of the many who spoke in favour of his

admission nearly all thought it necessary to disclaim with "pity" or

"abhorrence" all sympathy with his opinions. Of all these disclamatory

gentlemen, there was not one whose name had then, or has now, the

slightest philosophic authority; but though one or two admitted that

they did not know the nature of the opinions which they all the same

disclaimed, none seems to have been moved to avow that the subject was

beyond his capacity.

Throughout the country, as all along, Liberal opinion was in advance

of the action of the majority in the House; but the _Times_ carefully

suppressed the reports of meetings held in Bradlaugh's favour, and even

of friendly allusions in members' speeches, and the _Daily News_ at

times exhibited equivalent traces of the ownership of Mr Samuel Morley.

On the other hand, the cause of justice had some unexpected adherents.

Lord Derby, speaking at the Liverpool Reform Club, frankly avowed that

he "utterly disbelieved in the value of political oaths," and expressed

a hope that no further attempt would be made to prevent Bradlaugh from

taking the oath if he wanted to. Some groups of dissenting clergy,

too--in particular the Unitarians--petitioned for the abolition of the

oath or the permission of affirmation. But as against the possible gain

from such declarations there was to be set the systematic and energetic

hostile action of the Church of England. One Diocesan Conference

passed a resolution calling on Churchmen in both Houses of Parliament

to resist any measure which would admit "professed infidels" into

Parliament. There was no objection to the admission of infidels who

were not "professed." Another interesting exhibition of Conservative

ethics came from Mr Gorst, Q.C., who, at a banquet at Chichester, in

presence of the Dean, avowed that "he was not a person who pretended to

have any great horror of the offence of bribery." Bradlaugh, who took a

different view, had earlier taken occasion to speak of another of his

assailants as a political scoundrel, in respect of being a convicted

briber.

On the 7th of February 1882, when Bradlaugh as before presented himself

at the table of the House, he was as before interrupted by Sir Stafford

Northcote, who made his customary motion. This time, however, it was

rested on the ground that Bradlaugh had admitted himself to be a person

of a class on whom the law declared an oath had "no binding effect."

Thus the Opposition stood explicitly on the nefarious application of

an ambiguous legal formula, which, as has been above shown, was not

at all framed to carry the meaning thus put upon it. On this occasion

nothing seems to have been said by the Tory leader in his opening

speech about "profanation."

Bradlaugh withdrew to the bar pending the discussion, and Sir William

Harcourt, in Gladstone's absence, briefly moved the previous question.

Newdegate followed with an imbecile speech, which supplied a useful

measure of the minds of those who had supported him throughout the

country. He pointed to the history of France, protested against the

proposed Channel Tunnel, and argued that to admit Bradlaugh would be

"to destroy the distinctions between the basis of government in the two

countries." Further,

"let them compare the condition of the two countries. While the wealth

and the population of France were stationary, and the prestige of her

arms was gone, England's wealth had increased and her kingdom expanded

into empire. The fundamental difference between the two countries

was this--that in the coronation oath taken by the Sovereign, and in

the oath taken by members of both Houses of Parliament, a Deity was

recognised, and the people venerated the obligation. There was but one

other country in the world besides England that had not been conquered

or had not suffered from revolution, and that was Russia.... Both

countries based the claim of their Government to the respect of their

subjects upon the Word of God. The United States had not adopted that

system, and they had seen a civil war and two Presidents murdered

there."

Bradlaugh was then allowed to make his Third Speech at the Bar. He

struck briefly but sufficiently at the speech of Newdegate; and once

more nailed down the eternal misrepresentation as to his having

"paraded his opinions." When he reminded the House that his letter

of 20th May was outside the House, and that he had objected to the

Committee taking cognisance of it, the Opposition laughed. He reminded

them that judges give a silent hearing to a man pleading his case. "If

you are unfit to be judges, then do not judge." Again he put the plain

dilemma: "If what I did entitles the House not to receive me, why has

not the House had the courage of its opinions and vacated the seat?"

Then came a graver challenge:--

"I have read within the last few days words spoken, not by members

of no consequence, but by members occupying high positions in this

House, which made me wonder if this is the House of Commons to which

I aspired so much. I have read that one right hon. member, the member

for Whitehaven[159]--(laughter from the Ministerial side)--was

prompted to say to his constituents that I was kicked downstairs last

session, and that he hoped I should be again. If it were true that I

was kicked downstairs, I would ask the members of the House of Commons

on whom the shame, on whom the disgrace, on whom the stigma? I dare

not apply this, but history will when I have mouldered, and you too,

and our passions are quite gone. But it is not quite true that I was

kicked downstairs, and it is a dangerous thing to say that I was, for

it means that hon. members who should rely on law rely on force. It

is a dangerous provocation to conflict to throw to the people. If I

had been as wicked in my thought as some members are reported to have

been in their speech, this quarrel, not of my provoking, would assume

a future to make us all ashamed."

[Footnote 159: Mr Cavendish Bentinck.]

As the speech went on, he came into more and more sharp conflict with

his antagonists.

"Does the House," he asked, "mean that it is a party to each oath

taken? ('Hear.') There was a time when most clearly it was not so

a party. There was a time when the oath was not even taken in the

presence of members at all. But does the House mean it is a party

now? Was it a party the session before last? Was it a party when

Mr Hall[160] walked up to that table, cheered by members on the

other side who knew his seat was won by deliberate bribery?--(loud

Opposition cries of 'Order')--bribery sought to be concealed by the

most corrupt perjury. Did the House join in it? (Renewed cries of

'Order.') If the House did not join in it, why did you cheer so that

the words of the oath were drowned? Was the House a party when John

Stuart Mill sat in this House?"

[Footnote 160: Elected for Oxford.]

After repeating his former explicit declaration that the words of

adjuration would in no way weaken the binding effect of the promise on

his honour and conscience, he was met by jeers, and he began: "Members

of the House who are ignorant of what is honour and conscience,"

meaning to add "in the case of a non-religionist" or words to that

effect. He was again interrupted by loud cries of "Order" and

"Withdraw" from the men who had just been insulting him _en masse_. He

asked to be allowed to finish his sentence, but was still interrupted

by the mob of hon. gentlemen on the Opposition benches. "These," he

cried, pointing at the rowdies, "these are my judges." There was a

silence, and he went on. His blood was up, and he spoke at greater

length than before, dwelling among other things on the scene of August,

and indignantly rebuking those who had exulted in it. In conclusion,

he offered to stand aside for four or five weeks if the House would

in that time discuss an Affirmation Bill. Nay, if they feared to make

it a Bradlaugh Relief Bill, he would resign his seat and stand for

re-election. The Liberals cheered at this, and he ended: "I have no

fear. If I am not fit for my constituents, they shall dismiss me, but

you never shall. The grave alone shall make me yield."

Mr Labouchere, speaking next, stated that he had had sent him over

750 fresh petitions, signed by about 170,000, in favour of Bradlaugh

being allowed to take his seat, and that other Liberal members had

received petitions signed by about 100,000 more. He proceeded to

challenge Northcote to abide by his own declaration of the previous

year, that the question should be legislated on by the Government;

and Northcote rose to make a second speech. He too, he averred, had

received many petitions, and among others one from Northampton, "signed

by 10,300 persons, giving their occupations and addresses"--a manifest

prevarication, inasmuch as many of the 10,000 must have been the wives

and children of the Tory electors.[161] On the Government amendment he

objected to "profanation of the oath;" and as to the obstruction of

the Oaths Bill last session, he reminded the Government that though

they had certainly been somewhat obstructed, they might at any later

time have put the Bill first on a Government night. As before, however,

the Tory leader declined to make any "bargain." Gladstone replied,

pointing out that it had been quite impossible for the Ministry to

push the Oaths Bill as suggested, and declining to promise that the

Government would give precedence to an Oaths Bill. They should let

Bradlaugh swear, and take his chances in the law courts as before. On

this theme he rang the changes, without much energy. After a number

of minor speeches the House divided, when there voted for Northcote's

resolution 286, and for the previous question only 228. Such a vote

served to dispose of the view which had been advanced by some Liberals,

that the minority of 26th April 1881 was due to the absence of many of

their party who were prolonging their holiday, while all the Tories

were in town for Beaconsfield's funeral. Some seventy "Liberals" had

now deliberately stayed away (among them being Mr Goschen, Sir John

Lubbock, Sir E. Reed, and Sir A. Gordon), while the whole Parnellite

members present voted with the Tories. Five Scotch, eight Irish, and

fifteen English Liberals did the same, among the latter being Mr Samuel

Morley and Sir Edward Watkin.

[Footnote 161: Bradlaugh noted later in his journal that the petition

was "alleged to be signed by 10,300 freemen of Northampton." This,

he remarked, "cannot possibly be true, as the freemen do not amount

to that number." They really numbered about 300! It turned out that

thousands of the signatures were those of school-children.]

Immediately on the vote being announced, and the question being put,

Bradlaugh presented himself afresh, refusing as formerly to obey the

resolution. The usual appeal from the Speaker elicited the usual

motion from Northcote, which being carried, Bradlaugh said: "It would

be undignified in me to indulge in any other kind of contest on the

floor. I respectfully obey the House, and withdraw below the bar." The

struggle was now apparently reduced to something like a recognised set

of moves, all of which had been made and might be in due course made

again; and Bradlaugh for the present was left to attend every meeting

of the House, sitting beyond the bar, but without the power of voting

or speaking.

Bradlaugh at once appealed to his constituents to choose whether or

not he should resign; and they promptly decided that he should not;

while some thirty indignation meetings were held throughout the country

within a week, all condemning the action of the House of Commons. The

law advisers of the Crown further formally declared on challenge that

the seat was not vacant; and Bradlaugh wrote Gladstone, formally asking

whether he was prepared to do anything. Gladstone on 18th February

formally replied that he was not. Bradlaugh then took a new step,

forcing the question on the House more determinedly than ever.

