Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2)
by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner · English · Gutenberg #45131 · 1,122,460 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2)
Author: Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner
J. M. Robertson
Release date: March 14, 2014 [eBook #45131]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2026
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45131
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLES BRADLAUGH: A RECORD OF HIS LIFE AND WORK, VOLUME 2 (OF 2) ***
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Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
[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
VOL. II.
CHAPTER I.
IN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN 1
The _Parthia_--Mr J. Walter, M.P.--Sumner's opinion
of Mr Bradlaugh's lecture--The Delaware Clionian Society--Milwaukee
--Chicago--Intense cold--Mrs Lucretia Mott--A third
lecturing tour--Dr Otis--The currency question--Religious
animus--Death of Henry Wilson--In St Luke's Hospital, New
York, with typhoid fever--Moncure D. Conway--Return.
CHAPTER II.
MRS BESANT 12
A friend lost--A friend gained--Mrs Besant and Mr Bradlaugh--"Ajax"--The
Knowlton pamphlet--Advantages and disadvantages
of a dual defence.
CHAPTER III.
THE PROSECUTION OF MR BRADLAUGH AND MRS BESANT 20
Appointment to sell the pamphlet--Arrested on a warrant--At
the Guildhall--Application for a writ of _certiorari_--The Lord
Chief Justice--Who was the prosecutor?--The trial at Westminster--The
witnesses--The jury--The verdict--The judgment--Execution
of sentence stayed--The Court of Appeal quashes
indictment--Expenses of defence paid by subscription--The City--Other
proceedings--Mr Truelove's trial and sentence--Effect of
the prosecutions.
CHAPTER IV.
AN UNIMPORTANT CHAPTER 30
Side lights--"Man, whence and how?"--The Turberville legacy--From
Turner Street to Circus Road--Selling the Knowlton
pamphlet--The day of arrest--At Westminster--Mr G. J. Holyoake--The
hearing of the sentence--A riding accident.
CHAPTER V.
MORE DEBATES 39
Rev. Brewin Grant--Rev. A. Mursell--Mr Walter R. Browne--Mr
Robert Roberts, a Christadelphian--Mr William Simpson--Mr
Gordon--Rev. John Lightfoot--Rev. R. A. Armstrong--Rev.
W. M. Westerby.
CHAPTER VI.
SOME LATER LECTURES 52
At Oxford--The Suez Canal--Carrying "consolation"--At
Congleton--At Newman Street, London--Edinburgh--Professor
Flint--Scarborough.
CHAPTER VII.
LUNATICS 59
Letters--"A mission from God"--John Sladen and the Queen.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE "WATCH" STORY 63
The defiance of Deity an ancient idea--_The British Monarchy_--Abner
Kneeland--Emma Martin--G. J. Holyoake--Charles
Capper, M. P.--The _Razor_--Rev. P. R. Jones, M. A., Dr Harrison,
and other clergymen--The _Christian_ and other journals--The
Rev. Basil Wilberforce--Dr Parker--The _British Empire_--_Prosecution_
of Edgecumbe--Reckless swearing--A bad plea,
"embarrassing and unfair"--Edgecumbe missing--The reward
of Mr Bradlaugh's forbearance.
CHAPTER IX.
OTHER FABLES 76
The "cob of coal"--The "old woman"--Story narrated by
the Rev. H. W. Webb-Peploe--Personal slanders--The _World_--Action
against Mr Laker--Poisoning the Prince of Wales--A
"bagman"--A common accusation.
CHAPTER X.
PEACE DEMONSTRATIONS, 1878 82
The "Jingo" fever--Meetings in favour of peace--Auberon
Herbert and C. Bradlaugh in Hyde Park--Preparing for difficulties--The
war party--The fight--Second Hyde Park meeting--Mr
Bradlaugh injured--Ill and depressed.
CHAPTER XI.
THE NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY 86
The first general association of Freethinkers--Objects of the
Society--Its President--First secular almanac--The work of the
Society--Mr Bradlaugh's resignation.
CHAPTER XII.
THE LAST CHAPTER 91
Six years of fighting--A record of injustice--Some who help to
find the money to defend the right--Mr Bradlaugh's habits and
surroundings--His commercial pursuits--Money difficulties--Death
of Alice Bradlaugh--Mr Bradlaugh's illness--Plans for the
future--India--Last illness--Memorials.
Part II.
BY JOHN M. ROBERTSON.
CHAPTER I.
PHILOSOPHY AND SECULAR PROPAGANDA.
§1. Meaning of "Atheism" 115
§2. Bradlaugh's statement of Atheism 122
§3. "Materialism" and its critics 127
§4. Bradlaugh's popular propaganda 139
§5. Secularist ethics 154
CHAPTER II.
POLITICAL DOCTRINE AND WORK.
§1. The Republican movement 165
§2. The Neo-Malthusian movement 169
§3. Bradlaugh and the land laws 179
§4. Bradlaugh and Socialism 185
§5. The Irish question 191
§6. Bradlaugh and India 198
CHAPTER III.
THE PARLIAMENTARY STRUGGLE.
_Chronological Summary_ 203
§1. Northampton election of 1880 208
§2. The raising of the oath question 211
§3. Bradlaugh's request to be let affirm; opposition of select
committee 216
§4. His first attempt to take the oath; opposition of select
committee 224
§5. The affirmation question again; opposition of the House 234
§6. Bradlaugh insists on taking the oath; arrested and released; at
length sits on affirmation 240
§7. His action in the House; enmity outside 248
§8. The lawsuit of Clarke and Newdegate--Bradlaugh unseated and
re-elected (1881) 259
§9. Renewed conflict in Parliament 265
§10. Agitation and discussion in the country 274
§11. Bradlaugh's return litigation against Newdegate 277
§12. Insisting on entering the House, is ejected by physical force
(Aug. 1881) 281
§13. Further litigation and discussion 289
§14. Bradlaugh again at the table of the House--takes the oath--the
seat again vacated (February 1882) 293
§15. The new election--fresh agitation 301
§16. Fresh litigation 305
§17. Outside discussion--Bradlaugh and Manning 307
§18. The _Freethinker_ blasphemy prosecution 316
§19. Renewal of the constitutional struggle--fresh debating in the
House 334
§20. Bradlaugh again takes the oath--again unseated, and again
elected (1884) 343
§21. Continued litigation--end of the struggle 351
§22. The effect of the struggle on parties 362
§23. Its constitutional importance 365
CHAPTER IV.
CLOSING YEARS.
1886 368
1887 374
1888 384
1889 404
1890-1891 410
Conclusion--Bradlaugh's personality 421
INDEX 445
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
CHAPTER I.
IN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN.
