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[oe] represents the oe-ligature.
[Illustration: CHARLES BRADLAUGH Born Sept. 26, 1833 Died Jan. 30,
1891]
CHARLES BRADLAUGH
A Record of His Life and Work by His Daughter.
HYPATIA BRADLAUGH BONNER.
With an Account of his Parliamentary Struggle
Politics and Teachings by
JOHN M. ROBERTSON, M.P.
Seventh Edition
With Portraits and Appendices
T. Fisher Unwin
London Leipsic
Adelphi Terrace Inselstrasse 20
1908
All Rights Reserved
PREFACE.
"I wish you would tell me things, and let me write the story of your
life," I said in chatting to my father one evening about six weeks
before his death. "Perhaps I will, some day," he answered. "I believe I
could do it better than any one else," I went on, with jesting vanity.
"I believe you could," he rejoined, smiling. But to write the story of
Mr Bradlaugh's life with Mr Bradlaugh at hand to give information is
one thing: to write it after his death is quite another. The task has
been exceptionally difficult, inasmuch as my father made a point of
destroying his correspondence; consequently I have very few letters to
help me.
This book comes to the public as a record of the life and work of a
much misrepresented and much maligned man, a record which I have spared
no effort to make absolutely accurate. Beyond this it makes no claim.
For the story of the public life of Mr Bradlaugh from 1880 to 1891,
and for an exposition of his teachings and opinions, I am fortunate
in having the assistance of Mr J. M. Robertson. We both feel that
the book throughout goes more into detail and is more controversial
than is usual or generally desirable with biographies. It has,
however, been necessary to enter into details, because the most
trivial acts of Mr Bradlaugh's life have been misrepresented, and for
these misrepresentations, not for his acts, he has been condemned.
Controversy we have desired to avoid, but it has not been altogether
possible. In dealing with strictures on Mr Bradlaugh's conduct
or opinions, it is not sufficient to say that they are without
justification; one must show how and where the error lies, and where
possible, the source of error. Hence the defence to an attack, to our
regret, often unavoidably assumes a controversial aspect.
A drawback resulting from the division of labour in the composition of
the book is that there are a certain number of repetitions. We trust,
however, that readers will agree with us in thinking that the gain of
showing certain details in different relations outweighs the fault of a
few re-iterations.
In quoting Mr Bradlaugh's words from the _National Reformer_, I have
for the sake of greater clearness and directness altered the editorial
plural to the first person singular.
I desire to express here my great indebtedness to Mrs Mary Reed for her
help, more especially in searching old newspaper files with me at the
British Museum.
HYPATIA BRADLAUGH BONNER.
1894.
CONTENTS
Part 1.
BY HYPATIA BRADLAUGH BONNER.
VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 1
Origin of the Bradlaugh family--James Bradlaugh--Charles
Bradlaugh, senr.--His marriage--Birth of Charles Bradlaugh--Needy
circumstances of the family--Character and tastes of his
father--Character of his mother--Schooling--Handwriting--Amusements--Early
lessons in politics.
CHAPTER II.
BOYHOOD 7
Charles Bradlaugh as office-boy--Wharf clerk and cashier--Politics
at Bonner's Fields--Sunday School--The Rev. J. G. Packer--Suspended
from duties as Sunday School teacher--Bonner's
Fields on Sunday--Mrs Sharples Carlile--The Warner Street
Temperance Hall--A teetotaller--Mr Packer's methods--An angry
father--The ultimatum--Leaving home--Mr Packer's responsibility.
CHAPTER III.
YOUTH 17
Alone in the world--B. B. Jones--A youthful "coal merchant"--The
baker's wife--Selling braces--Mrs Carlile offers a home--"A
little Hebrew and an imperfect smattering of other tongues"--Hypatia
Carlile--Brother and sister--Youthful oratory--The
_British Banner_--Austin Holyoake--George Jacob Holyoake--The
first pamphlet--A "season's campaign."
CHAPTER IV.
ARMY LIFE 25
Poverty, hunger, and debt--Enlisting for the East India service--Enrolled
in the 50th Foot--Transferred to the 7th Dragoon
Guards--Family reconciliation--The father's changed character--Troubles
at sea--Temperance advocacy under difficulties--"Leaves"--At
Rathmines Church--A right-of-way--A new
officer--Donnybrook Fair--An Irish tragedy.
CHAPTER V.