On Monday, 20th February, Mr Labouchere formally moved in the House

that a new writ be issued for Northampton, seeing that Bradlaugh had

been prevented from taking the oath and his seat. Churchill moved

to amend the motion by substituting a description of Bradlaugh as

"disqualified." The Attorney-General formally opposed, and the

perplexed Northcote did likewise, being guided by the sole fact that

the motion was proposed by Bradlaugh's friendly colleague. After a

debate, in which Northcote was dishonest enough to assert once more

that Bradlaugh had "claimed" to be "a person on whose conscience

the oath was not binding," the amendment was negatived, as was the

proposition that the words proposed to be left out should be left in.

The resolution was thus left at a stand at the word "who;" and on the

unfinished sentence the House proceeded to divide. When it seemed as

if the "Noes" would "have it" without a division, Bradlaugh moved from

his seat and stood at the bar; but on Mr Labouchere's challenging a

division he returned. On the vote being taken there were 307 "Noes" to

18 "Ayes." The House thus explicitly refused to decide that the seat

should be vacated, though they were all the while preventing it from

being taken.

Bradlaugh was once more at the bar when the tellers announced the

figures. Immediately he walked up the floor to the table, members

looking on without excitement, counting on a repetition of the old

scene. But this time "the scene was changed." While members waited

for the usual action of the Speaker, it suddenly dawned on them

that Bradlaugh had a book in his hand--it was the regulation "New

Testament"--and was taking the oath of his own accord! He had gone

through the whole mummery before the excited House could collect its

faculties, and he duly finished by subscribing a written oath on a

sheet of paper with a pocket pen. The Speaker was on his feet; the

Clerk had come half-way to meet Bradlaugh; and Northcote had risen to

speak, and sat down again, speechless. The Speaker mechanically called

on Bradlaugh, as usual, to withdraw below the bar. He did so, but in

doing it announced that he should return and take his seat, which he

did, seating himself on a back bench. The Speaker solemnly charged him

with disobedience, to which Bradlaugh blandly responded that he had

obeyed them, and had taken his seat in addition, having first taken the

oath. On the Speaker insisting, however, he once more withdrew beyond

the bar, sitting under the gallery as before. Churchill, collecting

himself more promptly than his leader, argued that Bradlaugh, having

taken his seat "without taking the oath," "was as dead," and moved

that the seat be declared vacant. The Attorney-General professionally

pointed out that to vacate the seat under the statute the offending

member must vote or sit during a debate. He suggested that the House

had better adjourn the discussion, which it did after much further

speech-making, in the course of which Churchill declared that Bradlaugh

had "deliberately insulted the House," not for the first time; other

members of similar dignity speaking to similar effect.

Next day the debate was resumed. Gladstone made a long and scrupulously

bland speech, in the course of which he endured much contradiction

of those who thought him insufficiently zealous for the honour of

Omnipotence, concluding by saying that he left it to the majority to

act for themselves. Northcote was laboriously indignant, and lengthily

led up to a motion "that the Sergeant-at-Arms be instructed to prevent

Bradlaugh from entering the precincts of the House," which motion,

on the correction of the Speaker, he converted into an amendment to

that of Churchill. A dispute arose on behalf of Dr Lyons, who had on

the previous night given notice of a more drastic motion, but had

not "caught the Speaker's eye" when he rose before Northcote. Then

the debate drifted on; some members drivelling, some ranting, some

platitudinising. At length Churchill's motion was negatived, whereupon

Dr Lyons proposed his declaring Bradlaugh incapable of sitting, as

an amendment to Northcote's. The pious Lyons was of opinion that

"behind the particular issue there lay a great moral question,"

which, however, he did not specify. Again the debate rolled on. At

length it was noticed that Bradlaugh had once more taken his seat

within the House. The Speaker challenged him, and Bradlaugh began to

explain that he proposed to "ask the indulgence of the House," when

his voice was drowned in yells of "Order." The Speaker then solemnly

charged him afresh with disobedience, and called "the attention of

the House to that circumstance." Gladstone rose in response to calls;

but the Speaker hastily interposed to call upon Bradlaugh to withdraw

beyond the bar, which he did, formally protesting. Gladstone blandly

observed that there was now no disobedience to deal with, and that it

was not incumbent on him to do anything. Northcote arose in a state

of ostensible but flabby indignation, and declared that "he must say

there was a limit" to his "very moderate line." He now proposed to

withdraw his amendment and substitute a motion of expulsion. Gladstone

suavely intimated that he should not object to the withdrawal of the

amendment, and Dr Lyons was induced to withdraw his likewise. The

motion for expulsion, on the ground that Bradlaugh had, "in contempt of

the authority of the House, irregularly and contumaciously pretended to

take the oath," was then put, and Gladstone intimated in a period that

he would not oppose. Mr Labouchere dropped the very apt remark that "he

had always found that when the House was exercising judicial functions

it got into an unjudicial frame of mind," and pointed out that

Bradlaugh's action had been taken to obtain a case for legal judgment,

and could not reasonably be termed "insulting." On a division, 291

voted for the amendment proposing expulsion and 83 against; some

Liberals salving their consciences with the formula that "the House

must maintain the authority of the chair."

A new point was raised by the intimation of one of the tellers that

Bradlaugh had voted in the division. He had thereby completed the

legal circumstances for a test case. The Speaker again asked for

instructions, but Northcote, rather than begin a fresh debate, let the

matter pass. Then arose the question, energetically put by Mr Storey,

whether Bradlaugh should not be heard afresh in his defence; but this

too had to be dropped. On the substantive motion being put, 297 voted

with Northcote, and 80 against; and a motion for a new writ was at once

agreed to by Mr Labouchere.

§ 15.

Not only his constituents, but the people generally, gave Bradlaugh

their instant and warm support. At a great Sunday meeting at

Manchester, to which hundreds of men had trudged many miles through

the rain in the early morning, over hills and moors, from the country

round, some of them only to find the hall full to the door, he had a

reception which brought tears to his eyes. At Northampton, of course,

the struggle was desperate. Mr Samuel Morley, bent on making reparation

to his Deity for his one act of rational tolerance, followed up his

many Tory votes by a letter to the Northampton Nonconformists, asking

them to vote for the Tory candidate as an "act of allegiance to God;"

but, on the other hand, the Radical Association of Bristol (the town

for which he sat), who had by this time, after twice hearing Bradlaugh,

determined to unseat their member, sent 3000 copies of an address

begging the Northampton electors to return Bradlaugh by an overwhelming

majority of votes. A meeting of delegates from some scores of workmen's

clubs in London sent down 10,000 copies of a similar appeal. When

Bradlaugh went down, thousands of people lined the streets to see him

pass to say a few words in the Market Square. Radicals came from other

towns to help in the canvassing, and Mr Labouchere gave his powerful

aid. The Tories, on their part, did their utmost, using, if possible,

viler weapons than before; and meantime they had been adding every

possible vote to the register. The insolence of the Tory candidate

to the workers was such that several of his meetings were broken up.

The outcome of desperate efforts was that Corbett, the Tory, received

rather more of the new votes than Bradlaugh, the figures being 3796 to

3688, a majority for Bradlaugh of 108 (2nd March 1882). In the fury

of despair, the Tories had demanded a re-count of the votes, but this

had only altered the majority by three. The betting fraternity, who

had mostly laid their money on the side of "religion," were naturally

enraged; and Corbett was reported to say on leaving, "I shan't come

back to your dirty town any more." When the news spread, the fury did.

One academic ruffian wrote in the _Saturday Review_:--

"The average Northampton elector and the rascal who shot at the Queen,

while the average Northampton elector was voting for Mr Bradlaugh,

probably acted from motives not dissimilar in kind, though the acts to

which those motives led differed in degree of heinousness."

Journals which had predicted that Bradlaugh would be defeated, now

propagated the lie that he had been carried by terrorism--their own

terrorism having failed. By the workers in general the news was

received with delight; in most towns it was waited for on the evening

of the election with intense excitement, and acclaimed with unbounded

enthusiasm. The House of Commons, however, was not to be turned from

its evil courses.

On 4th March Northcote notified Bradlaugh of his intention to take the

same course as formerly if he presented himself, and to make a motion

on the writ if he did not. Bradlaugh replied, saying he presumed the

motion would be one to promote the legislation which Northcote had

often said ought to take place. "I congratulate you," he concluded,

"on the return of at least yourself to some respect for the law, and

beg to assure you that I shall in such case do my best to help you

to avoid further embittering a conflict of which I am sure you must

feel heartily ashamed." On Monday, 6th March, Northcote asked the

Speaker whether the resolution of 7th February was still in force,

and was answered in the negative. He was proceeding to say he would

make a motion, when successive protests against the interruption were

made by Mr Labouchere and Mr Dillwyn. The Speaker overruled both, and

Northcote moved that Bradlaugh, should he present himself, be not

allowed to take the oath. On the Liberal side, Mr E. Marjoribanks

(now Lord Tweedmouth) moved as an amendment a resolution that it was

desirable so to alter the law as to permit any elected member to take

the oath or make affirmation, at his choice. With the worst of bad

taste, Mr Marjoribanks, who had before declared his preference for

decorous hypocrisy, went on to explain that he was "one of the very

large section of that House who regarded Mr Bradlaugh's conduct both

within and without that House with something very like disgust and

indignation," and to describe the recent oath-taking as an "unworthy

manoeuvre"--a display of class hatred which may serve to suggest the

nature of the feeling on the Tory side. Mr Labouchere, after defending

his colleague, undertook for him that if the amendment were carried

he would not present himself until a decision was come to. Gladstone

formally approved of the amendment; but after a long debate of the

usual kind, it received only 244 votes against 259, to the wild delight

of the Opposition. Twelve Liberals, including Mr S. Morley, Mr Torrens,

and Mr Walter; and twenty-six Home Rulers, including Mr McCarthy and Mr

Sexton, had voted with Northcote.