Mr. Bradlaugh had agreed to make a second lecturing tour through the
States in the autumn of 1874, and he started on it under the most
inauspicious circumstances. We have just seen how he was obliged to
delay his journey--just as earlier in the year he had been obliged to
hasten his return--to contest the election at Northampton, where he
was once more defeated for the third and last time. He had originally
taken his passage by the White Star Line, in the _Republic_, leaving on
September 24th. At his request the owners obligingly transferred him
to the _Baltic_, leaving October 1st. Unable to get away by this boat,
he forfeited his passage, and leaving Northampton on the night of the
poll, he just caught the Cunard ship the _Parthia_ at Queenstown on the
7th. He started on his voyage despondent, utterly wearied, and with
"a tightish sensation about the heart," for he had hoped and believed
until the last half-hour that he was going to win the election. He
thought, too, that before he had left the town he had succeeded in
pacifying his disappointed and angry supporters in Northampton, but the
receipt of a telegram at Holyhead, telling him of the rioting there and
the calling out of the military, depressed him more than ever.
When he got on board the _Parthia_ a curious little incident happened.
As he was "standing gloomily, watching the last package carried on
board," he wrote, "I was approached by a man, a steerage passenger,
who, reverently touching his billycock hat, said, 'Father, do you go
with us to the other side?' For a moment I was puzzled; but seeing
that the man was serious, I answered, 'You are mistaken; I am not a
Father.' The man looked dubious, nervously scratched the deck with a
blackthorn held loosely in his left hand, and rejoined, 'No offence
meant; I ask your reverence's pardon, but anyhow, it will be a blessing
to have you with us on board, Father.' That I looked clerical I had
been told by the _Gaulois_, which described me in 1871, when attending
the Paris Courts Martial, as dressed like a bishop; but this man's
evidently earnest disbelief in my repudiation of priestly honours,
coupled with his quiet acquiescence, made me doubt whether I was really
the man who had been placarded a few hours before in Northampton as
'Bradlaugh the Blasphemer.'"
The journey began badly, and continued so until New Jersey was sighted.
The sea was rough, the _Parthia_ rolled, and the captain proved a
churl. The embarkation of the steerage passengers was managed with an
"uncouth harshness" which was painful to witness; to threaten "to put
a man 'in irons' for coming back to give a last wave of his hand to a
weeping sweetheart," commented my father, "was just a little too hard."
On the 17th the passengers on board the _Parthia_ had the mortification
of seeing the _Adriatic_ (White Star Line), which had left Liverpool
two days after them, pass them, and forge ahead with a speed which soon
left the _Parthia_ behind. Everything seemed combined to render his
journey unpleasant and vexatious.[1]
[Footnote 1: In reference to Mr Bradlaugh's voyage in the _Parthia_ I
append an extract from the _New York Herald_ for 7th September 1881,
which purports to be an account of an interview between the reporter of
that journal and Mr J. Walter, M.P., of the _Times_:--
"THE BRADLAUGH INCIDENT.
"'Don't you think Bradlaugh was harshly treated?' 'Oh dear, no,' was
Mr. Walter's eager response. 'That's all nonsense about his having
crysipelas, and having been so brutally treated. He's a perfect
ruffian. A fellow-passenger on the _Bothnia_ told me of Bradlaugh and
some of his comrades violently disturbing some religious services
held on board the _Parthia_, so that Captain Watson was compelled to
threaten him with putting him in irons before he would stop.'"
My father, of course, wrote to the _New York Herald_ and to Mr Walter,
contradicting this, saying that the statement was "monstrously untrue."
He made only the one voyage on the _Parthia_; he said: "No attempt
of any kind was made by any one to disturb religious services during
that voyage. There was a disagreement between Captain Watson and
the passengers as to the singing after dinner in the smoking-room,
but it had not the smallest connection with religious services. The
particulars were given in a letter signed by the passengers, and which
was published at the time in several of the American papers. I never
sang in my life, and was most certainly not even one of the singers."]
My father arrived in New York unfortunately too late for many of his
engagements. He was due to speak in Dartmouth College (New Hampshire)
on the 20th, and he had barely time to get there. On the way he
was delighted to meet Henry Wilson in the train. They chatted long
together, enjoying each other's company, and talking much of Charles
Sumner, a man reverenced and honoured by both, who had died since
Mr Bradlaugh's last visit to America. As it happened, too, Sumner's
opinion of my father's first lecture in Boston had only lately been
published in the Boston papers. It was given in a letter written
by Wendell Phillips in reply to some inquiries made of him by the
Secretary of a lecture committee at Winchester, Mass. The letter ran:--
"DEAR SIR,--In reply to your note of October 1st would say: I
heard Mr Bradlaugh the first time he spoke in Boston. What Mr Sumner,
who sat near me, said of that lecture, will deservedly have more
influence and weight than any opinion of mine. While Bradlaugh was
speaking, Sumner looked to me and said, 'This is very fine.' At the
close of the lecture he remarked, 'This is, I think, the most eloquent
speech I have heard for some years.'
WENDELL PHILLIPS."
"BOSTON, _October 2, 1874_."
At Dartmouth Mr Bradlaugh lectured to the students in their church, and
the Rev. Dr Smith, President of the College, presided at his lecture.
Two days later he was speaking at Cambridge, having this time a fine
audience of over a thousand persons, including most of the Cambridge
professors and a strong force from Harvard College. At Philadelphia
on the 25th he won the sympathies of a crowded meeting, although here
he had been publicly preached against, and people had been warned not
to go to his lecture. At Charlestown (Mass.) he spoke in the Trinity
Methodist Episcopal Church, with the pastor, the Rev. Mark Trafton, as
president. In Boston he spoke in the Rev. James Freeman Clarke's Church
of Disciples, and at Winchester in the Unitarian Church--"and yet," he
said, "miracles are not believed in!" On the journey from Bangor to
Dexter my father, at the invitation of the engine-driver, rode part
way on the engine, and he relates how he found himself "perched on a
nice soft seat in a corner, with my toes near enough to the furnace to
make me forget that a sharp frosty wind was whistling; engine-driver
Chase turned out to be quite a philosopher, and I had a pleasant time."
Presently they had to slacken speed; "there are cattle on the track,
three oxen and three full-grown calves. They run on in front, sometimes
crossing the line; we ring the bell, whistle furiously, and puff-puff
vociferously, till at last engine-driver Chase gets angry and says, 'It
is no use, those cattle are as stupid as your House of Lords.' 'Yes,' I
answered, 'and will get run down like the Lords, if they do not get off
the track.'"
Senor Castelar stated after Mr Bradlaugh's death that he was shunned
by the ladies; but Senor Castelar's English was a little at fault.
When my father was at Delaware he was taken by the students to the
Female College, "where," he said, "the president introduced me to the
senior ladies' class, who sang to me the American national hymn. I was
asked to make them a speech, and am afraid I made myself supremely
ridiculous. It is no joke to be suddenly called on to say something to
twoscore of extremely good-looking young ladies.... They all looked
happy, and gave me a very pleasant greeting, one which made me think of
my own girls at home." The girls on their side were evidently equally
pleased with their visitor, for just before my father commenced his
lecture that evening he received the following note:--
"The members of the Clionian Society, having made Mr Bradlaugh an
honorary member of the same, desire, if he has no serious objection,
to see him wear their badge this evening.
ANNA C. LONG."