ARMY LIFE CONCLUDED 35
The father's death--Letters home--Death of Miss Elizabeth
Trimby--Mother and Daughter--Purchasing his discharge--Advantages
derived from Army life--James Thomson.
CHAPTER VI.
MARRIAGE 41
Changes at home--A soldier in search of work--With Mr
Rogers, of 70 Fenchurch Street--Anonymous busybodies again--"Iconoclast"
--The Hooper family--Old letters--Poetry--Calumnies
refuted--Common-sense justice--First recorded lawsuit--Marriage--My
sister's birth--My mother.
CHAPTER VII.
HYDE PARK MEETINGS, 1855 52
The new Sunday Bill--In Hyde Park--"Go to Church"--Hyde
Park again--The Bill abandoned--The Royal Commission--Mr
Bradlaugh's evidence.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ORSINI ATTEMPT 62
Lecturing and writing--"The Bible: what it is"--Arrest of
Edward Truelove--Felice Orsini--Simon Bernard--Thomas
Allsop--"Thorough"--Recollections of W. E. Adams.
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY LECTURES AND DEBATES 72
Provincial lectures--First visit to Northampton--President of
the London Secular Society--Robert Owen's last paper--_The
Investigator_--Political meetings--Hyde Park--Guildhall--Debates:
Thomas Cooper--Rev. Brewin Grant--Dr Mensor--Rev.
T. D. Matthias--Mr Court--John Smart.
CHAPTER X.
HARD TIMES 90
The Manchester poisoning case--Mr Harvey--Rheumatic fever--Elysium
Villa--My brother's birth--Kate--Railway journeys--A
lecturer's profits--An editor's profits.
CHAPTER XI.
A CLERICAL LIBELLER 99
An articled clerk--The Naples Colour Company--Financial
operations--"Black Friday"--Sunderland Villa--The Rev. Hugh
M'Sorley.
CHAPTER XII.
TOTTENHAM 108
Our home--James Thomson ("B. V.")--Harriet Bradlaugh--Father
and children.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE "NATIONAL REFORMER" 119
The _National Reformer_ Company--The coming of Joseph
Barker--Turkish baths and Secularism--The difficulties of a dual
editorship--A house divided--Sole editor--G. J. Holyoake as
chief contributor--More difficulties--Arbitration--Messrs Smith
and Son's boycott--John Watts as editor--My father resumes--The
_Saturday Review_--"B. V." replies--The Rev. Charles Voysey:
1868 and 1880.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE "NATIONAL REFORMER" AND THE GOVERNMENT PROSECUTIONS 137
Prosecution of _National Reformer_ by Mr Disraeli's Government--"Published
in defiance of Her Majesty's Government"--The
Act of James I.--Collapse of the prosecution--The Press--The
Rev. J. Page Hopps--Prosecution of _National Reformer_ by Mr
Gladstone's Government--Abandonment of the prosecution--John
Stuart Mill--Repeal of the odious Security laws--The
Postmaster-General and the _National Reformer_.
CHAPTER XV.
ITALY 152
Earning money for Garibaldi--Mazzini--An eloquent passport--Police
espionage--Carrying despatches--An American sees "fair
play"--The police and the Life Assurance Companies.
CHAPTER XVI.
PLATFORM WORK, 1860-1861 158
Debate with the Rev. B. Grant at Bradford--Dr Brindley--Pursuing
Mr Bradlaugh to New York--Debates with Dr Baylee
and others--"Extended propaganda"--The _Wigan Examiner_--Mr
Hutchings--Dispensing "justice" to the Atheist--More
debates--Norwich and Yarmouth--The Yarmouth Magistrates.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE DEVONPORT CASE, 1861 175
The speech in Devonport Park--Opening a fortnight's campaign--Arrest--
Imprisonment--The Guildhall--A marine adventure--The
case against Superintendent Edwards--Mr Robert Collier,
Q.C., M.P.--Mr Montagu Smith, Q.C.--An unjust judge--The
Court of Common Pleas--Lord Chief Justice Erle--Mr Justice
Keating--The Court of Appeal.
CHAPTER XVIII.
"KILL THE INFIDEL" 189
Religious liberty at Guernsey--Challenging the island authorities
--Bill-posting extraordinary--"Kill the Infidel"--An infuriated
crowd and a shrewd landlady--The courageous Harbour Master--"An
act of natural justice."
CHAPTER XIX.