The Liberal press was now nearly unanimous for legislation and even

the _Pall Mall Gazette_ went so far as to say: "All that is wanted is

that the Government should pluck up a little more moral courage, and

recognise that even in practice honesty is the best policy." In the

foreign press, the general judgment was that the House of Commons was

systematically disgracing itself. The Government, however, proposed

nothing, leaving the Oaths Bill in the hands of the "disgusted" Mr

Marjoribanks; while in the Upper House Lord Redesdale had on 7th March

introduced a Bill providing that a declaration of Theism should be

compulsory on all members of Parliament and peers. This measure, he

explained, he introduced "from a deep sense of what was due to Almighty

God." A little later, on its discussion, his lordship withdrew it "in

deference to Lord Salisbury."

Bradlaugh, on his part, after consultation with his committee in

Northampton, and after publishing a telling "Address to the Majority"

for general circulation, decided that his future course must be one of

systematic agitation in the constituencies. The Constitutional Rights

League was reconstituted; an election fund was begun for the purpose

of contesting certain seats held by renegade Liberals; and in these

constituencies the Radicals quietly went about the work of making

them untenable. Already a Liberal candidate had been defeated on the

score of the insolence of his language towards Bradlaugh's supporters,

Mr Samuel Morley had been called upon by the Bristol Radical

Association to resign; other members had been sharply censured in their

constituencies; and it was plain that it only needed time to ensure the

unseating of most of the renegades. For the present nothing was to be

hoped for from the Government; and a fresh notice by Mr Labouchere of a

motion for leave to introduce an Affirmation Bill was blocked by Earl

Percy. Thus the men who shrieked against "profanation" resisted all the

while every attempt to make oath-taking by unbelievers unnecessary.

Finally, a petition by the Northampton electors to be heard at the bar

of the House was dismissed by the Speaker as unentitled to a hearing;

and a notice of motion on the subject by Mr Firth never got to a

hearing. There was clearly nothing for it but to carry war into the

renegades' country. On the subject of the Speaker's action generally,

Bradlaugh contented himself with penning a very temperate but very

weighty paragraph:[162]--

[Footnote 162: _National Reformer_, April 2, 1882.]

"I am just a little troubled how to decide one or two points. The

Speaker of the House of Commons is the first commoner in England,

and his judgment on the various points from time to time submitted

to him is practically without appeal. It is impossible to suspect

him of intentional unfairness; he is a clear-sighted and courteous

gentleman. Yet some of his decisions seem so conflicting that I

fail in understanding how he reconciles them to himself. On the

21st February he held that Mr Labouchere was entitled, under the

then circumstances, as of privilege, to move for a new writ for

Northampton. On the 24th March, under precisely similar circumstances,

Mr Speaker ruled that such a motion could not be made as one of

privilege. On the 6th March, without any reason given whatever,

except that I might come some time or other, the Speaker allowed Sir

S. Northcote to raise the question of my right to my seat as one of

privilege; but the Speaker now refuses to allow Mr Labouchere to raise

as one of privilege the fact that one of the seats for Northampton is

now in fact unfilled. On the 15th February the Speaker held that the

resolution of the 7th February, which is directly in the teeth of the

Standing Order of 30th April 1866, does not conflict with that order.

On the 9th day of March he held that the resolution of the 6th March,

which does not say one word about my coming to the table to take

my seat, does so prevent my coming to the table, and that the same

resolution, which does not mention my introducers or in any way forbid

them introducing me, does in point of fact so act as a prohibition

that he will hold any attempt to introduce me as disorderly and

irregular. When my constituents wrote him, the Speaker answered that

they must approach the House by petition. When they do approach by

petition, he rules that their application has no privilege."

The dilemma, as between imputing to Sir Henry Brand unfairness, and

pronouncing him to have failed in his duty, must be left here as

Bradlaugh left it.

§ 16.

All the while the manifold litigation set up by the action of the House

was moving on its slow way. The appeal of Clarke against the judgment

of Justices Denman and Hawkins allowing a new trial had been heard on

21st February by Lords Justices Brett, Cotton, and Holker (the latter

newly appointed), and these judges ruled that no new trial could take

place, thus reversing the decision appealed against.

An independent comment on this judgment, which appeared in the _Pall

Mall Gazette_ at the time, may be here cited:--

"The Court of Appeal holds that they [the Judges of the Queen's

Bench Division] ought to have closed their eyes to everything but

the partial evidence given at the trial, some of which at all events

both the Court of Appeal and the Court below pronounced to be

unsatisfactory. Nor does it seem perfectly fair to make so much as

Lord Justice Brett does of the imputation of perjury to one of Mr

Newdegate's witnesses. The Lord Justice himself admits that there were

blemishes in his testimony, and that he 'somewhat prevaricated and

coloured his evidence, etc.' We fail to see 'the enormous difference'

between evidence of this character and perjury, at least for the

purpose of such an action. If a man is to be condemned in a penal

action he has a right to insist that it shall be on perfectly honest

and straightforward evidence only."

The curious reader who cares to form his own opinion on the subject of

the evidence referred to will do well to turn to the verbatim report

preserved in the _National Reformer_.

The Clarke-Newdegate combination seemed now to see their way partly

clear to their great end of making Bradlaugh bankrupt. On 29th March

they moved before Justice Grove and Baron Huddleston for judgment--that

is, for power to compel Bradlaugh to pay the penalty sued for and the

costs. Bradlaugh admitted that at that stage he could not resist a

judgment for the penalty, but resisted the motion so far as it claimed

costs. To this the judges agreed; and on 30th March they gave judgment

for the penalty, but reserved the costs pending the appeal to the House

of Lords. Bradlaugh had thus to pay £500 into Court within fourteen

days. Already, too, he had had to give securities for £500 on the

appeal to the House of Lords, in addition to the £200 he had paid down

according to rule. For these heavy payments he had to go into debt, his

normal means of earning his livelihood being in part suspended by the

very lawsuits themselves.

In course of the arguments on the plaintiff's appeal it was noticeable

that Justice Grove pointed to the possibility of an action against

Newdegate for maintenance, and, on Bradlaugh mentioning that the

magistrate had dismissed the summonses against Newdegate and his

solicitor on the ground that the law was obsolete, observed, "But it is

by no means obsolete. I set aside an agreement for maintenance only a

little while ago."

Another item was added to the imbroglio of litigation by the friendly

action of Alderman Gurney of Northampton, on behalf of the Liberal

and Radical Union there, against Bradlaugh for not taking his seat--a

step taken by way of getting a legal deliverance. Bradlaugh formally

demurred that he had been illegally hindered by the House of Commons.

When the case came on before Justices Manisty and Watkin Williams on

15th May 1882, the judges warily declined to give any judgment, on the

score that the action was friendly, that the pleadings had been drawn

so as to compel a decision in Bradlaugh's favour, and did not disclose

all the facts of the case. Yet they excluded no material fact; and a

friendly action for a precisely similar penalty had been heard and

decided before in the historic case of Miller _v._ Salomons, while, as

a solicitor wrote to Bradlaugh, "it is a matter of everyday occurrence

in the Chancery Division for friendly actions to be brought to get a

judicial decision on questions arising out of settlements, etc." In

the present case it seemed pretty clear that the judges were simply

very much concerned not to come in conflict with the legislature. The

pleadings were however readjusted, and the case stood for re-hearing

before a jury.

Still another complication was perforce set up by an action brought

by Bradlaugh in April against Mr Erskine, the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms

of the House of Commons, for the assault of 3rd August--a step made

necessary by the police magistrate's refusal of a summons against

Inspector Denning for his formal assault; and by the risk, which was

soon realised, that the Gurney action would be denied a hearing.

The matter being brought before the House on 8th and 9th May, the

Attorney-General was directed to defend Mr Erskine, Sir Hardinge

Giffard suggesting that those who assisted in bringing such an action

should be prosecuted according to old precedents for breach of

privilege. Such a prosecution, if laid, would have struck at Messrs

Lewis & Lewis, Bradlaugh's solicitors in the matter, and at the

committee of the Constitutional Rights League, who had also instructed

them.

And yet one more step in this bewildering litigation was taken on 9th

May, when Bradlaugh moved before Lords Justices Brett and Cotton for

leave to appeal against so much of the three orders of the Court of

Appeal, dated 31st March 1881, 14th November 1881, and 23rd February

1882, as awarded costs. The application was of a highly technical

character, and was dismissed, everything being now left to the House of

Lords when it should hear the appeal.

§17.

The agitation in the constituencies was carried on throughout the

spring and summer with an energy worthy of the cause. In addition to

the crowded meetings which he held in dozens of the larger provincial

towns, the Constitutional Rights League arranged for three more great

demonstrations in London--two on 10th May, and one on Sunday, 14th

May. On the 10th was held, first, an immense mass meeting in Trafalgar

Square, attended by delegates from over a hundred towns, and addressed

by, among other speakers, the Rev. Mr Freeston of Stalybridge, Mr

Ashton Dilke, Mr Labouchere, and Mr Broadhurst; and in the evening a

second audience packed St James's Hall to the doors. On the Sunday an

enormous mass meeting took place in Hyde Park, the attendance being

estimated at 70,000 or 80,000. At all of these meetings Bradlaugh's

claim was affirmed with the greatest enthusiasm. The attitude of the

Tory press may be gathered from a reference in the _Evening Standard_ to

"that section of the people which holds Mr Bradlaugh's coat-tails in

veneration. They would get to Westminster, see the fun, shout out

encouragement, and possibly pick up something to pay the expenses of

the expedition."

An earlier demonstration, held in the Shoreditch Town Hall on 8th

May, presided over by Mr Broadhurst and addressed by Bradlaugh and

Labouchere, received no notice in the leading morning papers, though

the crowd which sought admittance would have sufficed to fill the hall

thrice over. It was necessary for such journals to ignore such matters

as much as possible, since the main plea on the Tory side had now come

to be that the public feeling was "universally" against Bradlaugh. To

suppress the facts, and then to deny that the facts existed, was a

natural tactic.