He did wear the badge in his button-hole, "and very pretty it looked,
and very pretty the donors looked too as they sat in the opera-house in
front of me," he said.
In continuing his journey west he lectured at Chicago, and this time
he was fortunately able to spend some hours with Hypatia Carlile and
her husband. At Milwaukee his visit created extraordinary enthusiasm.
"Nearly all the prominent lawyers, divines, newspaper men, merchants,
thinkers, and writers of the city, with their wives, heard his first
lecture; and they applauded at shorter intervals than any lecturer ever
was applauded here before. It is rare indeed that such an aggregate
of intellect is seen gathered together at one time in this city as
was the case on Thursday, and that one man receives such approval."[2]
The Milwaukee people urgently begged for a second lecture, which a
fortunately vacant date in the following week enabled him to give them.
[Footnote 2: _Chicago Tribune._]
Iowa was the furthest point west he reached on this visit, the whole
journey covering a distance of more than 4500 miles. When he went west
again in the following February he met with a terrific snowstorm,
generally described as the worst seen for many years. At Milwaukee
the cold was so severe that at his lecture the audience sat enveloped
in furs and rugs, although the janitor protested that he had used
three tons of coal in his endeavour to warm the Music Hall. "The next
time," commented my father, "I hope he will use thirty tons." The
cold grew more and more intense, until at Fond du Lac (Wisconsin)
which he reached on 10th February, the spirit thermometers registered
forty degrees below zero. On leaving Fond du Lac there was a wait of
ten hours at the station before any train came by which he could get
to Oshkosh, where he was due that evening; at which place--reached
only just in time--he found a fine audience awaiting him in spite of
the weather, if "weather" can be looked upon as an adequate term for
atmospheric conditions where one thermometer registers forty-five
degrees below zero and the others are congealed. The following day
he was due at Madison, but as traffic was suspended he remained for
a short time snow-bound at Oshkosh. Towards the end of February his
farewell lecture was given at Chicago to the largest audience he had
had that winter. "Every seat was filled, the stage was filled, the
aisles were filled, and even the staircases were alive with people."[3]
On this journey west he did a tremendous amount of travelling; in one
stretch of eight days he was only two nights in bed.
[Footnote 3: He spoke in M'Cormick's Hall to an audience of 3600
persons, of whom 3500 had paid for admission; the hall had never been
so full before, and the audience was as enthusiastic as it was large.]
In the Eastern States he had lectured at Salem (Mass.), with Dr Loring
once more for his host and chairman, and an audience who gave him a
glorious reception, although, apart from the warmth of their greeting,
nearly everything was in "a state of unmitigated freeziness." At Bangor
(Maine), where the snow was six feet deep in drifts, and was nowhere
less than two feet save on the most travelled roads, the intense cold
(twenty-three degrees) kept away the audience; but amongst those who
did "brave the elements" was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
Maine, who warmly congratulated Mr Bradlaugh at the end of his lecture.
At Lynn (Mass.), where he gave one of his last lectures in New England,
in going from the railway station to the hall, he humorously relates:
"I sat down twice to reflect on the uncertainty of human progress. To
sit down in snow two or three feet deep is not dangerous, but is cold,
and most certainly is ridiculous, especially when the sitter is tall
and heavy. The second time I sat down I broke one of my ribs--that
is, one of my umbrella ribs, and I filled my gloves with snow. I was
reconciled to my fate when I learned that the gentleman sent out to
escort me, and whom I had missed, had sat down three times."
At Philadelphia he spoke before the Pennsylvania Peace Society, and was
delighted to find amongst his auditors Mrs Lucretia Mott. After the
lecture Mrs Mott, on the invitation of the chairman, stood up to speak,
and, said my father, "I felt reverence for the white-haired dame, which
was mingled with astonishment when, her voice losing the tremor of
age noticeable in the first few sentences, she spoke as clearly and
distinctly as though at least thirty years had been taken from the
count of her full-spent life. I valued highly the praise she gave me."
At Boston and at New York he was welcomed as heartily as ever. After
his first lecture this time at Boston it had been noted that "for once"
the great audience, who, it was said, seemed completely under his
control, remained to hear the last word; after the last it was agreed
that his lectures had been the greatest success of the season. His
headquarters had been this time in Boston, and whenever he returned
there from his lecturing journeys receptions were given to him, and
every one seemed eager to show him some kindness or courtesy. Not the
least valued mementoes of this visit were a complete and finely bound
edition of Sumner's works, a handsome memorial volume printed in honour
of Sumner, and three fine photographs of the dead statesman. All these
were brought him at different times by the Hon. Joshua B. Smith, who
idolised the great Abolitionist. He brought these tokens of Sumner to
my father because, as he once said, "Mr Bradlaugh was the friend of one
I loved."
Although he was comparatively little at New York, still while he was
there he met amongst others James Paxton, E. C. Stedman, the poet, and
Anna E. Dickinson, who greatly charmed him by her apparent sincerity,
her eloquence, and her clearness of thought.
My father returned at the end of February, with the satisfaction of
knowing that, despite its ominous commencement, his winter's work had
been a success in every way. The liabilities incurred by his sudden
departure from the United States the year before, and his delayed
arrival this year, had been met, and his indebtedness at home had been
cleared to the extent of £1000.
He came home by the _City of Brooklyn_, and met with a very stormy
passage. There was a furious gale, the waves sweeping the decks and
bursting the doors. The wheel became unmanageable; the wheelmen were
flung right and left. "For five hours and twenty minutes," wrote my
father a week later, "our engines were stopped; the sea played with
our helpless vessel as with a toy, and the whole of those on board
stood near death's gates. Captain J. S. Murray behaved in this terrible
emergency with a courage and self-possession for which no praise can be
too high. The _City of Brooklyn_, too, proved to be a good sea boat,
and the morning light saw us out of danger; but in that twenty-four
hours we only made ninety-one miles, and the log recorded a 'violent
hurricane with mountainous seas.'"
My father's departure for the United States for his third lecturing
tour, in the autumn of 1875, was very different from that of the year
before, or even that of 1873. Now, at last, Fortune seemed to smile
upon him, and everything was propitious. He set out in gay spirits
and high hopes; his successes of the last two winters had assured him
a welcome when he reached the States, and there was every prospect
that by the time he came home again he would be able to lighten that
terrible incubus of debt even more substantially than before.
He sailed in the _City of Berlin_, then one of the largest and most
perfectly fitted Atlantic Liners afloat. He felt quite at home in her,
for there were several familiar faces amongst the officers, and the
captain was so courteous that the passengers voted him a special vote
of thanks. It is rather curious that this resolution should have been
signed on behalf of their fellow-passengers by Dr Fessenden, N. Otis,
and Mr Bradlaugh, because a little later Dr Otis proved a friend in
need to my father. On the voyage all went well, the weather was good,
and the _Berlin_ made a record passage of seven days eighteen hours.