PROVINCIAL ADVENTURES, 1860-1863 194
Altrincham--Shaw--Sunderland--Rochdale--The Bellman of
Leigh--Warrington Journalism--Dumfries--Burnley--Chesterfield--Counter
attractions at Worksop--At Boardman's Edge,
discussion precedes the lecture--The Dewsbury poster--Leeds--A
dream of Voltaire.
CHAPTER XX.
A FREEMASON 203
The Philadelphs--The Grand Lodge of England--The Prince of
Wales as Grand Master--"To the oppressed of all Nations"--Joshua
B. Smith as Junior Warden to the Adelphi Lodge--"Ill
winds" that blow good to a Masonic charity.
CHAPTER XXI.
DEBATES, 1860-1866 207
The Rev. W. Barker--Thomas Cooper--A frank avowal--The
Rev. Woodville Woodman again--Mr Porteous--A one-sided
debate--Mr Porteous again.
CHAPTER XXII.
"THE WORLD IS MY COUNTRY; TO DO GOOD IS MY RELIGION" 214
Sympathy with Garibaldi--Irish Catholic Opposition--An
attempt to stab Mr Bradlaugh--Lancashire distress--"Viva la
Polonia"--Death of B. B. Jones--Sheffield inundation--Help for
the needy--A Hall of Science Company.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE REFORM LEAGUE, 1866-1868 220
The National Reform League--Primrose Hill--Trafalgar Square--Sir
Richard Mayne's prohibition--The Derby Cabinet--Hyde
Park--Another prohibition--Fall of the Hyde Park railings--Agricultural
Hall--Bristol--Attacks upon Mr Bradlaugh--Northampton--Luton--Matthew
Arnold casts his stone--On
horseback at Trafalgar Square--Agricultural Hall again--The
_Saturday Review_ and its followers--Hyde Park again--The
Government "admonition" served and withdrawn--Mr Bradlaugh's
resignation--Its result.
CHAPTER XXIV.
PROVINCIAL LECTURING, 1866-1869 238
The Mayor of Liverpool--David King--Huddersfield: Arrest;
Release; Before the Magistrates--The Rev. J. M'Cann--Huddersfield
again--The Murphy riots at Manchester--The New Hall of
Science--Blyth and Mr Thomas Burt--The "infidel" on Portsea
Common--The people who loved my father--A liberal priest.
CHAPTER XXV.
IRELAND 252
English Misgovernment--The Fenian Brotherhood--Colonel
Kelly and General Cluseret--The Irish proclamation of 1867--The
Manchester rescue--The death sentence--The Clerkenwell explosion--Pamphlet
on "the Irish Question"--A Quakers' discussion
society--Lectures on behalf of Ireland--A visit to Dublin.
CHAPTER XXVI.
NORTHAMPTON, 1868 263
Mr Bradlaugh's determination to seek a seat in Parliament--The
choice of Northampton--First election address--Scorn of the
Whigs--Enthusiasm of the people--The election colours--John
Stuart Mill--_The Daily Telegraph_--The Irish Reform League--John
Bright--W. E. Gladstone--Mr Charles Gilpin and Lord
Henley--The press--Dr Lees--Canvassing--The Lord's Day Rest
Association--Mr Giffard, Q.C.--Mr Charles Capper, M.P.--Anti-Compulsory
Vaccination--The nomination day--The poll--Tributes
from the Mayor and from Mr Gilpin--Ministers who
rejoiced.
CHAPTER XXVII.
SOUTHWARK ELECTION, 1869 280
Mr Bradlaugh and Mr Odger.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LITIGATION, 1867-1871 282
English Joint Stock Bank (Limited) and Charles Bradlaugh--Bradlaugh
_v._ De Rin--The Oath question in different Courts-Confusion
of the law of evidence--A costly victory--The Evidence
Amendment Act, 1870--The _Razor_ libel case--Mr O'Malley, Q.C.--"Outlaw
or Citizen: Which am I?"--Action against the Mirfield
Town Hall Company--Mr Digby Seymour, Q.C.--Mr Justice
Willes.
CHAPTER XXIX.
PERSONAL 299
Financial difficulties--Mr Bradlaugh gives up business in the
City and devotes himself to public work--Our home sold up--A
scattered family--My brother's illness and death--His burial--The
Rev. Drummond Ash--The Rev. Theophilus Bennett--My
father's grief.
CHAPTER XXX.
