A new day dawned for me on the twenty-fifth of February. I rose as usual
a few minutes before six. It was the morning of my release, or in prison
language my "discharge." Yet I felt no excitement. I was as calm as my
cell walls. "Strange!" the reader will say. Yet not so strange after
all. Every day had been filled with expectancy, and anticipation had
discounted the reality.
Instead of waiting till eight o'clock, the usual breakfast hour,
superintendent Burchell brought my last prison meal at seven. I wondered
at his haste, but when he came again, a few minutes later, to see if I
had done, I saw through the game. The authorities wished to "discharge"
me rapidly, before the hour when my friends would assemble at the prison
gates, and so lessen the force of the demonstration. I slackened speed
at once, drank my tea in sips, and munched my dry bread with great
deliberation. "Come," said superintendent Burchell, "you're very slow
this morning." "Oh," I replied, "there's no hurry; after twelve months
of it a few minutes make little difference." Burchell put the words and
my smile together, and gave the game up.
Down in the bathroom at the foot of the debtors' wing my clothes were
set out, and some kind hand had spread a piece of bright carpet for my
feet. I dressed very leisurely. With equal tardiness I went through the
ceremony of receiving my effects, carefully checking every article,
and counting the money coin by coin. The Governor tendered me half a
sovereign, the highest sum a prisoner can earn. "Thank you," I said,
"but I can't take their money." We had to go through the farce.
In the little gate-house I met Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant, and my wife.
Colonel Milman wished us good-bye, the gate opened, and a mighty shout
broke from the huge crowd outside. From all parts of London they had
wended in the early morning to greet me, and there they stood in their
thousands. Yet I felt rather sad than elated. The world was so full of
wrong, though the hearts of those men and women beat so true!
As our open carriage crawled through the dense crowd I saw men's lips
twitching and women shedding tears. They crowded round us, eager for
a shake of the hand, a word, a look. At length we got free, and drove
towards the Hall of Science, followed by a procession of brakes and
other vehicles over half a mile long.
There was a public breakfast, at which hundreds sat down. I took a cup
of tea, but ate nothing. After a long imprisonment I could not trust my
stomach, and I had to make a speech.
After Mr. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Besant and the Rev. W. Sharman (secretary of
the Society for the Repeal of the Blasphemy Laws), had made speeches,
which I should blush to transcribe, I rose to respond. It was a ticklish
moment. But I found I had a voice still, and the words came readily
enough. Concluding my address I said: "I thank you for your greeting.
I am not played out. I am thinner. The doctor told me I had lost two
stone, and I believe it. But after all I do not think the ship's timbers
are much injured. The rogues ran me aground, but they never made me haul
down the flag. Now I am floated again I mean to let the old flag stream
out on the wind as of yore. I mean to join the rest of our fleet in
fighting the pirates and slavers on the high seas of thought."
An hour afterwards my feet were on my own fender. I was _home_ again.
What a delicious sensation after twelve months in a prison cell!
Friends prescribed a rest at the seaside for me, but I felt that the
best tonic was work. In less than three days I settled everything. I
resumed the editorship of the _Freethinker_ at once, and began filling
up my list of engagements. On meeting the Committee, who had managed our
affairs in our absence, I found everything in perfect order, besides a
considerable profit at the banker's. Messrs. A. Hilditch, R. O. Smith,
J., Grout and G. Standring had given ungrudgingly of their time; Mr.
C. Herbert, acting as treasurer, had kept the accounts with painstaking
precision; and Mrs. Besant had proved how a woman could take the lead of
men. Nor must I forget Mr. Robert Forder, the Secretary of the National
Secular Society, who acted as shopman at our publishing office, and
sustained the business by his assiduity. I had also to thank Dr. Aveling
for his interim editorship of the _Freethinker_, and the admirable
manner in which he had conducted _Progress_.
The first number of the _Freethinker_ under my fresh editorship appeared
on the following Thursday. In concluding my introductory address I said:
"I promise the readers of the _Freethinker_ that they shall,
so far as my powers avail, find no diminution in the vigor and
vivacity of its attacks on the shams and superstitions of our age.