After two or three days spent in New York my father went on to Boston,
to find that city in the throes of an election for the office of
Governor of Massachusetts. He attended a "Republican rally" at the
old Faneuil Hall, and as he sat listening to the speeches of Henry
Wilson and others, the influence of the room seemed to grow upon him;
he remembered that it was there "that Otis pleaded against Lord North
and George III.; it was there that the Boston men gathered that very
December day on which the tea was thrown overboard in Boston harbour;
it was there that groans accompanied the reading of the Boston Ports
Bill." The meeting had the still further interest to him that it was
presided over by R. H. Dana, the man who had been counsel for Anthony
Burns.
Another question was also agitating, not merely Boston, but the whole
country, and dividing parties into hostile camps, and that was the
Currency question; and as upon this subject my father and Wendell
Phillips took opposite views, their relations were by no means so
friendly as heretofore.
The religious feeling which had been raised against Mr Bradlaugh every
time was renewed with special bitterness this winter, and created
quite a panic amongst the managers of lecture courses. It is much to
their credit that the Rev. Dr Miner and the Rev. Dr Lorrimer had the
courage to disregard the outcry, and invited him to lecture to their
congregations as before.
At the end of October he was feeling very unwell, but persisted in
continuing his work, and for a week or two seemed rather better. Since
the friendship which sprang up between them on board the _City of
Berlin_, Dr Otis and my father had not lost sight of one another, and
when he became worse again he consulted Dr Otis, who strongly advised
change of scene and climate, as preparation for the hard work and the
cold which would have to be faced on his Western tour. Hence, in the
middle of November, finding himself part way there, he went on to
Washington. At Washington he found that almost his only friend in the
city, Henry Wilson, the Vice-President of the United States, was lying
sick unto death in the Capitol. He called upon him, but finding him so
ill, simply left his card. Mr Wilson, on hearing of his visit, sent his
secretary with a note--the last, I believe, that he ever wrote--asking
him to come on the following morning, but my father never saw him
again. He returned to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, sad and ill. Dr
Otis saw him professionally and in the report he sent to England early
in December he said he had been suffering from "much work and little
rest" for several days; later he found him suffering from pleurisy and
some threatenings of typhoid. As the fever rapidly developed, Dr Otis
suggested that he should go to St Luke's Hospital, where he could have
the best care--professional and general--and on my father agreeing,
he took him there in his own carriage on 30th November. At St Luke's
Hospital Mr Bradlaugh felt that he owed his life "to the great skill
and generous kindness of Dr Leaming, to the unremitting attentions of
Dr Abbe, and to the patient and never-ceasing care of my nurse, William
Shaw." Even before he was allowed to leave his bed it was decided he
could do no more lecturing that season, and within four days from
leaving his sick-bed he was on board the _City of Richmond_ on his way
home. Friends said he was rash--that the journey would kill him. He was
so weak that he could scarcely stand, and he shed tears almost directly
a kind word was said to him; but if his body was weak, his will was
strong; he would go, and he was sure that he would grow stronger more
quickly moving on board ship than inactive in New York. A copy of
"Alice in Wonderland" had been accidentally left in his cabin; he was
so weak that it took him nearly the whole voyage to read this little
book; he laughed over it and delighted in it like a child. Afterwards,
he always remembered it with a certain enjoyment, and was ever ready to
quote from it such touching verses as "You are old, Father William,"
"'Tis the voice of the sluggard," or "Will you walk a little faster?"
Speaking of his sudden return a week or two later, Mr Bradlaugh said:
"I came back to England because I was advised that it would have been
suicide in my weak state to face the Western winter. I come back to
Europe reluctantly, for I went to the United States to earn enough
money to pay my debts, and I am compelled to return poorer than I
left. Indeed, I owe it to Mr Moncure D. Conway's assistance that I was
enabled, at the moment, to discharge the obligations my illness had
created in New York."
Mr Conway has since told me that when he went to see my father
while he lay ill in the St Luke's Hospital, my father begged him
to make inquiries of nurse and doctors whether he had said or done
anything during the time of his illness which could be construed into
an alteration of his opinions upon religious subjects. He wished
Mr Conway, in the event of his death, to bear testimony that his
convictions had remained unchanged. Mr Conway, whose own opinions were
by no means so heretical as Mr Bradlaugh's, was nevertheless anxious
to carry out the wishes of the sick man with the utmost exactitude,
and therefore made the most scrupulous inquiries. But he only learned
that Mr Bradlaugh had been a most docile, uncomplaining, and grateful
patient, and that he had not uttered a single word which could afford
the slightest justification for a suggestion of recantation. That my
father's dread of the usual "infidel deathbed" myth was well founded
we know by what has happened since 1891. Even as it was, although he
recovered from his illness in New York, and was alive to contradict
such fables, it was actually said that he had sent for a minister to
pray with him, and one clergyman was even reported to have specified
the "minister" as a Baptist! It was long before my father entirely
recovered from this illness, and although formerly a smoker, after this
he lost all desire for a cigar. It was not until a few years before his
death that he renewed the habit, and even then only in a very modest
way--a cigar in going to the House of Commons, a cigar in coming back
he enjoyed; at other times he smoked little.
It is worth noting that while Mr Bradlaugh was in the States,
whenever he had an evening to spare, wherever he might happen to be,
he generally devoted it to going to hear some lecture or sermon, or
attending some meeting. In this way he heard, amongst others, Parker
Pilsbury, Newman Hall, O. B. Frothingham, M. D. Conway, Horace Seaver,
and Dr Miner. He two or three times attended and spoke at Women's
Suffrage meetings, and was invited on at least two occasions to take
part in Masonic festivals.
Everywhere he went he made careful inquiries into the labour conditions
of the locality, and where possible, he visited mill and factory, and
talked with both workers and employers. He also specially studied the
workings of the liquor laws in the States where they obtained, and the
effect of his observations was to decide him against them. On each
visit he wrote home weekly letters for the _National Reformer_, which
were interesting for what they told about his own doings and about
persons, and invaluable to intending emigrants for the information
they gave concerning labour in the different States which he visited.
He afterwards published the result of his investigation into labour
questions in America as a little booklet entitled "Hints to Emigrants."
CHAPTER II.
MRS BESANT.
In 1874 Mr Bradlaugh lost a friend and gained one. Between himself and
the friend he lost the tie had endured through nearly five-and-twenty
years, of which the final fourteen had been passed in the closest
friendship and communion, tarnished neither by quarrel nor mistrust.
By the death of Austin Holyoake my father lost a trusty counsellor
and loyal co-worker, and the Freethought movement lost one who for
fully twenty years had served it with that earnest fidelity, high
moral courage, and unimpeachable integrity which were amongst his
most striking characteristics. In health and in sickness he toiled
incessantly to promote the interests of the cause he had at heart, and
at no time of his life did he shrink from duty or responsibility.
Austin Holyoake died in the spring of 1874, and was buried in Highgate
Cemetery in the presence of a great crowd of sorrowing friends. Just
before his death he dictated his "Sickroom Thoughts" to his wife,
uttering the last broken paragraph only a few hours before he died. For
three years he had known that death was near, and this final statement
of his opinions on death and immortality was purposely deferred until
the last moment he deemed it prudent, so that he might leave a record
of his last deliberate opinions, and as such these "Thoughts" provoked
very considerable comment.[4]
[Footnote 4: "My mind being free from any doubts on these bewildering
matters of speculation," he said, "I have experienced for twenty years
the most perfect mental repose; and now I find that the near approach
of death, the 'grim King of Terrors,' gives me not the slightest alarm.