LECTURES, 1870-1871 304
Freethought and Republican activity--A full lecture list--The
"Impeachment of the House of Brunswick"--A misleading
announcement--Stourbridge and Lord Lyttleton--The High Bailiff
of Newton Abbot--The Sowerby Bridge champion wrestler--Dr
Magee at Norwich Cathedral--Mr Disraeli and the Queen--Mr
Gladstone's "Questionable Book."
CHAPTER XXXI.
FRANCE--THE WAR 312
Mr Bradlaugh's position--Republican France--Madame de
Brimont--"France and Peace"--St James's Hall--Thanks of the
Republican Government--Pleading for the recognition of the
Republic by the English Government--The conference of European
powers--M. C. Tissot.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE COMMUNE, AND AFTER 322
Communist friends--An effort for peace--Arrested at Calais--Expelled
from France--A second arrest--Allowed to proceed to
Paris--A lecture for French refugees--Prince Jérome Napoléon--Emile
de Girardin--Emanuel Arago--Léon Gambetta--Yves
Guyot--A Marxist attack.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A DOZEN DEBATES 332
George Jacob Holyoake and Secularism--Alexander Robertson
and the Existence of Deity--The Rev. A. J. Harrison--Father
Ignatius--Mr Burns and Spiritualism.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
FAMILY AFFAIRS 346
Father and children--School in Paris--W. R. Bradlaugh.
CHAPTER XXXV.
REPUBLICANISM AND SPAIN 352
English Republicans--Conference at Birmingham--Mr Bradlaugh
carries English congratulations to the Spanish Republicans
in 1873--Adventures between Irun and Madrid.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
MADRID AND AFTER 364
To Lisbon and back--Senor Castelar--Enthusiasm of the
Madrid Republicans--The return journey--Reported death.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
GREAT GATHERINGS 372
The Parks Regulation Bill (1872)--Agricultural labourers at
Exeter Hall--Miners' meetings in Northumberland, Durham, and
Yorkshire--Agricultural labourers at Yeovil.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
FIRST VISIT TO AMERICA 380
The "London Correspondents'" puff extraordinary--Welcomed
on arrival in New York--The Lotos Club--O'Donovan Rossa--Financial
panic--At Steinway Hall--Stephen Pearl Andrews and
Mrs Victoria Woodhull: a contrast--Wendell Phillips--Charles
Sumner--William Lloyd Garrison--Henry Wilson--Joshua B.
Smith--An accident at Kansas City--Carlile's daughters at
Chicago--Ralph Waldo Emerson--Julia Ward Howe--Dissolution
of Parliament--Return to England.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
TWO NORTHAMPTON ELECTIONS, 1874 392
The first General Election under the Ballot Act--Northampton
and its absent candidate--Reception on his return--Charles
Gilpin's recommendation: his death--The bye-election--Mr
William Fowler--The bitterness of the contest--Departure for
the United States on the night of the poll--Rioting at Northampton
--Hostile camps--Better counsels prevail.
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
CHAPTER I.
PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD.
Although there has often been desultory talk among us concerning the
origin of the Bradlaugh family, there has never been any effort made
to trace it out. The name is an uncommon one: as far as I am aware,
ours is the only family that bears it, and when the name comes before
the public ours is the pride or the shame--for, unfortunately, there
are black sheep in every flock. I have heard a gentleman (an Irishman)
assure Mr Bradlaugh that he was of Irish origin, for was not the Irish
"lough" close akin to the termination "laugh"? Others have said he
was of Scotch extraction, and others again that he must go to the
red-haired Dane to look for his forbears. My father would only laugh
lazily--he took no vivid interest in his particular ancestors of a
few centuries ago--and reply that he could not go farther back than
his grandfather, who came from Suffolk; in his boyhood he had heard
that there were some highly respectable relations at Wickham Market,
in Suffolk. But so little did the matter trouble him that he never
verified it, though, if it were true, it would rather point to the
Danish origin, for parts of Suffolk were undoubtedly colonized by
the Danes in the ninth century, and a little fact which came to our
knowledge a few years ago shows that the name Bradlaugh is no new one
in that province.
