HARD TIMES.
The question will probably have presented itself to many minds, If Mr
Bradlaugh was giving up so much time to public work, to lecturing,
reform meetings, debating, etc., how was he living the while? what
was his home life, and in what way was he earning his bread? It will
be remembered that, after leaving the army in 1853, he was before the
year was out in the employ of Mr Rogers, solicitor, of 70 Fenchurch
Street, first as "errand boy" at 10s. a week, and then as clerk at a
slowly increasing salary. After a few months at Warner Place, he and my
mother went to live in a little four-roomed house at No. 4 West Street,
Cambridge Heath, where my sister Alice was born. In the previous
January my father had had a very troublesome piece of litigation to
conduct for his firm at Manchester. Often and often has he told us the
story of it, and he used to work us up into a state of excitement by
his graphic account of his capture of two men at night from a common
lodging house in one of the low parts of Manchester; of his interview
at the Albion Hotel with Mr Holland, a surgeon implicated in the case,
who, when my father rose to ring the bell for some lemonade, mistaking
the intent, rose in alarm, and cried, "For God's sake, don't!" These
and other episodes in the case remained clearly enough in my memory,
but when I wished to retell the story in a connected form, I found
myself altogether at a loss. First of all, I could not remember that my
father ever mentioned the date of these legal adventures, and without
the date I could do little in the way of searching for press reports.
However, I found a clue to this in the following letter, which was
amongst those papers of my mother's which, as I have said, I looked
through quite recently for the first time:--
"North Camp, Aldershot,
"29th January 1856.
"Madam,--Mr Bradlaugh has been kind enough to send me, during the
last few days, some Manchester newspapers containing reports relative
to the case of suspected poisoning. Not knowing where to address him
now, I take the liberty of writing to you. Will you be so kind as to
convey to him my thanks for the papers, and my hearty congratulations
on his having obtained the management of the prosecution; it is an
opportunity of distinguished service. With his wonderful acuteness and
energy (Mr Bradlaugh and myself are such old and close friends that
we do not mince words in speaking of or to each other) he will surely
distinguish himself, and thus, as I suppose and hope, begin a fair way
for promotion, as we phrase it. Watching the case with great interest,
I thought his cross-examination of Mr Holland, the surgeon, extremely
good and well conducted; but as this is merely an unprofessional
opinion, he will not care much for it, although so favourable.
"Trusting that yourself and the other members of the family are
enjoying good health, I have the honour to be, Madam, yours most
respectfully,
JAS. THOMSON, Schoolmaster.
"Depôt. 1st Rifles.
"Mrs C. Bradlaugh."
Apart from the subject, this letter has in itself a special interest to
personal admirers of "B. V.": the handwriting--the earliest specimen
in my possession--is singularly unlike Mr Thomson's writing of later
years, so unlike that it was not until I had looked at the signature
that I realised who was the writer, although I am so familiar with
his writing that I should not have thought it possible that I could
hesitate in recognising it.
The poisoning case must have aroused considerable attention in
Manchester at the time. It arose in this way:--An insurance company
called The Diadem Life Insurance Company had reason to believe that
frauds were being practised upon them in Manchester through their
agent, and consequently instructed their solicitor to investigate one
case which they deemed unusually suspicious. The solicitor happened to
be Mr Rogers, and he sent his clerk, Mr Bradlaugh, to Manchester to
conduct the proceedings there. A man named John Monahan, a waterproof
worker, had become insured in the Diadem Office for £300; and after
paying the premiums he died, leaving a will securing the £300 to his
son James Monahan. Certain facts had been kept back from the Insurance
Company at the time of taking out the policy, and the man's age had
also been wrongly given. Investigations led, first, to the belief that
the will had not been written until three weeks after the testator's
death--and this was subsequently sworn to by witnesses, one of whom
wrote out the will--and finally, to the possibility that the old man,
John Monahan, had been poisoned. Two men implicated in the matter Mr
Bradlaugh himself captured and handed over to the police in the middle
of the night, and, in consequence of the evidence sworn to, an order
was made for the exhumation of the body of Monahan. As there was no
record of the place of burial, the details of the exhumation were
revolting in the extreme. For four days a gang of men were employed
in digging up bodies in an almost haphazard manner under the vague
directions, first, of the sexton and next of a niece of the deceased.