I have suffered, and am suffering, most intensely both by night and
day; but this has not produced the least symptom of change of opinion.
No amount of bodily torture can alter a mental conviction."]
Austin Holyoake, like his friend, lived and died a poor man, and my
father pledged himself to him on his deathbed to raise a sum of £650 to
purchase the printing and publishing business hitherto conducted by Mr
Holyoake in the interests of Freethought literature. The money raised
was to benefit the widow and the two children, and the business was to
be handed over to Mr Charles Watts. A subscription which was started
realised rather less than £550, and the National Secular Society
determined to make up the balance out of a legacy left to the President
by a Dr Berwick. Unfortunately, however, Dr Berwick's trustee absconded
with the money, and consequently, as Mr Bradlaugh had promised his dead
friend that the sum of £650 should be raised, he paid the deficiency
out of his own pocket, by weekly instalments.
Austin Holyoake, the friend Mr Bradlaugh lost, was steadfast, loyal,
unassuming, and unswerving in his opinions; Mrs Annie Besant, the
friend he gained, was even more remarkable, though in a very different
way.
* * * * *
Having enrolled herself a member of the National Secular Society in
August 1874, Mrs Besant sought Mr Bradlaugh's acquaintance. They were
mutually attracted; and a friendship sprang up between them of so close
a nature that had both been free it would undoubtedly have ended in
marriage. In their common labours, in the risks and responsibilities
jointly undertaken, their friendship grew and strengthened, and the
insult and calumny heaped upon them only served to cement the bond.
This lasted for many years until Mrs Besant's ceaseless activity
carried her into paths widely divergent from those so long trodden by
her colleague, paths which brought her into close association with
persons strongly inimical to Mr Bradlaugh and the aims to which he was
devoting his life. For some time before he died, he had, as Mrs Besant
herself has written in her recently published _Autobiography_,[5] lost
all confidence in her judgment; she had disappointed him, and it would
be unworthy of both not to recognise that the disappointment was very
bitter, though his desire to serve her and shield her always remained
unchanged. For thirteen years she had stood upon the same platform
with him; and when she one day said that for ten years she had been
dissatisfied with her own teaching, he felt it very keenly, but he
neither uttered a word of blame himself, nor would he allow any one
else to blame her in his hearing.
[Footnote 5: See page 322.]
Every movement, every cause, has its ebbs and flows; there seems to be
only a certain amount of activity possible to men in the mass, and now
it flows in one direction, now in another. The Freethought movement,
when Mrs Besant came into it, had for some years been slowly but surely
increasing in activity and prosperity. The National Secular Society,
although not so complete an organisation as it was soon to become,
was nevertheless to be found in all the great centres of population.
The _National Reformer_, the representative organ of Freethought, in
the five years which lay between 1867 and 1872 had nearly doubled its
circulation, and was read in almost all parts of the world. It was
sent to the three presidencies of India, the United States and Canada,
New Zealand, Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, the West Indies, Egypt,
France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Germany. On its staff there were
several very able writers, and if it was not exactly a profitable
property, it at least paid its way.
People have sometimes deliberately asserted that Mrs Besant's desertion
and Mr Bradlaugh's death inflicted an irremediable injury on the cause
of Freethought, but this is merely an assertion, and one which will not
bear a moment's investigation. Happily for the human race, the growth
of public opinion does not depend upon any single man or woman, however
able, however energetic, he or she may be. The loss of a leader amongst
men may for a moment check the onward movement, and it may be there is
even a temporary reaction--a swing back--but never in the history of
the world has the loss of one of its pioneers proved an "irremediable
injury" to the cause of progress.
If indeed it should be thought, and it is a proposition that I am
not in a position to deny, that this is a moment of ebb in the tide
of Freethought, the fact would only be in harmony with the general
tendency of the times, and would prove nothing against the ultimate
acceptance of the truths of Materialism. The growth of population
in our great cities has caused the evils of poverty to press more
closely upon general attention, and the public energy is directed
towards seeking a solution for these immediately important problems,
rather than for those more abstract theorems arising out of religious
speculation.
Mrs Besant was herself obeying this tendency when, in 1886 she thought
she had found in the optimistic dreams of Socialism a remedy for this
most bitter of human ills. This was the point upon which she first
diverged from Mr Bradlaugh, and once having separated her thought from
his, the breach swiftly widened. Socialism was, as it were, the fork
in the Y of their lives. Nothing, I think, will show how far these two
had drifted asunder more than that Mr Bradlaugh should first learn of
Mrs Besant's adhesion to the Theosophical Society through an article
written by her in a weekly paper, and not from her own lips.
Mrs Besant's first contribution to the _National Reformer_ appeared
in its issue for 30th August 1874, and with that she entered in good
earnest upon the work which was to engross her for many years to come.
Over the signature of "Ajax" she commenced a series of notes, entitled
"Daybreak," which were to mark "the rising of the sun of liberty ...
when men should dare to think for themselves in theology, and act for
themselves in politics," and these notes were continued weekly for
several years. From August 1874 to April 1891 Mrs Besant remained
connected with the _National Reformer_, first as contributor, and then
as sub-editor, becoming shortly afterwards co-editor and co-proprietor.
The co-editorship was resigned in October 1887 for reasons set forth
by Mrs Besant in her _Autobiography_,[6] and the co-proprietorship
ceased with the dissolution of the partnership between herself and Mr
Bradlaugh, in December 1890.
[Footnote 6: See p. 320.]
When my father heard Mrs Besant's first lecture in August 1874, in the
Co-operative Society's Hall, Castle Street, upon the "Political Status
of Women," it impressed him as "probably the best speech by a woman"
he had ever listened to. It was not until the following year, however,
that Mrs Besant started definitely as a lecturer upon the Freethought
platform, but from that time forward she was indefatigable. She was
very fluent, with a great command of language, and her voice carried
well; her throat, weak at first, rapidly gained in strength, until she
became a most forcible speaker. Tireless as a worker, she could both
write and study longer without rest and respite than any other person
I have known; and such was her power of concentration, that she could
work under circumstances which would have confounded almost every other
person. Though not an original thinker, she had a really wonderful
power of absorbing the thoughts of others, of blending them, and of
transmuting them into glowing language. Her industry her enthusiasm,
and her eloquence made of her a very powerful ally to whatever cause
she espoused.
Mrs Besant had been connected with the Freethought party for about two
and a half years when an incident occurred which was destined to have
considerable and lasting results. In the winter of 1876 a man, alleged
to have an unpleasant reputation as a seller of indecent literature,
was convicted at Bristol for selling a pamphlet, written by an American
physician of repute, Dr Charles Knowlton. This pamphlet, entitled
"Fruits of Philosophy: An Essay on the Population Question," had been
on sale in England for forty years, and this was the first time it had
been prosecuted. It had been openly sold by James Watson, a publisher
of the highest repute, who had been dead only a short time; by Mr G.