Kelsall and Laxfield,[1] where there were Bradlaughs in the beginning
of the 17th century; Wickham Market and Brandeston, whence Mr
Bradlaugh's grandfather came at the beginning of the 19th, and where
there are Bradlaughs at the present day, are all within a narrow radius
of a few miles. The name Bradlaugh commenced to be corrupted into
Bradley prior to 1628, as may be seen from a stone in Laxfield Church,
and has also been so corrupted by a branch of the family within our own
knowledge. The name has also, I know, been spelled "Bradlough."
James Bradlaugh, who came from Brandeston about the year 1807, was a
gunsmith, and settled for a time in Bride Lane, Fleet Street, where
his son Charles, his fourth and last child, was born in February 1811.
He himself died in October of the same year, at the early age of
thirty-one.
Charles Bradlaugh (the elder) was in due course apprenticed to a law
stationer, and consequently this became his nominal profession; in
reality, he was confidential clerk to a firm of solicitors, Messrs
Lepard & Co. The apprentice was, on the occasion of some great trial,
lent to Messrs Lepard, and the mutual satisfaction seems to have
been so great that it was arranged that he should remain with them,
compensation being paid for the cancelling of his indentures. I have
beside me at the moment a letter, yellow and faded, dated July 30th,
1831, inquiring of "---- Batchelour, Esq.," concerning the character
of "a young man of the name of Bradlaugh," with the answer copied on
the back, in which the writer begs "leave to state that I have a high
opinion of him both as regards his moral character and industrious
habits, and that he is worthy of any confidence you may think proper to
place in him."
Charles Bradlaugh stayed with these solicitors until his death in 1852,
when the firm testified their appreciation of his services by putting
an obituary notice in the _Times_, stating that he had been "for
upwards of twenty years the faithful and confidential clerk of Messrs
Lepard & Co., of 6 Cloak Lane." He married a nursemaid named Elizabeth
Trimby, and on September 26th, 1833, was born their first child, who
was named Charles after his father. He was born in a small house in
Bacchus Walk, Hoxton. The houses in Bacchus Walk are small four-roomed
tenements; I am told that they have been altered and improved since
1833, but I do not think the improvement can have been great, for
the little street has a desperate air of squalor and poverty; and
when I went there the other day, Number 5, where my father was born,
could not be held to be in any way conspicuous in respect of superior
cleanliness. But in such a street cleanliness would seem to be almost
an impossibility. From Bacchus Walk the family went to Birdcage Walk,
where I have heard there was a large garden in which my grandfather
assiduously cultivated dahlias, for he seems to have been passionately
fond of flowers. Soon the encroaching tide of population caused their
garden to be taken for building purposes, and they removed to Elizabeth
Street, and again finally to 13 Warner Place South, a little house
nominally of seven rooms, then rented at seven shillings per week.
[Footnote 1: A friend studying the _Topographer and Genealogist_ found
the following extract in Vol. II.:--
"Hoxne Hundred.
"Kelsall Church. Brass; no figure. John Parker, gent., who married
Dorothy Bradlaugh, alias Jacob; died 24 April, 1605, aged 66.
"Laxfield Church. On a stone which had the figure of a man and two
women still remains a shield with the arms of Bradlaugh alias Jacob."
"A stone in the north wall of the vestry for Nicholas Bradley alias
Jacob, buried 8th August, 1628."]
The family, which ultimately numbered seven, two of whom died in
early childhood, was in very straitened circumstances, so much so
that they were glad to receive presents of clothing from a generous
cousin at Teddington, to eke out the father's earnings. The salary
of Charles Bradlaugh, sen., at the time of his death, after "upwards
of twenty years" of "faithful" service, was two guineas a week, with
a few shillings additional for any extra work he might do. He was an
exquisite penman; he could write the "Lord's Prayer" quite clearly and
distinctly in the size and form of a sixpence; and he was extremely
industrious. Very little is known of his tastes; he was exceedingly
fond of flowers, and wherever he was he cultivated his garden, large
or small, with great care; he was an eager fisherman, and would often
get up at three in the morning and walk from Hackney to Temple Mills on
the river Lea, with his son running by his side, bait-can in hand. He
wrote articles upon Fishing, which were reprinted as late as a year or
two ago in a paper devoted to angling, and also contributed a number
of small things under the signature C. B----h to the _London Mirror_,
but little was known about this, as he seems usually to have been very
reticent and reserved, even in his own family. He had his children
baptized--his son Charles was baptized on December 8th, 1833--but
otherwise he seems to have been fairly indifferent on religious
matters, and never went to church.