Mr Bradlaugh, after consulting with the coroner, contracted with a
Mr Sturges to undertake the work with more system. Sixty or more
bodies were dug up, and at length one of these was identified as
that of Monahan. Under the circumstances one cannot believe that the
identification was very precise; the body had been lying in a common
grave for between five and six months, and no one's memory seems to
have been clear enough even to point out the spot where the old man
was buried. Mr Bradlaugh was always of opinion that they did not get
the right body after all, although in the body found there were traces
of poison. These traces the medical evidence did not judge sufficient
to justify a charge of poisoning, and this count therefore fell to
the ground. The counsel engaged on behalf of the accused son, James
Monahan, was very indignant that my father should be allowed to conduct
the prosecution; he protested that heretofore the rule in that court
was that no one should be allowed to practise in that court unless
an attorney, or solicitor, or barrister. On the last occasion, the
counsel went on, as the prisoners had been apprehended only the night
before, and therefore, as there was not perhaps time to instruct a
professional man, Mr Bradlaugh had been allowed to appear. Other clerks
had been refused to appear, and he could not see why a different rule
should be adopted in this case. To expedite the business, he suggested
that the case should, according to ordinary practice, be conducted
by a solicitor or barrister. Mr Bradlaugh said he had appeared to
conduct cases for his employer in London police courts, and this was
a matter entirely within the discretion of the Court. He urged that
he alone was in possession of all the facts of the case, and that he
could not communicate his knowledge to any other person. Mr Maude (the
magistrate) remarked that it had been the general rule in that court
that parties should be represented either by counsel or solicitor, but
there was no rule without an exception, and looking at the peculiarity
of this case, he thought it would be very inconvenient now not to allow
Mr Bradlaugh to elicit the facts.
At a later stage of the proceedings a Mr Bent, who was watching the
case on behalf of another of the prisoners, objected, on the part of
the solicitors practising in the court, to Mr Bradlaugh, an attorney's
clerk, being allowed to appear, but the Bench overruled his objection.
In consequence of the medical evidence as to the condition of the
exhumed body, the charge of poisoning had, of course, to be entirely
abandoned, but in the March following James Monahan and two others were
charged with having, on 3rd August 1855, "feloniously forged a will
purporting to be the last will and testament of John Monahan, and with
having uttered the same, knowing it to be forged," and another was
charged with having feloniously been an accessory after the fact. The
jury found Monahan guilty, but acquitted the others. Keefe, the fourth
man, was then charged with having taken a false oath, and to this he
pleaded guilty.
In September 1857 my father moved from West Street to 3 Hedgers
Terrace, Cassland Road, Hackney, where I was born in the March of the
following year. He now began to think it was quite time to take some
definite steps towards the advancement of his position in life, and
with that object in view he wrote the following letter to Mr Rogers:--
"DEAR SIR,--I have been in your employ above four years,
and am now twenty-five years of age. I have a wife and child,
beside mother and sisters, looking to me for support; under these
circumstances it is absolutely necessary that I should make the best
position I can for myself. My object in now addressing you is to
ascertain if there is any probability of my obtaining my articles
from you, and if so, at what period? You must not be offended with
me for this, because we are in the position of two traders. I have
my brains for sale, you buy them. I naturally try to get the best
price--you perhaps may think I sell too high. I have already this year
refused three situations offered to me. The first (although it was
£160 a year) I refused because it came just after my last increase of
salary; the second because it did not involve the articles; and the
third because it was made to me immediately prior to the death of Mr
Rogers, and I thought it would be indelicate then to trouble you. My
question to you now is, Do you feel willing to give me my articles?
Of course, I need not say that I have not the means to pay for the
stamp, and the matter therefore involves the question of an advance
of £80. I would, however, gladly serve you for the five years at
the salary I now receive, and I would enter into any bond, however
stringent, to prevent loss of practice to you in the future. If you
feel inclined to do this, name your own time within six months: if, on
the contrary, you think I set too high a value on my capabilities, or
have determined not to give articles to any clerk, I shall be obliged
by an early reply.
"Whatever may be the result of this application, I trust you will
believe that I am grateful for the many past kindnesses you have
shown me, and that the good feeling at present existing may not be
lessened between us. I have my way in life to make--yours to a great
extent is smooth and easy; but as you have struggled yourself, I am
willing to hope you will not blame me for trying hard to make a step
in life.--Yours very respectfully,
"(Signed) CHAS. BRADLAUGH.