Naturally the Tories on their own part were not idle, either in

the House or out of it. In the House they were safe from answer

by Bradlaugh; and accordingly Sir Henry Tyler, who had already

distinguished himself by a dastardly attack on the ladies of

"the Bradlaugh family" and Mrs Besant as being unfit teachers of

Science,[163] was foolish enough to call upon the Home Secretary,

during May, to prosecute the _National Reformer_ for blasphemy, on the

score, not of any editorial utterances, but of certain articles by an

outside contributor, controverting, as too favourable, an estimate

of the Gospel Jesus by a member of the staff. Sir Henry was no less

zealous for Jesus than he had been for "God;" and he was backed by

Mr Healy, who asked whether the paper could not be seized. The Home

Secretary deprecated the attempt in the name of the interests of

orthodoxy, as he had previously done an attempt to secure a prosecution

of the _Freethinker_. But Tyler and those of his kidney, baffled here,

only looked about for another means of gaining their point.

[Footnote 163: A question put to Mr Mundella on 18th June in the

House elicited the fact that the Hall of Science classes had been

established, and received grants, under the late Tory administration.

On this Lord George Hamilton was petty enough to put the blame on his

subordinates. Mr Mundella answered that for his part he was responsible

for anything done by his subordinates.]

Among the most prominent of the attacks made on Bradlaugh about this

time were the (second and third) articles contributed by Cardinal

Manning to the _Nineteenth Century_, one under the title "An

Englishman's Protest." The second was in time for the election in

March, and much was hoped from it. Later, after illegally visiting

Northampton in prelatic state, to turn the Irish voters against

the Atheist, he contributed yet a third article to the _Nineteenth

Century_ of September 1882; and still the editor denied Bradlaugh all

right of reply. It is probable that at no time in the long strife

were Freethinkers more roused to wrath, more moved to smite arrogant

insolence upon its blatant mouth, than by this manifesto from a prince

of the Church of Rome, the murderous organism which had eaten out the

mind of Spain and barely missed destroying Italy. Certain it is that

from these malevolent outbreaks of the unsleeping Romish spirit of

persecution may be dated a new birth of enmity towards Rome on the

part of English rationalists, who had before been disposed to class

the bloody-mindedness of Catholicism with the kindred rancours of

Protestantism. It was left to Manning to put his Church in the worst

light of all; to show once for all that the fundamental mission of

priestly Rome is not _parcere subjectis et debellare superbos_, but to

fight the ignoble battle of the million against one. And it is to his

action that his co-religionists owe most of the measure of acceptation

found among Freethinkers by the fierce verse in which Mr Swinburne

has named the Church of Rome "Grey spouse of Satan, church of name

abhorred," and taunted the "withered harlot" with the shame of her

defeat on the Field of Flowers.

But Bradlaugh met the priest's attack with a prose that suffered no

weakening from hysteria. In his journal it met a detailed and judicial

criticism: he himself, roused as he had never been roused before,

published his tract, "A Cardinal's Broken Oath," one of the hardest

blows ever struck in written controversy.

"Three times," it begins, "your Eminence has--through the pages

of the _Nineteenth Century_--personally and publicly interfered

and used the weight of your ecclesiastical position against me in

the Parliamentary struggle in which I am engaged, although you are

neither voter in the borough for which I am returned to sit, nor even

co-citizen in the State to which I belong. Your personal position

is that of a law-breaker, one who has deserted his sworn allegiance

and thus forfeited his citizenship, one who is tolerated by English

forbearance, but is liable to indictment for misdemeanour as 'member

of a society of the Church of Rome.' More than once when the question

of my admission to the House of Commons has been under discussion in

that House, have I seen you busy in the lobby, closely attended by

the devout and sober Philip Callan, or some other equally appropriate

Parliamentary henchman."

After telling the Cardinal how he had "blundered alike in his law

and his history," making absurd mis-statements concerning the French

Revolution and the case of Horne Tooke, the pamphlet takes up the point

of persecution, in regard to Manning's advice that Bradlaugh should be

indicted for blasphemy:--

"When I was in Paris some time since, and was challenged to express an

opinion as to the enforcement of the law against the religious orders

of France, I, not to the pleasure of many of my friends, spoke out

very freely that in matters of religion I would use the law against

none; but your persecuting spirit may provoke intemperate men even

farther than you dream. In this country, by the 10th George IV., cap.

7, secs. 28 and 29, 31, 32, and 34, you are criminally indictable,

Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. You only reside here without

police challenge by the merciful forbearance of the community. And yet

you parade in political contest your illegal position as 'a member of

a religious order of the Church of Rome,' and have the audacity to

invoke outlawry and legal penalty against me."

And then came a hail of blows at the Cardinal Archbishop's own

personality, so rashly put in the way of retaliation:--

"In the current number of the _Nineteenth Century_ you fire your

last shot, and are coarse in Latin as well as in the vulgar tongue.

Perhaps the frequenting Philip Callan has spoiled your manners. It

also seems impossible that one who was once a cultured scholar and a

refined gentleman could confuse with legitimate argument the abuse

of his opponents as 'cattle.' But who are you, Henry Edward Manning,

that you should throw stones at me, and should so parade your desire

to protect the House of Commons from contamination? At least, first

take out of it the drunkard and the dissolute of your own Church. You

know them well enough. Is it the oath alone which stirs you? Your

tenderness on swearing comes very late in life. When you took orders

as a deacon of the English Church, in presence of your bishop, you

swore 'so help me God,' that you did from your 'heart abhor, detest,

and abjure,' and with your hand on the 'Holy Gospels' you declared

'that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath,

or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence,

or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm.' You

may now well write of men 'whom no oath can bind.' The oath you took

you have broken; and yet it was because you had, in the very church

itself, taken this oath, that you for many years held more than one

profitable preferment in the Established Church of England. You

indulge in innuendoes against my character in order to do me mischief,

and viciously insinuate as though my life had in it justification

for good men's abhorrence. In this you are very cowardly as well as

very false. Then, to move the timid, you suggest 'the fear of eternal

punishment' as associated with a broken oath. Have you any such fear?

or have you been personally conveniently absolved from the 'eternal'

consequences of your perjury? Have you since sworn another oath before

another bishop of another church, or made some solemn vow to Rome, in

lieu of, and in contradiction to, the one you so took in presence of

your bishop, when, 'in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,'

that bishop of the Church by law established in this country accepted

your oath, and gave you authority as a deacon in the Church you have

since forsaken. I do not blame you so much that you are forsworn;

there are, as you truly say, 'some men whom no oath can bind;' and

it has often been the habit of the cardinals of your Church to take

an oath and break it when profit came with the breach; but your

remembrance of your own perjury might at least keep you reticent in

very shame. Instead of this, you thrust yourself impudently into a

purely political contest, and shout as if the oath were to you the

most sacred institution possible. You say 'there are happily some

men who believe in God and fear Him.' Do you do either? You, who

declared, 'so help me God,' that no foreign 'prelate ... ought to

have any jurisdiction or authority ecclesiastical or spiritual within

this realm'? And you who, in spite of your declaration on oath,

have courted and won, intrigued for and obtained, the archbishop's

authority and the cardinal's hat from the Pope of Rome--you rebuke

Lord Sherbrooke for using the words 'sin and shame' in connection with

oath-taking: do you hold now that there was no sin and no shame in

your broken oath? None in the rash taking or the wilful breaking? Have

you no personal shame that you have broken your oath? Or do the pride

and pomp of your ecclesiastical position outbribe your conscience? You

talk of the people understanding the words 'so help me God.' How do

you understand them of your broken oath? Do they mean to you: 'May God

desert and forsake me as I deserted and forsook the Queen's supremacy,

to which I so solemnly swore allegiance'? You speak of men being kept

to their allegiance by the oath 'which binds them to their sovereign.'

You say such men may be tempted by ambition or covetousness unless

they are bound by 'the higher and more sacred responsibility' involved

in the 'recognition of the law-giver in the oath.' Was the Rector of

Lavington and Graffham covetous of an archbishopric that he broke his

oath? Was the Archdeacon of Chichester ambitious of the Cardinal's hat

that he became so readily forsworn?"

The eight small but pregnant pages of this concentrated diatribe were

carefully translated into Italian by or for a certain Monsignor, once

resident in England, who was understood to owe no goodwill to Manning;

the translation was no less carefully circulated among the higher Roman

clergy; and if anything had been needed to thwart Manning's ambition

of becoming Pope, this little tractate, it was believed, would have

served not a little to that end. At all events, Manning never again

ventured to attack Bradlaugh publicly. He had had enough. And not only

had he failed to destroy Bradlaugh, he had evoked furious Protestant

protests against his action at Northampton, and this even from journals

like the _Rock_, which hated Bradlaugh as much as he did. His alliance

was rejected with insult. And even in his own Church the far more

highly esteemed Newman, answering a correspondent on the subject of the

Affirmation Bill of 1883, expressly declared that he thought "nothing

would be lost to religion by its passing and nothing gained by its

being rejected."[164]

[Footnote 164: Letter of 8th May 1883.]

It would be superfluous to load this already over-burdened narrative

with any detailed account of the stream of insults, imbecilities,

brutalities, and falsehoods which was cast forth continuously at this

period against Bradlaugh in the press and on the platform. From the

fatuity of Viscount Folkestone--who argued that an Atheist, being

guilty of treason to God, who gave the Queen her power, should be

treated like one guilty of treason to the Queen--to the brutish

licence of the Tory journals who likened Bradlaugh's sympathisers to

thieves and assassins, there was, as Mr Moncure Conway wrote at the

time, "no circumstance of heartlessness, injustice, hypocrisy, and

falsehood[165] wanting to this last carnival of theological[166] hatred

and ferocity." It was not, of course, theological hate alone. Bradlaugh

had just been leading a popular movement for land law reform; and he

had set in motion a second movement for the abolition of perpetual

pensions, which went on wheels, and the petitions in support of which

were signed by the hundred thousand.[167] There are few resentments

more bitter than that of a menaced interest. But malice once aroused

in men of a low type stops at nothing; and as we have seen, everybody

associated with Bradlaugh was included in the hatred bestowed on him.