J. Holyoake; by Austin Holyoake up to the time of his death; and by
others both in England and America. Mr Charles Watts had bought the
plates of this and other works from the widow of James Watson, and,
acting upon Mr Bradlaugh's advice, Mr Watts went to Bristol, and
declared himself the responsible publisher of the book. He was himself
arrested on 8th January 1877, and on 12th January was committed for
trial at the Central Criminal Court. The trial was to be heard on 5th
February, but before that day arrived Mr Watts came to the conclusion
that the pamphlet was indefensible, and decided to withdraw his plea
of "not guilty," and to plead "guilty" instead. Upon learning this, Mr
Bradlaugh felt exceedingly angry. "If the pamphlet now prosecuted," he
said, "had been brought to me for publication, I should probably have
declined to publish it, not because of the subject-matter, but because
I do not like its style.[7] If I had once published it, I should have
defended it until the very last." He was strongly of opinion that the
matter ought to be fought right through; and differing so widely on a
matter of principle with Mr Watts, he determined to sever all business
connection with him. He gave his reasons for this course as follows:--
[Footnote 7: The late Mr Grote, however, thought sufficiently of this
pamphlet to preserve it in his own library. He, moreover, presented a
copy to the library of the London University, where it was at the time
of this prosecution.]
"The Knowlton pamphlet is either decent or indecent. If decent,
it ought to be defended; if indecent, it should never have been
published. To judge it indecent, is to condemn, with the most severe
condemnation, James Watson, whom I respected, and Austin Holyoake,
with whom I worked. I hold the work to be defensible, and I deny the
right of any one to interfere with the full and free discussion of
social questions affecting the happiness of the nation. The struggle
for a free press has been one of the marks of the Freethought party
throughout its history, and as long as the Party permits me to hold
its flag, I will never voluntarily lower it. I have no right and no
power to dictate to Mr Watts the course he should pursue, but I have
the right and the duty to refuse to associate my name with a submission
which is utterly repugnant to my nature and inconsistent with my whole
career."
When Mr Watts' case came on for trial he pleaded "guilty," and was
released, on his own recognisances of £500, to come up for judgment
when called upon. It was contended at the trial that it was unlawful to
publish such physiological details as were to be found in Dr Knowlton's
pamphlet, even for a good purpose. Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant (who
had now entered into a formal partnership under the style of "The
Freethought Publishing Company") determined to republish the pamphlet
to test the right of publication.
A great deal was said at the time by way of blaming Mr Bradlaugh for
allowing Mrs Besant to associate herself with him in this struggle,
and of lauding Mrs Besant for her great courage in this defence. Many
were the unworthy taunts cast at Mr Bradlaugh for "sheltering" himself
"behind a woman," though not one of those who sneered stayed to reflect
that even if this association had some advantages it also had distinct
disadvantages. The gain was both to the principles involved, and to my
father personally. To see a woman brave enough to stand by the side
of a man in defence of the free publication of unpopular doctrines,
was an incentive to the public to investigate those doctrines with
a view to forming an independent judgment upon them; it was also an
inspiration and a constant spur to the man--had he been the one to need
spur or inspiration in such a cause. Mrs Besant's unwearying industry
in working up the extra-legal side of the case, in hunting up in other
works statements of physiological fact exactly similar to or stronger
than those found in the prosecuted pamphlet, was invaluable. In the
week which intervened between the verdict and the sentence on their
own case, Mr Bradlaugh took the opportunity to express his appreciation
of Mrs Besant's work, and this despite the fact that her decision to
join in the defence was contrary to his wish and advice. He wrote:--
"I have often faced hard toil, but I have never had to encounter
persistent, wearying, anxious labour greater than that of the last
three months. And here--while my hand is yet free to pen these
lines--let me record my deep sense of gratitude to the woman who
has shared my fight, aided me by her help, encouraged me by her
steadfastness, and strengthened me by her counsel. It is not alone
the brilliant eloquence, patient endurance, and sustained effort
manifested for so many hours in the Court--qualities displayed by Mrs
Besant, which, coupled with her great tact, won repeated praise from
the Lord Chief Justice, and congratulations from almost the whole of
the barristers who crowded the Court--so much of Mrs Besant's work has
been recorded by most of the press in terms of the highest laudation.
The personal acknowledgment from myself is more due for the weeks of
unrecognised but most wearying and continued drudgery in analysing a
mass of scientific works, searching out authorities, and generally
preparing the huge body of materials required for use on the trial. Few
can appreciate the enormous labour involved in the careful analysis of
medical works, and their comparison, line by line, with the Knowlton
Pamphlet. Yet, without this labour, the defence would have been
impossible."
The disadvantages of the dual defence were considerable, but they were
known to very few, and were moreover purely personal. Upon Mr Bradlaugh
lay the whole responsibility of the defence; his was the mind that
planned it, and he had to conduct the fight, not merely for himself,
but for the woman beside him; he had to consider two briefs instead
of one, and as Mrs Besant was at that time totally unfamiliar with
the procedure of the Law Courts, he had to instruct her, not only in
the things it was desirable she should say, but also in those which
were better left unsaid. He was but too well aware that Mrs Besant
risked not alone imprisonment, but also the loss of her child; and in
the event of failure, and the imprisonment of both himself and his
colleague, the problem naturally presented itself, Who was to edit the
_National Reformer_, and to look after the new business? Mr Watts'
plea of "guilty," followed by Mr Bradlaugh's indignation, had for the
moment produced considerable division amongst former friends, and
there had been hardly time to reckon which were friends and which were
foes. Nothing could better mark the extent of my father's difficulty
than the fact that he had to hand over these onerous duties to us, his
daughters, two girls fresh from a dreary country life, and hardly out
of our teens. Hence, although he was justly proud that a woman whom he
held in such esteem should stand by him publicly at such a moment, it
increased his anxieties and his responsibilities enormously that Mrs
Besant's risks were so heavy, and there was thus no trusty colleague
free to undertake the burden of a weekly journal, and the drudgery of
the management of the new publishing business.
Some at least of these difficulties were pointed out to Mrs Besant;
friends besought her by every argument they could think of not to risk
the loss of her child; but she had chosen her course, and she adhered
to it in spite of all entreaties. And such is the irony of fate that
she lost the society of her daughter for ten years, and was subjected
to the grossest insult from Sir George Jessel, as Master of the Rolls,
for defending doctrines she now repudiates.
CHAPTER III.
PROSECUTION OF MR BRADLAUGH AND MRS BESANT.
On Friday, 23rd March, Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant went together to
the Guildhall, to deliver the earliest copy of the new edition of the
Knowlton pamphlet to Mr Martin, the Chief Clerk, with a notice that
they would personally attend, at a certain hour on the following day,
to sell the pamphlet. Similar notices were left at the chief office
of the Detective Department, and at the office of the City Solicitor.