"Thos. Rogers, Esq."
This letter is undated and without address; and it will be noted as a
curious point of interest, in one so very business-like and practical,
that Mr Bradlaugh rarely did put his address or date on the letters
he wrote with his own hand. If the address happened to be stamped on
the paper, well and good, if not, he rarely wrote it; and his nearest
approach to dating his letters was to put upon them the day of the
week. I do not, of course, say that he never went through the customary
form of putting the date or address, but that he more often than not
omitted it. This habit, contracted early in life, he retained until his
death, and in fact the very last letter entirely written with his own
hand was merely dated with the day of the week.
The precise reply to this appeal I do not know; that it must have been
in the negative, and that my father had to seek for some one else
who would give him his articles on the terms indicated in his letter
is clear. This person he thought he had found in Mr Thomas Harvey,
solicitor, of 36 Moorgate Street, and he quitted Mr Rogers in order
to be articled to him. The draft of the articles of agreement found
amongst my father's papers bears the date November 16th, 1858. This
connection proved to be a most unfortunate one for my father; for Mr
Harvey shortly afterwards fell into money difficulties, in which Mr
Bradlaugh also became involved. My father's troubles--as troubles ever
seem to do--came, not singly, but in battalions; he was now not only
without regular employment and in serious pecuniary difficulties, but
rheumatic fever seized upon him, and laid him for many weeks in the
spring and early summer of 1859 on his couch in his little room at
Cassland Road. In August, still weak, poor, and full of care, he was,
as I have said, obliged to stop the _Investigator_, and give up for the
time his cherished project of editing a Freethought journal.
When poor people are ill, necessity compels them to curtail the period
of convalescence, so before my father was able to go out he strove to
do writing work at home, although the rheumatism lingering in his right
hand rendered the use of the pen painful and difficult. As soon as he
could get about again he began once more lecturing and debating (as we
have seen) with renewed energy. Anyhow the stories are legion of the
fortunes he made upon the platform and through his publications, though
a few small incidents will show the amount of truth there is in these
oft-repeated tales.
Just before the birth of my brother Charles, on the 14th September
1859, we moved from Hackney to a little house at Park, near Tottenham,
called Elysium Villa; and while we lived here, when my father had to
make a journey to the North he was obliged to start from Wood Green
station, a distance of about three and a half miles from our house. The
only way to get there was to walk--omnibuses there were none, and a
cab was out of the question on the score of expense. Mr Bradlaugh had
no portmanteau in those days; his books and his clothes were packed
in a square tin box, which to the "curious observer"--to use a phrase
much favoured by novelists--would have given a hint of his profession,
inasmuch as it was uncommonly like a deed box. The maid Kate, assisted
by someone else, carried this box from home to the station at Wood
Green over night, and my father would get up early in the morning
and walk the three and a-half miles to catch the first train to the
North. It must be borne in mind that my father did not, like many young
men, like walking for walking's sake, and the long walk, followed by
a still longer train ride in one of the old comfortless third-class
compartments in a slow train, finishing up with a lecture or debate,
made a fairly heavy day's work.
Before going farther I must stay to say a word about Kate, because I
want to give some idea of the devotion my father inspired at home as
well as in the hearts of men who could only judge him by his public
acts. Kate came to us from the country, a girl of sixteen, when I was
but a few months old; she stayed with us until our home was broken
up and my brother died, in 1870. Many a time her wages were perforce
in arrears; and in 1870 she would, as she had done before, have
patiently waited for better times and shared with us, had we not been
compelled to do without her. Her loyalty was absolute. When we three
children were babies she cheerfully bore poverty with us; and well do
I remember--as a picture it stands out in my mind, one of my earliest
recollections--the carpetless floor and scantily furnished room. In
the days when there was arrest for debt she kept the door against the
sheriff's officer: when one of Mr Thomson's sad periods of intemperance
overwhelmed him, she, with my mother, searched the purlieus of London
for him, found him in some poor den, and brought him home to be
nursed and cared for. Kate lives to-day, and with unabated loyalty
never allows an opportunity to pass of saying a word in praise, or in
defence, of her dead but much-loved master.