One Tory journal, the _Manchester Courier_, went the length of saying

that Bradlaugh's success in Northampton was due to an exceptionally bad

state of education there; the pretext being that one Northamptonshire

village was in such a state. The Government inspector testified that

as regarded the town he had often paid tribute to the heartiness of

the people of Northampton, and especially of the working-classes, in

carrying out the Education Act, and that it would be hard to find

anywhere a more active School Board, a higher average of regular

attendance, or a higher general standard of proficiency.

[Footnote 165: If further samples are needed of the general

untruthfulness, they can be given by the dozen. Even men of good

standing spoke with a disregard of scruple which put them outside

courteous correction. Bradlaugh was driven to characterise Sir Edward

Watkin as "an exceedingly and wantonly untruthful person." In November

1882 he represented to his Folkestone constituents that he would not

have stood in the way of Bradlaugh either swearing or affirming, but

that he resisted when Bradlaugh "distinctly outraged all that they held

sacred." This presumably referred to the self-administered oath of

1882. But Sir E. Watkin had voted against Bradlaugh being allowed to

swear on 27th April 1881. The Hon. Mr Stansfeld, speaking at Halifax

in October 1882, actually represented that the oath was "on the true

faith of a Christian;" and repeated the untruth that Bradlaugh had

"said that the oath had no binding effect on his conscience." The Rev.

Canon Gascoigne Weldon, of Rothesay, asserted in writing that Bradlaugh

"boasted publicly that he sought entrance into the House of Commons to

insult its members and all its past glorious history, and level it, if

possible, with its sister House, to the ground."]

[Footnote 166: Mr Samuel Morley, speaking at Bristol in November 1882,

admitted to his constituents that "while Mr Bradlaugh was in the House

of Commons, nothing could exceed the propriety of his conduct;" but

declared he would oppose his re-entrance because Bradlaugh continued

"his system of violent, offensive, and disgusting attacks on the faith

which he (Mr Morley) in common with the great bulk of the English

people, held." To men like Mr Morley, all rationalist propaganda was

"violent, offensive, and disgusting;" but they had no scruples about

violent, offensive, and disgusting attacks on rationalists. Soon

afterwards Mr Morley grossly misrepresented Bradlaugh's action, and on

being challenged admitted the fact and made a correction. Soon again,

however, Mr Morley spoke of Bradlaugh as writing in the _Freethinker_,

and on being challenged, made neither admission nor correction. The

champions of the oath, generally speaking, exhibited a constitutional

incapacity for accuracy.]

[Footnote 167: In the summer of 1882 the total of petitions had mounted

to over 100, and the signatures numbered over 250,000.]

Of course such a testimony did little to check the scurrility of Tory

tongues. At a meeting of the Bible Society at Exeter Hall, in May 1882,

with Mr Samuel Morley in the chair, a Herefordshire vicar, the Rev.

H. W. Webb Peploe, alleged that to his knowledge "the first condition

imposed upon one whom he knew when he had joined an association under

the leadership of a notorious infidel was that he should burn his

Bible;" and that he had further "been told that two nights ago, at

a meeting of a notorious infidel, the things said were so grossly

immodest that a member of the press had said that they did not dare

to report what had been spoken, however, in the presence of young

women." On being challenged, the rev. gentleman declined to attempt

any substantiation of his statements, only pleading that he had not

meant to specify Bradlaugh. Of these cretinous calumnies, there were

hundreds afloat for years on end. It is a comfort to be able to say

that some score or more of single clergymen in different places, of

different sects, spoke out bravely and generously from time to time in

repudiation of the whole policy of persecution and slander. But a few

voices, of course, could not avail to hinder that for thoughtful men

the effect of the persecution was to identify religion with injustice.

Freethinkers reasoned that the Christians who stood for justice

and tolerance did but do what Freethinkers themselves did, without

accepting the Christian creed; while the army of bigots did their

evil deeds in virtue of a religious motive. And the effect of it all

was to multiply Freethought as it had never been multiplied before. A

barrister, who had no personal sympathy with Bradlaugh, wrote that "One

consequence has been that the cause of Freethought has made surprising

progress.... I do not think that at any time Freethought literature has

been so widely read, and the Freethought propaganda so actively and

intelligently carried on." Active members of the Secular Society were

enrolled by hundreds; and the sale of Bradlaugh's journal rose to its

highest figure. Men who had before been unquestioningly orthodox became

newly critical. One wrote to an editor:--

"That 'Mr Bradlaugh had brought his troubles on himself' I fully

admit. So did Jesus Christ. In the latter case the ultimate result was

a judicial execution as a blasphemer. But I am not aware that he is

any the worse thought of by his followers on that account."

Even among Conservatives there were searchings of heart. One wrote

a pamphlet in his favour. Another sent an open letter of merciless

criticism to Sir Stafford Northcote, saying, "I am a Conservative, and

my father before me. But there is something I put before party. That is

self-respect." The letter concluded:--

"If you wish an outlet for your zeal against 'profanation,' why do

you ignore in the Church the presence of numerous Broad Churchmen,

including the father-in-law of your own son, Canon Farrar, who

swear loyalty to the Thirty-Nine Articles, and follow the late Dean

Stanley in rejecting many of them? Why should you have reserved your

fervent indignation against apparent insincerity in sacred things to

be expended upon a man whose admission to the House as silently as

possible, so as not to promote his notoriety, justice and expediency

would alike have suggested: the whole stupidity, duplicity, and

inhumanity of Conservative tactics in this matter are patent to all

straightforward minds. You are responsible for giving Mr Bradlaugh a

name and a place in the history of this country which will survive

long after those of the present Conservative leaders are consigned to

oblivion."

The harvest was not immediate; but the seed was abundantly sown, and

inevitably bore its due fruit. That this was not unrecognised in high

places was sufficiently proved by the introduction of an Affirmation

Bill in the House of Lords by the Duke of Argyll, then already sundered

from official Liberalism. The Duke, on moving the second reading

of his Bill, took occasion to scold Bradlaugh after his manner for

"violence and scurrility," denying by implication that the violence

and scurrility were on the other side. But this prudent tactic did not

avail. The Earl of Carnarvon told the usual untruth about the "binding

effect" of the oath on Bradlaugh, by way of showing that he deserved

no relief; and the Archbishop of Canterbury opposed the Bill in the

name not only of the English Church, but of the Romish, the Wesleyan,

and the Scotch Presbyterian. It was accordingly rejected (July) by 138

votes to 62.

§ 18.

On 11th July 1882 a new Tory battery was opened. The _Freethinker_, a

penny weekly journal of a more popular character than the _National

Reformer_, edited by Mr G. W. Foote and then owned by Mr W. J.

Ramsey, was sold at the shop of the Freethought Publishing Company,

28 Stonecutter Street, of which Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant, the

partners of the Company, were the lessees. For a short time after

its first issue it had been published by them, but soon they decided

not to take that responsibility; and thenceforward it had been sold

independently by Mr Ramsey, their manager, who, in the terms of his

engagement with them, was free to do other trading on his own account.

Sir Henry Tyler, supposing Bradlaugh to be the publisher all along,

had bethought himself of prosecuting the _Freethinker_ for blasphemy,

and so striking a possibly decisive political blow at Bradlaugh--a

course which he was enabled to take by a readily granted "fiat" from

the Director of Public Prosecutions. It had been made clear by his

references to the _National Reformer_ in the House of Commons that

he had hoped to convict Bradlaugh of blasphemy on something he had

either written or published; but that hope he had had to abandon. There

remained the hope of connecting Bradlaugh with the _Freethinker_;

and Tyler's solicitors coolly wrote Bradlaugh on 8th July, asking

whether he would personally sell the paper, so as to prevent the

prosecution either of a subordinate of his, or of the editor and

printer. He replied by sending the printed catalogue of all the things

he published, and offering personally to sell any of these. As it did

not include the _Freethinker_, the prosecution was begun against Messrs

Foote and Ramsey and their printer, Mr Whittle, on 11th July, before

the Lord Mayor (Sir John Whittaker Ellis), at the Mansion House; and

after evidence had been led, the prosecutor's counsel applied to have

Bradlaugh's name added as a defendant. The case was then adjourned, the

Lord Mayor stating that he would hear the application against Bradlaugh

in private--a proceeding for which the reasons will afterwards appear.

It having appeared that the selling of the _Free-thinker_ in the

Freethought Publishing Company's shop tended to implicate the partners

of that company, Mr Ramsey at once decided to suspend its sale for

some weeks till he could arrange for its publication in a distinct

office, thus partly safeguarding Bradlaugh from the attempt to identify

him with it. The danger was serious; for if Bradlaugh were convicted

of blasphemy under the statute, he would become legally incapable

of further defending himself in Clarke's or any other suit for

Parliamentary penalties. This was fully recognised on the Tory side,

and the _Whitehall Review_, in an indecent article, pressed the point.

Tyler's move was, in fact, a new attempt to cause the ruin aimed at by

Newdegate, and hitherto warded off; and Newdegate's junior counsel (and

private friend) duly attended the prosecution at the Mansion House. At

the same time, Bradlaugh was defending a Freethinker prosecuted for

blasphemy at the Maidstone Assizes, and after attending the adjourned

hearing before the Lord Mayor on Monday, 17th July, he had to travel to

Maidstone on the following day.

Before the Lord Mayor Bradlaugh led the prosecutor's counsel a

grievous dance. He appealed to have the cases taken separately, and

counsel was confused enough to say that this was "a most unusual

and unheard-of application," which drew from Bradlaugh the comment,

"There are several decided cases upon it, although it may be unheard

of and unusual in your experience, Mr Moloney." Then ensued hours of

fencing as to whether the case was or should be under common law or

statute, and what the Lord Mayor ought to do. His lordship was at times

somewhat rashly dogmatic on points of law and procedure, and had to be

corrected. He finally decided to refuse to ask the prosecutor to choose

whether he would proceed under common law or statute; and Bradlaugh

then demanded that the case should begin _de novo_, putting every

possible technical obstacle in the way of his cowardly enemies. Their

evil way, he determined, should be made hard for them; and it was.