This is about all that is known concerning my grandfather up till about
the time of his son's conflict with the Rev. J. G. Packer, and what
steps he took then will be told in the proper place. His son Charles
always spoke of him with tenderness and affection, as, indeed, he also
did of his mother; nevertheless, he never seemed able to recall any
incident of greater tenderness on the part of his father than that of
allowing him to go with him on his early morning fishing excursions.
Mrs Bradlaugh belonged undoubtedly to what we regard to-day as "the
old school." Severe, exacting, and imperious with her children, she
was certainly not a bad mother, but she was by no means a tender
or indulgent one. The following incident is characteristic of her
treatment of her children. One Christmas time, when my father and his
sister Elizabeth (his junior by twenty-one months) were yet small
children, visitors were expected, and some loaf sugar was bought--an
unusual luxury in such poor households in those times. The visitors,
with whom came a little boy, arrived in due course, but when the tea
hour was reached, it was discovered that nearly all the sugar was
gone. The two elder children, Charles and Elizabeth, were both charged
with the theft; they denied it, but were disbelieved and forthwith
sent to bed. They listened for the father's home-coming in the hope of
investigation and release; there they both lay unheeded in their beds,
sobbing and unconsoled, until their grandmother brought them a piece of
cake and soothed them with tender words. Then it ultimately appeared
that it was the little boy visitor who stole the sugar; but the
children never forgot the dreadful misery of being unjustly punished.
The very last time the brother and sister were together, they were
recalling and laughing over the agony they endured over that stolen
sugar.
At the age of seven the little Charles went to school: first of all
to the National School, where the teacher had striking ideas upon the
value of corporal punishment, and enforced his instructions with the
ruler so heavily that the scar resulting from a wound so inflicted was
deemed of sufficient importance some nine or ten years later to be
marked in the enlistment description when Mr Bradlaugh joined the army.
Leaving the National School, he went first to a small private school,
and then to a boys' school kept by a Mr Marshall in Coldharbour Street;
all poor schools enough as we reckon schools to-day, but the best the
neighbourhood and his father's means could afford. Such as it was,
however, his schooling came to an end when he was eleven years old.
I have by me some interesting mementoes of those same
schooldays--namely, specimens of his "show" handwriting at the age of
seven, nine, and ten years. The writing is done on paper ornamented
(save the mark!) by coloured illustrations drawn from the Bible. The
first illustrates in wonderful daubs of yellow, crimson, and blue,
passages in the life of Samuel; in the centre is a text written in
a child's unsteady, unformed script; and at the bottom, flanked on
either side by yellow urns disgorging yellow and scarlet flames, come
the signature and date written in smaller and even more unsteady
letters than the text, "Charles Bradlaugh, aged 7 years, Christmas,
1840." The second specimen is adorned with truly awful illustrations
concerning "the death of Ahab," not exactly suggestive of that "peace
and goodwill" of which we hear so much and sometimes see so little.
The writing shows an enormous improvement, and is really a beautiful
specimen of a child's work. The signature, "Charles Bradlaugh, aged
9 years, Christmas, 1842," is firmly and clearly written. The third
piece represents the "Death of Absalom" (the teacher who gave out these
things seems to have been of a singularly dismal turn of mind), with
illustrations from 2 Sam. xiv. and xviii. The writing here has more
character; there is more light and shade in the up and down strokes,
as well as more freedom. As an instance of the humane nature of the
teaching, I quote the text selected to show off the writing: "Then
said Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in
his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was
yet alive in the midst of the oak. And ten young men of Joab's smote
Absalom and slew him." As a lesson in sheer wanton cruelty this can
hardly be exceeded. The signature, "Charles Bradlaugh, aged ten years,
Christmas, 1843," which is surrounded by sundry pen-and-ink ornaments
is, like the text, written with a much freer hand than that of the
other specimens.
The boy's amusements--apart from the prime one of going fishing with
his father, which he did when eight years old--consisted chiefly in
playing at sham fights with steel nibs for soldiers, and dramatic
performances of "The Miller and his Men," enacted by _artistes_ cut out
of newspaper. Then there was the more sober joy of listening to an old
gentleman and ardent Radical, named Brand, who took a great affection
for the lad, and used to explain to him the politics of the day, and
doubtless by his talk inspired him to plunge into the intricacies of
Cobbett's "Political Gridiron," which he found amongst his father's
books, and from that to the later and more daring step of buying a
halfpenny copy of the People's Charter.