Not only the writer's pen, but the artist's pencil, shall be busy
in this good work; and the absurdities of faith shall, if possible,
be slain with laughter. Priests and fools are, as Goldsmith said,
the two classes who dread ridicule, and we are pledged to an
implacable war with both."
The artist's pencil! Yes, I had resolved to repeat what I was punished
for. I left written instructions against the publication of Comic Bible
Sketches in the _Freethinker_ during my imprisonment; but although I
would not impose the risk on others, I was determined to face it myself.
A fortnight after my release the Sketches were resumed, and they have
been continued ever since. My reasons for this decision were expressed
at a public banquet in the Hall of Science on March 12. I then said:
"Mr. Bradlaugh has said that the Freethought party--which no
one will dispute his right to speak for--looks to me, among
others, after my imprisonment, to maintain with dignity whatever
position I have won. I hope I shall not disappoint the expectation.
But I should like it to be clearly understood that I consider
the most dignified attitude for a man who has just left gaol
after suffering a cruel and unjust sentence, for no crime except
that of thinking and speaking freely, is to stand again for the
same right he exercised before, to pursue the very policy for
which he was attacked, precisely because he _was_ attacked,
and to flinch no hair's breadth from the line he pursued before,
at least until the opposition resorts to suasion instead of
force, and tries to win by criticism what it will never win
by the gaol. It is my intention to-morrow morning to drive
to the West of London, and to leave the first copy of this week's
_Freethinker_ pulled from the press at Judge North's house with
my compliments and my card."
Prolonged applause greeted this announcement, and I kept my word. Judge
North had the first copy of the re-illustrated _Freethinker_ and I
hope he relished. At any rate, it showed him, as John Bright says, that
"force is no remedy."
At the banquet I refer to I was presented with a purse of gold, in
common with Mr. Ramsey, and an Illuminated Address, which ran as
follows:
"To GEORGE WILLIAM FOOTE, Vice-President of the National Secular
Society, who suffered for twelve months in Holloway Gaol for the
so-called offence of Blasphemy.
"In offering you on your release this illuminated address, and
the accompanying purse of gold, we do not seek to give you
recompense for the sufferings and insults which have been
heaped upon you. We bring them only as a symbol of our thanks
to you--thanks, because, on your trial, you spoke nobly for
the right of free speech on religious questions; thanks,
because you bore, without a sign of flinching, a sentence
at once cruel and unjust; thanks, because you have carried
on our days the traditions of a Freethought faithful in the
prison as on the platform.
"Signed on behalf of the National Secular Society
C. BRADLAUGH, President.
R. FORDER, Secretary."
Greatly also did I value the greeting I received, with my two fellow
prisoners, from the working men of East London. At a crowded meeting in
the large hall of the Haggerston Road Club, attended by representatives
of other associations, I was presented with the following address:
"The Political Council of the Borough of Hackney Workmen's Club
present this testimonial to George William Foote as a token of
admiration of the courage displayed by him in the advocacy of
free speech, and in sympathy for the sufferings endured during
twelve months' imprisonment for the same under barbarous laws
unfitted for the spirit of a free people.
"Signed on behalf of the Council
ALFRED PIKE, President.
CHAS. KNIGHT, Secretary."
The largest audience that ever assembled at the Hall of Science listened
to my first lecture, at which Mr. Bradlaugh presided, two days after my
release. Seventeen hundred people crowded into a room that seats nine
hundred, and as many were unable to gain admission. Similar welcomes
awaited me in the provinces; and ever since my audiences, as well as
the sale of my journal and writings, have been far larger than before
my imprisonment. Hundreds of people, as they have told me, have
been converted to Freethought by my sufferings, my lectures, and my
pamphlets. I hope Judge North is satisfied.
To prevent a break-down in case of another prosecution, Mr. Ramsey and
I clubbed our resources, and purchased printing plant and machinery,
so that the production of the _Freethinker_ and other "blasphemous"
literature might be done under our own root. The bigots had proved
themselves unable to intimidate us, and as we were no longer at
the mercy of printers they gave up the idea of molesting us. May
Freethinkers ever act in this spirit, and be true to the great
traditions of our cause!
F I N I S