As the proceedings went on, and the prosecution, who had previously

succeeded in obtaining from the Lord Mayor a warrant to inspect

Bradlaugh's banking account, took the dishonourable course of producing

on subpoena the manager of the bank used by Bradlaugh, and his very

passbook, his indignation mounted. What was intended was evidently a

fishing investigation into his financial affairs, for the production

of cheques at that stage was wholly irrelevant to the points proposed

to be made out in evidence, and needing to be so proved. Fighting the

case with all his force and acuteness, point by point, and with no

mincing of matters, Bradlaugh commented on Tyler's tactics in language

of which the libel law prevented the republication. Tyler's counsel

protested that he "did not quite see what these observations were

intended for." "They are intended," replied Bradlaugh, "to do the same

mischief to your client that he is trying to do to me;" and counsel

said no more on that head, though he tried unsuccessfully to retaliate

on others.

The case was adjourned to the 21st; and though the passbook was left

in the Lord Mayor's hands for inspection, the prosecuting counsel so

mismanaged matters that he closed his case without having applied to

see it. Bradlaugh's account, however, had been personally ransacked

on Tyler's behalf, in gross abuse of the order of the Court. The Lord

Mayor finally committed Bradlaugh for trial on the singularly scanty

evidence offered as to his connection with the prosecuted paper, the

incriminated numbers of which were all dated after the time when

Bradlaugh ceased to be concerned in publishing it; and in committing

Messrs Foote and Ramsey (the charge against the printer had been

withdrawn), his lordship refused to allow Mr Foote to make a statement

in his defence, though the law clearly gave the defendant that right.

His lordship repeatedly gave the extraordinary ruling that "the charge"

against Mr Foote was "that he was the editor of the _Freethinker_"--as

if that could possibly be a "charge"--and on this pretext declined

to hear anything on the actual charge, which was one of "blasphemous

libel." He similarly tried to prevent Bradlaugh from reading a formal

statement, but after disallowing it he gave way on consultation with

the Clerk of Court. The statement was a terse and telling account of

Tyler's tactics from the time of Bradlaugh's election.

In the press the prosecution was sharply condemned, even the _Times_

censuring it; and one journal took occasion to point out that Tyler

represented "one of the smallest and most corrupt constituencies in

England."[168] Bradlaugh, being "committed" for blasphemy, at once

put himself in the hands of his constituents, who unanimously voted

their unabated confidence in him. He immediately (27th July) applied

to a judge (Justice Stephen) in chambers for leave to issue a summons

calling on Tyler to show cause why a writ of _certiorari_ should not

issue to remove the proceedings to the Queen's Bench division; and on

the 29th the _certiorari_ itself was directed to issue by the judge.

Tyler's counsel at this stage insisted on Bradlaugh's giving two

sureties for £300 in addition to his own recognisances of £300 ordered

by the Lord Mayor. They also asked for an order to expedite the trial,

but the judge curtly refused. Another typical detail was the charging

of the grand jury on the point of "returning a true bill" on the

indictment. The Recorder for the City, Sir Thomas Chambers, was one of

Bradlaugh's bitterest enemies in Parliament, and he gave his direction

to the grand jury to return a true bill, not only without putting it to

them to decide whether they were satisfied with the evidence against

Bradlaugh, but with expressions of gross prejudice, appealing to their

feelings as "Christian men."

[Footnote 168: He sat for Harwich.]

Not content with his prosecution of Bradlaugh, Tyler in the House of

Commons (10th August) at length brought forward an express motion which

he had had on the paper for twelve months, to the effect that the

Hall of Science was not a proper place, and the teachers not proper

persons, to teach science in connection with the Science and Art

Department. The argument was that persons who had expressed themselves

in print to the effect that science undermined religion should be held

to have taught the same thing in their science classes. Mr Mundella

in reply pointed out that no fewer than thirty-five clergymen of all

denominations were science teachers under the department; and that the

reports on the teaching given in the Hall of Science classes, even by a

religious visitor who made surprise visits, were highly satisfactory.

He concluded by sharply censuring Tyler, as Mr Labouchere had already

done, for his malice; and, the Tory members having all left the House,

the matter was ignominiously dropped. Even the editor of the _St

James's Gazette_ snubbed Tyler, while himself proceeding to repeat

Tyler's contention in a gratuitously insulting statement as to the

teaching of the Misses Bradlaugh. In the outside public one immediate

effect of Tyler's malicious action was to set on foot a movement and an

association for the repeal of the blasphemy laws, the lead being ably

taken by the Rev. Mr Sharman (Unitarian) of Plymouth, who had already

done admirable service in the constitutional struggle.

The blasphemy prosecution not being "expedited," went on slowly

enough. Intermediate technical proceedings arose, partly out of

irregularities on the part of the prosecution; and in one of

Bradlaugh's visits to the Courts with his sureties, the driver of

a four-wheeler who conveyed the party declined to accept any fare,

declaring that it should be his contribution towards fighting Tyler.

At length, on 6th November, Bradlaugh made an _ex parte_ motion before

Justices Field and Stephen, to have the indictment against him quashed,

mainly on the score that he ought to have been definitely sued under

the statute 9 and 10 William III., and that the provisions of that

statute had not been observed in the indictment. The pleadings were

extremely interesting as a matter of pure law, the judges debating the

points courteously but closely all along, and both commenting finally

on the "candour" and "propriety" with which he had argued his case.

Their decision was for the most part hostile; and this was one of his

very few cases in which there can be little difficulty in taking the

judge's view against him. The main point decided was that the statute

had not abrogated the common law in the case in hand. They gave him

a rule _nisi_ on only two counts in the indictment, on the ground

of irregular procedure on the part of the prosecution; but Justice

Stephen's judgment supplied a very useful conspectus of the history

of the blasphemy laws, and incidentally declared that the statutory

penalties could not be inflicted under a verdict on the indictment laid.

Very different must be the comments passed on the treatment of the

friendly action, Gurney _v._ Bradlaugh, which came on afresh before

Mr Justice Mathew and a common jury on 10th November. Everything

had been done that could be done to meet the criticisms formerly

passed by Justices Manisty and Watkin Williams; and indeed the whole

pleadings had from the first been drawn from the journals of the House

of Commons, which were put in evidence. But Justice Mathew summarily

decided not to hear the case, and discharged the jury, on the old

ground that the action was collusive. Now Bradlaugh, in swearing

himself in, had in law done exactly what Alderman Salomons did in 1851;

and the action of Miller _v._ Salomons was notoriously collusive, yet

it was fully heard and carefully decided. We can only do now what

Bradlaugh did then--leave the judge's action to the judgment of the

instructed public. The _Law Times_ of that time (November 1882) took

the unusual step of declaring:--

"It is plain that it should be possible to try a friendly action to

establish a constitutional right; and we regard the action of the

judge as very questionable on constitutional grounds, and as being an

arbitrary interference with a suitor's right to the verdict of a jury."

What a law journal thus describes, plain men may well call by a plainer

name.

One of Bradlaugh's five contemporary lawsuits was thus quashed, but the

remaining four kept his hands sufficiently full. The civil suit against

Newdegate for maintenance came on before Justice Field on 2nd December,

on a preliminary "demurrer," when, on the advice of the judge, both

aides agreed to let the demurrer stand over till after the trial. A day

or two afterwards Newdegate, speaking at the London Sheriffs' banquet,

at which six judges were guests, had the indecency to comment before

them on the maintenance case, and to denounce Bradlaugh. On the 5th the

action against Mr Erskine, the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, came on before

Justice Field. It was a long pleading on both sides; the case was

adjourned till the 18th; and after the Attorney-General had spoken two

hours and a half, and Bradlaugh had replied for an hour and a quarter,

the judge reserved his decision. He finally gave it (15th January)

against Bradlaugh, on the general ground that the House of Commons was

the judge as to how it might exercise its privileges, of which the

power to expel a member was one. On the point of legality he ruled that

"it is not to be presumed that any Court, whether it be the High Court

of Judicature or this Court, will do that which in itself is flagrantly

wrong." The decision was one which might very reasonably have been

appealed against. As the _Legal Advertiser Supplement_ remarked at the

time, Justice Field's ruling would cover a case in which the House

of Commons might, say, confiscate the goods and chattels of a member

expelled or suspended for obstruction. Bradlaugh, however, decided not

to appeal. He had only commenced the action reluctantly because of the

likelihood that the Gurney suit would be denied a hearing; and the

judge had in this case at least listened to his arguments. He contented

himself with a letter to the _Times_, pointing out the constitutional

effect of the decision.

Thus far he had endured defeat after defeat in the law courts as

in Parliament; and it may be that discouragement and debt counted

for something in his surrender of the suit against the Deputy

Sergeant-at-Arms. But he was now within a short distance of three

signal successes which more than counterbalanced all his previous

legal defeats. On 9th and 17th March his action against Newdegate for

maintenance was argued for him before Lord Coleridge [169] by Mr Crump

and Mr W. A. Hunter, he himself giving evidence on his own behalf. The

broad ground of action was that Newdegate had maliciously "maintained"

Clarke, having himself no interest in the ground of action, which

was the penalty sued for, and being desirous only to make Bradlaugh

bankrupt. There was no question of principle, as Bradlaugh was already

unseated, and was held disentitled to sit either on oath or on

affirmation. Bradlaugh incidentally gave testimony that already he had

had to spend on the action two legacies, and in addition £1100 he had

borrowed; while Clarke testified that the total costs on his side were

estimated at about £2000.

[Footnote 169: A jury had been sworn in, but it was agreed all round

that there was no question of fact for them, and they were discharged

on the 9th, Lord Coleridge trying the case as one of law.]