On Saturday afternoon Stonecutter Street was thronged with a crowd of
persons anxious to purchase copies of the pamphlet from Mr Bradlaugh
or Mrs Besant, and amongst these purchasers detectives were easily
identified by Mr Bradlaugh's quick eye. A few days later the partners
were arrested on a warrant--not served with a summons--and marched off
to Bridewell, after a fruitless search for compromising literature had
been made on the Stonecutter Street premises. From the Police Court,
where Mrs Besant had to endure the indignity of being personally
searched, they were conveyed to the Guildhall. Mr Alderman Figgins
heard the charge, and remanded the case until the 17th of April.
A defence committee was formed, which soon included the names of many
well-known men and women, both in England and abroad, and a fund
was started to meet the expenses of the defence. The long lists of
subscribers which appeared week by week in the columns of the _National
Reformer_ give unmistakable proof of the widespread sympathy.
When the further hearing of the case came on at the Guildhall,
the prosecution was conducted by Mr Douglas Straight and Mr Mead,
instructed by Mr Nelson, the City Solicitor. Mr Figgins was again
the presiding magistrate, and there were several other aldermen
on the Bench. At this hearing--which lasted a couple of days--Mr
Straight offered to proceed against Mr Bradlaugh alone, letting the
charge against Mrs Besant drop but to this the latter would on no
account agree. At the conclusion they were liberated on their own
recognisances, to appear at the Central Criminal Court on 7th May.
The prospect of standing in the dock of the Old Bailey was not very
alluring to my father, so he went to the Court of Queen's Bench and
made an application to the Lord Chief Justice (Sir Alexander Cockburn)
and Mr Justice Mellor for a writ of _certiorari_ for the removal of
the case to that Court, to be heard before a judge and a special jury.
After some argument the Lord Chief Justice said:--
"If, upon looking at it [the pamphlet], we think its object is the
legitimate one of promoting knowledge in a matter of human interest,
then lest there should be any miscarriage resulting from any undue
prejudice, we might think it is a case for trial by a judge and a
special jury. I do not say it is so, mark, but only put it so; that
if, on the other hand, science and philosophy are merely made the
pretence of publishing a book which is calculated to arouse the
passions of those who peruse it, then it follows we must not allow
the pretence to prevail, and treat the case otherwise than as one
which may come before anybody to try. If we really think it is a
fair question as to whether it is a scientific work or not, and its
object is a just one, then we should be disposed to accede to your
application, and allow it to be tried by a judge and special jury, and
for that purpose allow the proceedings to be removed to this Court.
But before we decide that, we must look into the book, and form our
own judgment as to the real object of the work."
Their Lordships took the book to consider on its own merits, and
refused to read the evidence given at the Police Court. A few days
later the writ was granted in the following words:--
"We," said the Lord Chief Justice, "have looked at the book which is
the subject-matter of this indictment, and we think it really raises
a fair question as to whether it is a scientific production for
legitimate purposes, or whether it is what the indictment alleged it
to be, an obscene publication. We think that is a question which will
require to be decided by a judge, and, we think, by a special jury,
and therefore there will be a writ of _certiorari_ granted."
Mr Bradlaugh's recognisances for £400 for the costs of the prosecution
were accepted. He regarded this granting of the writ by the judges,
going hand in hand, as it were, with the very plain language of the
Lord Chief Justice, as a most favourable sign; and on the matter of
the recognisances Mrs Besant wrote: "They become as we go on small by
degrees and beautifully less. We began by arrest on a warrant; from
a warrant we passed to liberation on bail, four sureties and our own
recognisances being required; from this we proceeded to liberation on
our own recognisances only, and now we are free on Mr Bradlaugh's sole
recognisance."
The name of the prosecutor had not yet transpired, though at the
outset it was assumed that the city authorities were responsible for
the proceedings, since at the first hearing before Mr Figgins the
name of the City Solicitor had been mentioned, while at the second
counsel appeared instructed by him. In May, however, the identity of
the prosecutor had sunk into still greater obscurity, for on the 4th
of that month Mr Nelson (the City Solicitor) declared in writing that
"the Corporation of London has nothing and never has had anything to
do with the prosecution." He further stated "in general terms" that
the prosecution was instituted by the Police. When, however, Colonel
James Fraser, the Commissioner of Police, was applied to, he evaded
any direct answer by referring my father to the sworn "information,"
which of course only gave the name of the detective, Wm. Simmonds,
who, as informer, had bought the pamphlet. Simmonds was formally asked
if he were the responsible prosecutor, but he merely acknowledged the
receipt of Mr Bradlaugh's letter. My father, on 11th May, applied to Mr
Justice Lush, at Chambers, for the name of the responsible prosecutor,
but while the judge expressed his opinion that he ought to know, he
regretted that he had no power to help him.
At this time the public excitement was further increased by the action
of the Government, which commenced to make seizures in the Post-Office
of literature sent out from the Freethought Publishing Company's
office. Not only were open book packets seized, but in some cases even
sealed parcels were suspected of being tampered with.
Not merely was Knowlton's "Fruits of Philosophy" confiscated, but
also copies of the "Freethinker's Text-book," and a pamphlet written
by Mr Bradlaugh entitled "Jesus, Shelley, and Malthus," as well as a
considerable number of copies of the _National Reformer_. Concurrently
with this a raid was made upon the shop of that brave old man, Mr
Edward Truelove, in High Holborn, and a large quantity of Robert Dale
Owen's "Moral Physiology," as well as another pamphlet "Individual,
Family, and National Poverty," were seized by persons representing
the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who immediately commenced a
prosecution against Mr Truelove.
In the last days of the month Mr Bradlaugh made an application to the
Court to take the case at an early day; it was fixed for the 18th June,
and shortly afterwards it became known that the Solicitor-General,
Sir Hardinge Giffard, Q.C., M.P. (now Lord Halsbury) was chosen the
leading counsel for the prosecutors--whoever they might be. Up to this
point--the eve of one of those great forensic contests which marked
various periods in Mr Bradlaugh's life--he felt that the press as a
whole had not been unfair, although indeed there had been some journals
coarse and foul in attack, usually on the ground of Mrs Besant's
association with himself. As regards the issue of the struggle, he
wrote that to predict the verdict would be worse than folly, though,
"should the deliverance be against us," he urgently begged his friends
to aid his daughters in keeping his journal afloat until he should
be free to edit it again. Mrs Besant's descriptive accounts of the
various preliminary legal proceedings are all written in a light, often
jesting, vein; indeed, I am inclined to think that she hardly realised
all the gravity of her situation; a true sense of the possibilities
involved was perhaps somewhat obscured by the atmosphere of excitement
and admiration in which she was living.
