"THE WORLD IS MY COUNTRY, TO DO GOOD IS MY RELIGION."
A demonstration was held in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon, September
28th, 1862, for the purpose of expressing sympathy with Garibaldi, and
protesting against the occupation of Rome by the French troops. The
hour announced for the meeting was three o'clock, and by that time
the _Morning Advertiser_ estimated that there were between 12,000 and
15,000 persons present. The proceedings were, however, very badly
managed; no steps whatever were taken for keeping order, and, indeed,
by three o'clock none of the conveners of the meeting had put in an
appearance, nor had any arrangements whatever been made for a platform
for the speakers. Mr Bradlaugh had been asked to speak, and was, as
a matter of course, punctually upon the scene. He found a ready-made
platform in a great heap about fourteen yards by nine, and rising
three feet from the ground. About this heap, upon which he and a few
others had posted themselves, the crowd gathered, and at length Mr
Bradlaugh, seeing no signs of the conveners, commenced to speak. He
was soon stopped by interruptions of every kind, and to make things a
little more regular, a chairman was appointed; but the chairman had
hardly begun to address the people when he "was hurled with his friends
from their seat of eminence by a movement which a few Irish roughs
had organised in the rear of them, down amongst the crowd beneath. By
remarkable dexterity, however, the chairman regained his place upon
the mount."[82] His efforts to be heard were again unavailing, and the
proceedings rapidly developed into a free fight.
[Footnote 82: _Morning Advertiser_.]
"During one of the lulls in the fighting position of the affair," says
the _Morning Advertiser_, "Mr Bradlaugh proposed a resolution to the
effect that the meeting was of opinion that Garibaldi was faithfully
doing his duty when he fell at Aspromonte, and desired to express its
admiration of the heroic fortitude he displayed in his hour of trial."
The resolution was seconded and supported amid general uproar,
"while it was confidently stated that in the course of the discussion
of it, and during one of the encounters for the possession of the
platform, an attempt was made to stab Mr Bradlaugh."[83]
[Footnote 83: Mr Robert Forder, who was present at the Garibaldi
meeting, sends me the following vivid account of what took place on
that day:--
"That afternoon," he relates, "was the first time I had the honour and
pleasure of speaking to your father. A few of us at Deptford, where
I then resided, had had printed a quantity of handbills announcing
the debate with the Rev. W. Barker, then appearing in the _National
Reformer_. I gave your father one, for which he thanked me. I should
like, with your permission, to add a few words as to what took place
on that exciting afternoon. The Irish Catholics had been well whipped
up for the occasion, and were there in force; most of them dock and
bricklayers' labourers, and in the mass totally uneducated. There were
three mounds of earth and stones intended to repair or make roads,
each about four feet high, and, so far as I can recollect after thirty
years have gone by, about thirty yards long by eight deep. These were
about fifty yards apart, and on the middle one were gathered the men
and two women--one of the latter in a red 'jumper,' that was afterwards
known in fashion as a 'Garibaldi.' The Irish were massed on and around
the two other mounds, and during the early part of the proceedings
contented themselves with singing a refrain for 'God and Rome.' It was
about ten minutes after your father had begun to speak that a signal
was given, on which a sudden rush was made upon the meeting. There had
not been up to this moment any indication whatever that the Irish were
armed, but every man and woman (and there were many women and girls
with them) was possessed of a bludgeon of some sort. Their onslaught
was furious and brutal, and for a time successful. They carried the
mound in a few minutes, but the blood upon many of our friends aroused
such a feeling of indignation, that in a time less than it takes
me to write it the mound was stormed from the Piccadilly side, and
again captured by us. There were in the crowd about a dozen Grenadier
Guardsmen, who were ardent admirers of Garibaldi, and there were quite
fifty others, possibly passive spectators. The former formed two deep,
and with their walking-sticks rushed down the mound into the mass of
the yelling Irish. The effect was electrical. Their comrades in the
crowd raised a sudden shout, and in ten minutes the Irish were in full
retreat, throwing away their sticks to escape the indignation of the
people they had so wantonly and brutally attacked. Many were captured
by the police, and I clearly remember the constables gathering up their
bludgeons, and making bundles of them with their belts. It must be
confessed that no quarter was given, and scores of them got severely
mauled. Cardinal Wiseman referred to the brutality of the infidel mob
in a pastoral a few days after, in which he used the term 'lambs' to
describe these religious ruffians. _Punch_, the next week, 'caught on'
to this word, and in its weekly cartoon depicted this mob of Irish
assailing a public meeting over the heading of 'Cardinal Wiseman's
Lambs.'"]