Lord Coleridge reserved his decision; and before he gave it, the

appeal by Bradlaugh against Clarke's action had been heard and decided

in the House of Lords. It was argued on 5th and 6th March, before

the Lord Chancellor (Selborne), and Lords Blackburn, Watson, and

Fitzgerald--Bradlaugh, as usual, pleading his own cause. His main

argument was, as before, that only the Crown could recover penalties

against him when the statute did not specify that some or any one else

could; and the discussion turned on this point, on which Lord Justice

Bramwell, the senior judge in the Court of Appeal, had expressed some

doubt. Bradlaugh, however, cited on the disputed point as to the

Crown's prerogative two fresh cases--the King _v._ Hymen[170] and the

King _v._ Clarke; and a good deal of argument turned on the point as

to whether a common informer could ever have costs allowed him. As for

the case of the respondent, Bradlaugh pointed out that Sir Hardinge

Giffard's argument was now directed against the very reasons on which

the intermediate court had based its judgment in his favour, thus

asking their lordships to support the judgment of the Court of Appeal

for new and contrary reasons.

[Footnote 170: This had been cited in the Court of Appeal for another

purpose.]

On 9th April their lordships delivered judgment. The Lord Chancellor

in an elaborate and lucid judgment showed that the penalty really

was suable for by action of the Crown in any of the superior courts,

and that, as no permission had been given by the statute to the

common informer to sue, he was not entitled to do so. Lord Blackburn

dissented, but not strongly, arguing very judicially that there were

good and mutually neutralising arguments on both sides, and pronouncing

himself only "on the whole" in favour of the view that the common

informer could sue under the statute. Lords Watson and Fitzgerald,

however, agreed with the Lord Chancellor. The eccentric Lord Denman,

who was not a law lord, chose to take part in the proceedings (the

first time a lay peer had done so, it is said, since the decision of

the writ of error in Daniel O'Connoll's case), and declared himself in

agreement with Lord Blackburn. Even if he were counted, however, the

majority was for the appellant, who accordingly won the appeal with

costs.

This judgment, of course, would have affected the suit for maintenance,

had that been brought later. Giving judgment on 23rd April, Lord

Coleridge remarked that as the House of Lords had decided that Clarke

had no right to sue, it "seemed to follow" that Newdegate had no right

to do so either. But he went on to decide in the appellant's favour on

the merits of the case, giving a long and interesting judgment. Unless

maintenance were to be struck out of the law-books, said the Lord

Chief Justice, Newdegate's procedure must be called maintenance; and

if maintenance were to be struck out of the books, he added, "it must

be done by some higher authority, and I have not the power to do it,

nor, if I had the power, have I the wish to abolish an action which may

in some cases be the only remedy for a very cruel wrong." Delivering

himself later on the moral or political merits of the case, he said:--

"It may be my ill fortune to have to support such an action in a case

in which the defendant is a man whose character is entitled to every

respect, and the plaintiff is a man with whose views, openly avowed, I

have no sort of sympathy. But I will not call it my 'ill fortune,' for

many of the most precious judgments given by the Courts in Westminster

Hall were given in favour of men who, if English justice could ever be

warped by personal feeling, would certainly have failed. It is indeed

an ill fortune of the case that in the minds of many the cause of

religion should seem to be connected with the success or failure of a

particular person, whose defeat or success is really to the cause of

religion a matter of supreme indifference, but as to whom (speaking

only of what has been proved before me), a course has been taken

and proceedings have been pressed which, in the case of any other,

would be strongly and universally condemned, and by which certainly

the cause of religion has not been advanced. But my duty is simply

to decide the cause according to the best opinion I can form of the

law--a duty which the rules of Christian teaching make quite clear."

As to costs, Lord Coleridge remarked that the decision of the House of

Lords, though giving costs on the appeal, left Bradlaugh mulcted in

a considerable sum of costs which were not recoverable from Clarke.

For the recoverable costs he assumed Newdegate would now hold himself

responsible; but further,

"for the residue of the costs and the expenses which Mr Bradlaugh has

been put to as between attorney and client, and the various expenses

he has had to bear--for all these Mr Newdegate is responsible in

damages. I think that Mr Bradlaugh is entitled to an indemnity for

every loss which Mr Newdegate's maintenance has caused him, and

if this cannot be agreed on between the parties it must go to the

official referee to ascertain the amount, and when he has reported to

me I will give judgment for the amount he finds to be due, applying

the principles I have thus laid down."

Newdegate's counsel gave notice of an appeal, but after six months'

delay abandoned it. Thus by two concurrent successes Bradlaugh

inflicted a crushing and final defeat on one of the men who had

sought to ruin his political career out of hate for his opinions. He

could not have, in addition to the solace of triumph, the "stern joy

which warriors feel in foemen worthy of their steel;" but he had the

satisfaction, such as it was, of knowing that his victory was a source

of intense chagrin to thousands of bigots who had reckoned on, betted

on, and generally predicted his defeat and bankruptcy.

And his victory on the points of civil law was effectually secured by

his acquittal in the action for blasphemy. A new excitement had been

added to that issue by the commencement, on 2nd February, of a new

prosecution of Mr Foote (now owner as well as editor) and Mr Ramsey

(now publisher only), with Ramsey's shopman, Henry Arthur Kemp, for

the publication of a special "Christmas number" of the _Freethinker_,

in which there occurred certain woodcuts, ridiculing the Hebrew Deity

and the Jesus of the Gospels. In this case there could be no pretence

of implicating Bradlaugh, as the incriminated number had not even been

sold on the Freethought Publishing Company's premises. Whether Tyler

saw the necessity of putting a better colour of religious zeal on his

ill-conditioned action against Bradlaugh, or whether the recent strife

had stirred up smouldering bigotry independently of personal animus

against Bradlaugh, this prosecution was undertaken by "the City of

London." The new trial, which took place at the Central Criminal Court

on 1st March 1883, before Mr Justice North and a jury, is likely to be

long remembered in respect of the extraordinary display of mediæval

prejudice by the judge. He repeatedly and angrily interrupted Mr Foote

in his defence, declining to allow him to quote current printed matter

which would show at once how much "permitted blasphemy" went on among

Salvationists, and how perfectly in keeping was his freethinking

blasphemy with the popular religion which it attacked. The jury, after

two hours' discussion, could not agree, and the judge discharged them,

arranging for a fresh trial on the 6th with a fresh jury, and refusing

in the harshest and most peremptory manner to let the prisoners out on

bail, though in law they were perfectly entitled to it. Applications

made next day to other judges fell through on the score, not of being

wrong in law, but of "want of jurisdiction" on the part of the judges

applied to. The second trial was even more disgraceful to the judge

than the first. At the outset, Mr Foote objected to one of the jurors

as having expressed animus, and the judge, in suggesting the juryman's

withdrawal, declared that "he should be sorry to have a gentleman upon

the jury who had expressed himself as prejudiced." His own summing-up

to the jury, however, was again scandalously prejudiced; and when the

jury promptly returned a verdict of guilty, he addressed Mr Foote as

follows:--

"You have been found guilty by the jury of publishing these

blasphemous libels. This trial has been to me a very painful one, as I

regard it as extremely sad to find that a person to whom God has given

such evident intelligence and ability should have chosen to prostitute

his talents to the work of the devil in the way it has been done

(_sic_) under your auspices."

The sentence was a year's imprisonment. The announcement called forth

a display of indignation among the audience such as has perhaps never

been seen in modern times; and the judge had to sit for some minutes in

a storm of hisses and outcries, the epithets "Jeffries" and "Scroggs"

expressing the prevailing sentiment. Mr Foote's words: "My lord, I

thank you: it is worthy of your creed," were followed by a renewal of

the tumult, and it was with difficulty that the Court was cleared.

Then the judge sentenced Ramsey and Kemp to nine and three months'

imprisonment respectively. The same judge, it is recorded, had let off

with three months' imprisonment a ruffian who had killed a coffee-stall

keeper with a kick on the face when he was refused a second cup of

coffee till the first had been paid for.

The impression made among thoughtful people by the judge's action

was one of general displeasure. Canon Shuttleworth pronounced the

sentence "a calamity." Mr Foote's methods had been widely and strongly

disapproved of among cultured Freethinkers, including Bradlaugh; and Mr

John Morley, in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, had gone to the indefensible

length of justifying the prosecution, on the very inadequate ground

that the _Freethinker_ had been "thrust on" the public, it having been

exhibited in the publisher's window in a side street. But the infamous

sentence at once turned feeling the other way, though protests like

Canon Shuttleworth's were needed to teach Mr Morley and other Liberal

journalists that renunciation of Liberal principles is not really

necessary, even in cases of persecution, to propitiate the public.

Bradlaugh, on his part, took the--for him--unprecedented course of

addressing a public letter to the judge, reprobating his conduct. "My

lord," he wrote,

"I pen this public letter with considerable regret and much pain.

I have always in my public utterances tried to teach respect for

the judicial bench. I have never, I hope, allowed hostile decisions

against myself personally to tempt me to undue language when

exercising my journalistic right to criticise judgments delivered.

My own experience of the judges of our land has, with slight

exception, been that they always listened with great patience, and

when disagreeing, have expressed their disagreement in a dignified

manner. When I read the report of the first trial of Messrs Foote,

Ramsey, and Kemp, I was inexpressibly shocked. The character of some

of the evidence you admitted alarmed me, and your refusal to reserve

the objection taken to the admissibility of such evidence for the

consideration of the Court of Crown Cases Reserved seemed to me so

extraordinary that I even now hardly dare trust myself to characterise

it.... But the point that most afflicts me is the fashion in which you

over and over again interrupted the defendant Foote in his defence....

There are plenty of precedents showing that prisoners have been

permitted in defence the indulgence so peremptorily denied by your

lordship to Mr Foote.... That you should have held the defendants in

custody after the jury had disagreed, and when you had determined to

again try them four days later, was mischievously and wantonly cruel.

They had duly surrendered to their bail, which had been small in

amount. There was no suggestion or supposition that they would try to

avoid justice, nor did the prosecution ask for their detention. I am

afraid, my lord, that you sent them to Newgate because they had been

over-bold in their defence.... If you had meant the three defendants

to have no chance of escape, if you had been prosecutor instead of

impartial judge, you could hardly have done more to embarrass their

defence than by sending them to this sudden and unexpected close

confinement."

The letter concluded:

"When you sat as judge in these blasphemy trials your lordship was

practically omnipotent. There is yet no court of criminal appeal....