A letter to my mother (undated, but certainly written early in the
sixties) giving some description of one of my father's journeys to
Yarmouth, reminds us that the old-fashioned windowless third-class
carriage left many things to be desired, and in these days of luxurious
travelling such hardships would be thought unendurable:--
"I am safely landed here[25] with sevenpence in my pocket. It has
snowed nearly all the journey, and if it continues I expect all the
bloaters will be turned into whitings. The ride was a cold one, for
the E. C. R.[26] parliamentary carriage combined the advantage of
ventilation with that of a travelling bath, wind, rain, and snow
gaining admission and accompanying us without payment--which was not
fair.
[Footnote 25: The letter is headed, "Yarmouth, Thursday."]
[Footnote 26: "Eastern Counties," now "Great Eastern" Railway.]
"You asked me to write, and I will therefore describe the incidents of
the journey. Park to Broxbourne: carriage full, darkness prevailed;
Broxbourne: spent 1d. on _Daily Telegraph_, which read to myself lying
on the broad of my back, the carriage being more empty; the view was
mist in the clouds of snow. Cambridge: bought 3d. of biscuits and a
[_Morning_] _Star_, ate one and read the other till I arrived at Ely,
with an occasional glance at Buckle on Civilisation. Ely to Norwich:
cold, and discontented with my lot in life; Norwich: met Adams and
Roberts, talked sweet things about confectionery for ten minutes, then
straight on here, where I fulfil my promise of writing you."
The letter is ornamented with several drawings of himself under the
different circumstances indicated in his letter.
The story he also relates in his "Autobiography," "for the
encouragement of young propagandists," is a forcible example of the
little profit his lectures often brought, and the difficulties his
poverty sometimes forced upon him.
"I had," he says, "lectured in Edinburgh in mid-winter; the audience
was small, the profits microscopical. After paying my bill at the
Temperance Hotel, where I then stayed, I had only a few shillings more
than my Parliamentary fare to Bolton, where I was next to lecture.
I was out of bed at five on a freezing morning, and could have no
breakfast, as the people were not up. I carried my luggage (a big tin
box, corded round, which then held books and clothes, and a small black
bag), for I could not spare any of my scanty cash for a conveyance or
porter. The train from Edinburgh being delayed by a severe snowstorm,
the corresponding Parliamentary had left Carlisle long before our
arrival. In order to reach Bolton in time for my lecture, I had to book
by a quick train, starting in about three-quarters of an hour, but
could only book to Preston, as the increased fare took all my money
except 4-1/2d. With this small sum I could get no refreshment in the
station, but in a little shop in a street outside I got a mug of hot
tea and a little hot meat pie. From Preston I got with great difficulty
on to Bolton, handing my black bag to the station-master there, as
security for my fare from Preston, until the morning. I arrived in
Bolton about a quarter to eight; the lecture commenced at eight, and
I, having barely time to run to my lodgings, and wash and change, went
on to the platform cold and hungry. I shall never forget that lecture;
it was in an old Unitarian Chapel. We had no gas, the building seemed
full of a foggy mist, and was imperfectly lit with candles. Everything
appeared cold, cheerless, and gloomy. The most amusing feature was
that an opponent, endowed with extra piety and forbearance, chose that
evening to specially attack me for the money-making and easy life I was
leading."
Writing in April 1860, he also gives some idea of his profits as
an editor and a publisher:--"When," he writes, "I relinquished the
editorship of the _Investigator_, I was burdened with a printing
debt of nearly £60; this has been reduced a little more than half by
contributions, leaving about £26 still due. I have, in addition, paid
out of my own pocket, for Freethought printing, during two years, more
than £100, for which I have yet no return. During the last eight months
I have been actively engaged in lecturing.... When you learn that at
some places I took nothing away, and paid my own expenses, and that at
nearly every place I only received the actual profit of my lectures;
and when, in addition, you allow a few days for visits to my wife and
family, which have been few and far between; and also reckon for more
than a week of enforced idleness through ill health, you will perceive
that I am not amassing a fortune."
In 1861 he again wrote: "During the past twelve months I have addressed
276 different meetings, four of which each numbered over 5000 persons;
eighty of these lectures have involved considerable loss in travelling,
hotel expenses, loss of time, etc. I have during the same time held
five separate debates, two of these also without remuneration."
It is very likely that even in these early years my father cherished
the hope of being able to earn enough by his tongue and his pen to
devote himself entirely to that Freethought and political work which he
had so much at heart; but as his own words show us, the day for that
was not yet come, and the fortune he was accused of amassing existed
then, as always, only in the heated imagination of his detractors.