Thus an assemblage which should have done honour to Garibaldi as well
as to England, for, as the _Advertiser_ says, "it was composed of the
élite of the working classes and a large portion of the middle class,"
was turned by the Irish Catholics into a fight and a panic calling
for the interference of the police. It is little to be wondered at
that when Mr Bradlaugh was invited by the Working Men's Committee to
attend and speak he hesitated to accept the invitation, feeling as he
did that the conveners were not able to control the antagonism of the
Irish Catholics which had already manifested itself at other meetings.
"I have no wish," he afterwards said, "for immediate martyrdom, and
considerably abbreviated my speech when I found that knives were used
as arguments."
In the winter of 1862 Mr Bradlaugh made a public appeal to the
Freethinkers of Great Britain to raise money on behalf of the
distressed Lancashire operatives. He begged them to "waste no time,
but at once in your large workshops and in your social meetings levy
a rate for the reduction of the Lancashire distress." Those who were
Freethinkers amongst the destitute in Lancashire were of course
relieved by the General Relief Committee, but naturally they were
excluded from the various charitable undertakings carried out by
committees belonging to different denominations. As the relief afforded
by the General Committee and the Board of Guardians only averaged
1s. 8-1/2d. per head weekly, it will be seen how greatly dependent
the distressed were upon the extra help of these other committees. A
touching little story of Christian charity _versus_ principle in rags
was taken by Mr T. S. Oates, then Secretary to the Lancashire Secular
Union Special Distress Fund, from the _Rochdale Observer_ of Dec.
13th, and was, he said, a fair sample of what frequently happened. A
benevolent lady belonging to Middleton, on making her usual charitable
round, entered one day a house in Parkfield, where she found "poverty
in its worst shape." The father of the family was in rags, and the lady
told the man that if he would come to her house that evening she would
give him other clothes. The man, of course, was overjoyed, but when he
was told that after he had the clothes he would be expected to attend
church, and if he did not do so the clothes were to be returned, his
joy was considerably cooled down. Then it was said that
"after making her statement, the lady left to make further inquiries
into the cases of distress, leaving the man of poverty to reflect
on the offer made to him. After a short consideration he commenced
looking at his unsightly apparel, and then muttered to himself: 'Yo
mun poo me through a bit longer, owd friends; it'll do noan to pop mi
conscience for a shute of cloas!'"
My father did not preach without practising, although to me it is
marvellous how, with his own struggle for existence, he always found
a way to help others in their struggles. But this winter it was
especially hard: several times he was called away to the Continent, and
several times his health broke down, until he was so ill that he had
to give up editing his paper, and for some months was also obliged to
give up lecturing. Nevertheless, he contrived to keep an engagement he
had made to lecture for the Relief Fund in Manchester on Feb. 1, 1863,
in which he paid the whole of his own expenses, and so was able to hand
£10 over to the Treasurer. Later on in the year he was lecturing again
on behalf of the same object.