The very knowledge of your uncontrollable authority in the conduct of

the trial ... should have prompted your lordship to hold the judicial

balance with a steady hand, its inclining, if at all, being to the

side of mercy. But your lordship, in the spirit of the old inquisitor,

threw into the scale your own prejudices against the heresy for which

the defendants were reputed, your own dislike of the manner in which

they had made their heresies known.... I ask your lordship what would

be the outcry through the civilised world if, either in Switzerland

or in Hindostan, those Salvation Army propagandists who thrust their

blasphemies furiously in all men's faces were so hardly dealt with as

you have dealt with George William Foote, William James Ramsey, and

Henry Kemp?"

Presumably the scandal caused by Justice North tended to procure

a fairer hearing for the original action, still unheard, in which

Bradlaugh was indicted. It came on before the Lord Chief Justice

and a jury on 10th April--Bradlaugh, as usual, defending himself,

while Messrs Foote and Ramsey were represented by counsel. Bradlaugh

was permitted by Lord Coleridge, in spite of the opposition of the

prosecuting counsel (Giffard), to have the charge against him tried

separately from that of his co-defendants, whose testimony might be

important to him; and he was thus enabled to put his defence solely on

the question of his responsibility, saying nothing as to the papers

prosecuted being blasphemous or otherwise. His case was a clear and

detailed proof, made good at every point, that he had ceased to be in

any way concerned even in the selling of the _Freethinker_ before the

issue of any of the incriminated numbers, he and Mrs Besant having

decided to drop the publication on account of a change early made in

the character of the paper;[171] and that this abandonment of the

publication--which was the only sort of connection he had ever had with

the paper at all--was made independently of any outside pressure or

threat. For the rest, the malevolent tactics of Sir Henry Tyler were

once more made the subject of a stinging invective; and the procedure

of the prosecution in regard to the bank account came in for very

severe handling. This was one of the most striking details in the

trial. It came out, to the amazement of the legal part of the audience,

that not only had Bradlaugh's banking account been ransacked and his

cheques gone over to see if any had been dishonoured, but the junior

counsel for Tyler, Mr Moloney, had actually attended the inquisition

in person. Bradlaugh naturally did not spare him, declaring that he

had "done work generally left to some private detective or inquiry

agent, and never done by any one having the dignity of the bar to

guard." And all the while, the search had been made in a bank branch

in St John's Wood, N.W., in the county of Middlesex, on a warrant

from the Lord Mayor, whose jurisdiction was limited to the City. On

this head the Lord Chief Justice indicated a very strong feeling that

the Lord Mayor's warrant for such a purpose ought not to be valid

anywhere. "Vile in its inception and dishonourable in its conduct," was

Bradlaugh's account of the prosecution generally, and he even had a

suspicion, based on an awkward statement by one of the legal witnesses,

that the examination of the bank account had been made some days before

the summons against him was issued.

[Footnote 171: The introduction as a regular feature of "Comic Bible

Sketches," of a kind which Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant were not

prepared to defend.]

Sir Hardinge Giffard, now prosecuting for the Crown, fought the case

as he might have done it for Tyler, declaring in his opening speech

that he would call witnesses to prove certain things, and afterwards

carefully omitting to call them, seeing that that course would help

Bradlaugh to clear himself. In replying, he did not attempt to rebut

the criticisms passed on his client and on his conduct of the case,

professing to take the attitude of dignified disregard. His main line

of argument was that one or two isolated woodcuts had been published

in the _Freethinker_ during the few months in which the Freethought

Company published it, that Bradlaugh was an original promoter, and

that the change made in the registration was only a stratagem,

Bradlaugh remaining the real publisher. As regarded the blasphemy

charged, Sir Hardinge did not take the customary line of distinguishing

between vulgar and refined blasphemy, describing the contents of the

_Freethinker_ as deadly "poison to men's soul"--an expression which

could not be supposed to apply to the mere element of vulgarity. He

spoke with horror of a cartoon which exhibited Ignorance, Money, and

Fear as "the true Trinity," and would doubtless have spoken similarly

of the account of the Trinity as "three Lord Shaftesburys," given by

Lord Coleridge's esteemed personal friend, Mr Matthew Arnold. The

blasphemous matter on which the learned counsel expressed himself

most strongly in detail, however, was a vulgar travesty of the

extremely silly and artistically worthless religious picture known as

"The Calling of Samuel." "You have that picture," he told the jury,

"represented as a startled child, roused from his slumber by two cats

on the tiles. And this is the sort of thing which is to be scattered

broadcast over the land--!"

Lord Coleridge, on his part, summed up with great literary skill and

dignity, carefully guarding against theological prejudice on the part

of the jury by the avowal that he himself, despite his years and

comparative detachment from the world, found it difficult to clear

his mind of it. Incidentally he remarked that it was to Bradlaugh's

credit that he did not disavow a general sympathy with the opinions

of his co-defendants, while clearing himself of all complicity in the

publications indicted. But on the point of the blasphemy charge he also

incidentally expressed an opinion, which is worth citing as showing how

little even an exceptionally considerate judge with strong religious

feelings can get rid of the vulgar notion that irreverence to his--the

popular--religious opinions is immeasurably more reprehensible than

irreverence towards other less popular opinions, or vilification of

unpopular men's characters. His objection to blasphemy prosecutions was

mainly that they injured the cause of religion:--

"I say not how far the institution of a prosecution of this kind

wounds the most sacred feelings and does injury to the holiest

convictions. Some persons may think that this is not so; some may

think that by such prosecutions the most sacred truths are pierced

through the sides of those who are their enemies. With all that we

have nothing to do. We may dislike, we may--I do not hesitate to

say, we may loathe--the expressions made use of in these libels. We

may think the persons who can speak in this way of things which they

themselves may disapprove of and disbelieve, which they themselves

may possibly think superstitious and mischievous, but which they must

know have been the life and the soul of the virtue, the morality, the

self-denial, the civilisation of hundreds, and thousands, and millions

of people in all ages, are persons who forget--I will not say what

is due to God, for they do not believe in Him, but to man, for they

are men--what is due to themselves, and to the community of which

they form a part, and for whom they ought to have some consideration.

All that may be perfectly true, but it has nothing to do with the

question."

Here the judge assumes that there is no dispute whatever as to the

claim that the Christian religion is the essence of morality and

modern civilisation, and proceeds to express disgust for a line of

polemic which was zealously followed by the early Christians for

centuries, which is invariably followed in the Old Testament when

there is any question of alien religions, which is endorsed by Paul,

which is commonly followed by Christian missionaries and by Protestant

assailants of Catholicism, and which was even then being followed by

the Christian multitude in the very case of Bradlaugh. The Christian

position is that it is right to ridicule and asperse Freethinkers,

materialists, and polytheists; and the Protestant position is that

it is right to deride the Catholic worship of saints, images, and

relics; but Christians in the mass hold it abominable for unbelievers

and "heathen" in turn to deride _their_ opinions, these being "holy"

and "dear." And all the while, in the case under notice, the people

who thus felt the most intense animal resentment towards a handful

of men for speaking irreverently of a supposed Infinite, which by no

possibility could human folly or contumely disturb or hurt, were as

often as not zealous accomplices in casting the vilest personal insults

against a representative Atheist who confessedly could not be shown

to have attacked their opinions in such a way as to lay him open to

a successful prosecution for blasphemy. The Christian plea is that

unbelievers should not be free to cause Christians pain. Yet the whole

of Bradlaugh's life was and is in evidence to show that the first

instinct of the average Christian is to cause not merely endless mental

pain but material ruin to every man who ventures, however decorously,

to pronounce the Christian creed untrue. Perhaps the profoundest

impeachment of the religious instinct in general is this very fact

that the express conviction of the absolute supremacy of a personal

power over all things human never by any chance enables the believer to

regard with serenity and compassion the human denials which that power

in the terms of the case is alleged to permit.

Some approach to the recognition of all this must have taken place

in connection with the trial of Bradlaugh on the score of the

_Freethinker_, although of course it was on the point of non-complicity

that the jury gave their verdict of acquittal. They deliberated for

an hour and ten minutes, calling for several of the documents in the

case. The foreman's pronouncement of "Not Guilty" was received with

loud cheers, which the judge indignantly rebuked, with the customary

remark that "this is not a place of entertainment;" but a Conservative

journal, endowed with the regulation horror of Atheism, commented that

the cheer expressed a sentiment not at all confined to Atheists. In

general, the press rejoiced with the acquitted man, who had now won

in rapid succession three decisive successes in his long battle. It

was noted, too, that he had won them against one leading counsel, Sir

Hardinge Giffard. Asked later how it was that he had so often and so

signally defeated this counsel, Bradlaugh remarked that he believed

it was because Giffard despised him as an antagonist, and neglected

precautions against him, while he, Bradlaugh, was careful at all times

to do his utmost, and never to undervalue the enemy's strength. The

moral is an old one.

In addition to the discredit put upon the prosecution in Court,

it happened that Sir Henry Tyler about this time figured rather

dubiously before the public in his capacity of company-promoter.

His treatment of the financial affairs of the Anglo-American Brush

Electric Light Corporation, in which he was deeply concerned, gave such

dissatisfaction to most of the shareholders that they took the unusual

course of presenting a memorial insisting on his resignation, after

he had been hissed and hooted at a shareholders meeting.[172] It may

have been a sense of the unfitness of such a personage to represent the

cause of religion that led to the foundation of a "Society for the

Suppression of Blasphemous Literature," the secretary of which wrote to

the newspapers[173] as follows:--

[Footnote 172: 23rd January 1883.]

[Footnote 173: March 1883.]

"We propose to get up cases, as our funds will allow, against

Professor Huxley, Dr Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, Swinburne, the author

of 'Supernatural Religion,' the publishers of Mill's works, the

publishers of Strauss's works, Leslie Stephen, John Morley, the editor

of the _Jewish World_, Dr Martineau, and others, who by their writings

have sown widespread unbelief, and in some cases rank Atheism, in

cultivated families."