* * * * *
Almost concurrently with his efforts to raise money for Lancashire,
he was making eloquent appeals for funds to aid Poland against her
oppressors, and when he had somewhat recovered his health he addressed
meetings on behalf of the struggling Poles. He spoke at Plumstead,
Deptford, and Cleveland Hall, at Birmingham and Sheffield, where the
fire and passion of his speeches evoked the utmost enthusiasm; at
Halifax, where people walked eight and ten miles in the drenching
rain to hear him, and at other places the details of which are not
recorded. "Viva la Polonia" was a cry which, twenty years ago, found "a
sympathising echo from every freeman in Europe, from every honest heart
in the civilised world;" and my father was behind none in the warmth
of his sympathy, or in the activity he displayed to give it practical
effect.
Neither, with all this public work, was he unmindful or ungrateful for
kindnesses shown himself personally; and so he never forgot the debt
he owed his early friend, Mr Jones, who now in consequence of old age
and infirmities was reduced to extreme poverty. In the November of
this same year he gave the last of his annual lectures for the benefit
of his staunch old friend. On this occasion, too, Mr Bendall, the
lessee of the Hall of Science, gave the use of the hall--as indeed he
frequently did, often at considerable inconvenience to himself--and
the proceeds of the lecture and subscriptions amounted to upwards of
£8, of which the greater part served to pay the funeral expenses of
the brave old man, who, contemporary with Thomas Paine, had played his
part in the struggles for a free press, particularly in those which we
associate with the names of men like Richard Carlile, Wooler, and Hone.
In March 1864 occurred the great inundation at Sheffield; along the
valleys of the Loxley and the Don all was ruin and desolation. Whole
rows of houses, mills, and bridges were carried away, and huge trees
were torn up by the force of the rushing water. Many lives were lost,
and those who escaped with life lost every atom they possessed save the
garments in which they escaped. Many funds were started for the relief
of those so suddenly made destitute, and Mr Bradlaugh was not slow in
offering his help. A Sheffield man, writing at the time, said that the
quality of practical sympathy was one possessed by Mr Bradlaugh "in
a pre-eminent degree, and it is a trait in his character which will
add lustre to his name, and form a rich gem in the wreath which shall
adorn his memory long after he shall have laid his honoured head in the
silent tomb.... His large, generous heart is never insensible to the
sounds of human distress; and accordingly no sooner did he hear of the
Sheffield catastrophe than he at once volunteered his services towards
the relief of the sufferers."[84]
[Footnote 84: He gave two lectures in the Mechanics' Institute (lent
to the Freethinker for this occasion), and the proceeds, £8 11s. 4d.,
were handed over to the fund. "No lecturer gave more to the needy than
Iconoclast," said Mr Austin Holyoake.]
I have mentioned these cases with the idea of showing how wide and
how ready were my father's sympathies. To give money help was no easy
matter to him: he could not write a cheque and say, "Put my name down
for this sum or for that;" he could not even give by denying himself
some little luxury: every penny he gave had to be specially earned for
that purpose, but notwithstanding this, real distress rarely appealed
to him in vain.[85]
[Footnote 85: One of the latest letters he ever wrote, bearing date
Jan. 12, 1891, shows him always the same. He says: "I am extremely
sorry to read your letter, but I have, unfortunately, no means whatever
except what I earn from day to day with my tongue and pen. If the
Committee think it wise, I will lecture for the benefit of such a
fund."]
Unable to do so much provincial lecturing in consequence of the demands
made upon his time by his business, Mr Bradlaugh was yet often to be
found during the latter part of 1865 at the Hall of Science, City Road;
but in the early part of 1866 he was away in Italy so much, sometimes
for weeks together, that he could do very little lecturing. The
proceeds of these winter lectures at the old Hall of Science were to go
to the Hall of Science Company, which he was then actively projecting.
The lease of the City Road Hall expired early in 1866, and the renewal
had been refused. It was proposed to lease or purchase a suitable
building, or a site of land on which to build a lecture-hall and rooms
for classes for secular instruction, etc. To aid in providing funds
for this purpose, it was Mr Bradlaugh's desire to purchase one hundred
shares out of the proceeds of his lectures, and to that end he devoted
the whole of his profits on each occasion that he lectured at the Hall
of Science.