On the trial it was Mr Bradlaugh's object to show that the doctrine
of the limitation of the family was to be found in many other works
in general circulation dealing with economical questions; and that in
medical works, many published at popular prices, and some specially
intended for the use of young people, there were physiological
descriptions set forth in identical or even stronger language. Amongst
other witnesses Mr Bradlaugh subpoenaed Professor and Mrs Fawcett (to
formally prove certain statements in Prof. Fawcett's book), Charles
Darwin, the Rev. J. W. Horsley (Chaplain of the Clerkenwell House of
Detention), and the Rev. S. D. Headlam--the two latter to give evidence
as to overcrowding. Prof. Fawcett refused to take his subpoena, and
declared he would send Mrs Fawcett out of the country rather than that
she should appear as a witness in the case. A second attempt was made
to induce him to take the subpoena in a friendly way, but he again
refused, putting his hands behind his back so that the paper should
not be surreptitiously put into them--of which he need have had no
fear. Charles Darwin wrote his thanks for the courtesy of the notice,
saying:--
"I have been for many years much out of health, and have been
forced to give up all society or public meetings; and it would be
great suffering to me to be a witness in Court. It is, indeed, not
improbable that I may be unable to attend. Therefore, I hope that, if
in your power, you will excuse my attendance.... If it is not asking
too great a favour, I should be greatly obliged if you would inform me
what you decide, as apprehension of the coming exertion would prevent
the rest which I require doing me much good."
As Mr Darwin was going away from home, he gave addresses where he
might be found if he was wanted. But of course it was decided to
manage without his evidence. Mr Horsley and Mr Headlam were both
most courteous, and there was one volunteer witness whose help was
invaluable--Mr H. G. Bohn, the founder of the well-known Bohn's
Library. Dr Drysdale and Dr Alice Vickery also gave their assistance
with the utmost cheerfulness. The trial was heard before the Lord
Chief Justice, and extended over four days. The ability of the defence
excited universal comment, and the masterly summing-up of the Judge was
spoken of in the papers as being strongly in favour of Mr Bradlaugh and
Mrs Besant. But in spite of defence and summing-up the jury, after an
absence of an hour and a half, brought in the following verdict: "We
are unanimously of opinion that the book in question is calculated to
deprave public morals, but at the same time we entirely exonerate the
defendants from any corrupt motives in publishing it."
The Lord Chief Justice instructed the jury that this was a verdict of
guilty. The foreman bowed acquiescence. The Clerk asked if they found
the defendants guilty upon the indictment. The foreman again bowed,
and a verdict of guilty was recorded. Sentence was not pronounced
immediately; it was postponed for a week. The jury, however, were by
no means so decided at heart and so unanimous as the prompt bow of the
foreman led one to believe. One of these twelve "wise men and true"
applied to the Associate for £4, 4s. as payment for his attendance; two
others returned each their guinea fee to be put down to the defence;
one wrote that he did not agree with the verdict, subsequently stating
that six of the jury did not intend to assent to a verdict of guilty,
and that it had been arranged that if the Lord Chief Justice would
not accept their special verdict they should again retire and consult.
During the time they were locked in they discussed so loudly that they
were heard outside, and their discussion was found to be by no means
confined to the offence which they were supposed to be considering, as
it included amongst other things the heretical views of the defendants.
On the 28th June Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant attended the Court of
Queen's Bench to receive judgment from the Lord Chief Justice and
Mr Justice Mellor. My father had thought it likely that there might
be a heavy fine, but unlikely that there would be any sentence of
imprisonment. He drew £250 from the bank, and showed me the notes as
he put them in his pocket-book, bidding me, in the event of a sentence
of imprisonment, take the notes from him and pay them into the bank
again; and my sister and I accompanied him and Mrs Besant into Court.
The Solicitor-General opened by moving the Court for judgment; some
discussion arose on the absence of the _postea_, and then Mr Bradlaugh
submitted three propositions to the Court: (1) A motion to quash the
indictment; (2) a motion for arrest of judgment; and (3) a motion for
a new trial. But the Lord Chief Justice would neither consent to a new
trial nor to a rule for an arrest of judgment; he left the decision
as to quashing the indictment to the Court of Error, declining,
however, to stay execution until error was determined. The arguments
over these points took up the whole morning, and after luncheon the
Solicitor-General, in order to influence the Judge in his sentence,
brought forward two affidavits, one asserting that Mr Bradlaugh and
Mrs Besant had continued to sell the pamphlet since the verdict, and
the other stating that Mrs Besant, in a speech at the Hall of Science
on the previous Sunday, had represented the Lord Chief Justice as
being favourable to them, and the verdict as against his summing-up.
Sir Alexander Cockburn was greatly incensed at the alleged reference
to himself, and regarded the continued sale in the light of "a grave
and aggravated offence." My father offered that if the Lord Chief
Justice would stay proceedings until the writ of error was argued, he
would pledge himself that no sort of advantage would be taken of the
indulgence of the Court to continue the sale of the condemned book;
but as yet the Judge was obdurate. "I think we must pass sentence," he
said. "Have you anything to say in mitigation?"
"I respectfully submit myself to the sentence of the Court," my father
replied in his gravest tones. "I have nothing to say in mitigation of
punishment," added Mrs Besant.
The Judge then proceeded to sentence them to imprisonment for six
calendar months, to a fine of £200 each, and to enter into their own
recognisances for £500 each for two years.
The judgment was delivered towards the end of a long day of hard and
wearisome fighting, and my father, who, with Mrs Besant, had of course
received the sentence standing, was very white; his voice, however, was
quite firm when, the Lord Chief Justice having concluded, he quietly
and respectfully asked, "Would your lordship entertain an application
to stay execution of the sentence?"
"Certainly not," was the answer. Mr Bradlaugh bowed; the officer of
the Court moved forward to take him and Mrs Besant into custody; my
father gave me his pocket-book, and bade us follow him as far as we
were allowed. We had nearly reached the door when the Lord Chief
Justice spoke again. In milder tones he said: "On consideration, if you
will pledge yourselves unreservedly that there shall be no repetition
of the publication of the book, at all events until the Court of
Appeal shall have decided contrary to the verdict of the jury and our
judgment; if we can have that positive pledge, and you will enter into
your recognisances that you will not avail yourselves of the liberty
we extend to continue the publication of this book, which it is our
bounden duty to suppress, or do our utmost to suppress, we may stay
execution, but we can show no indulgence without such a pledge."
Mr Bradlaugh replied: "My lord, I meant to offer that pledge in the
fullest and most unreserved sense, because, although I have my own view
as to what is right, I also recognise that the law having pronounced
sentence, that is quite another matter so far as I, as a citizen, am
concerned. I do not wish to ask your lordship a favour without yielding
to the Court during the time that I take advantage of its indulgence."
My father added that he wished it to be quite clear that he only
pledged himself to stop the circulation of the book until the decision
of the Court of Error. The Judge was satisfied with this assurance,
although the Solicitor-General was not, and Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant
were liberated on their own recognisances of £100 each.
This "on consideration" of the Lord Chief Justice entirely changed the
course of events. In the following February (1878) the case was argued
in the Court of Appeal before the Lords Justices Bramwell, Brett, and
Cotton, who in a very elaborate judgment gave their decision in favour
of Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant; and the indictment was quashed on the
ground that the words relied upon by the prosecution as proving their
case ought to have been expressly set out. Two American cases brought
forward by the Solicitor-General before the Lord Chief Justice as
against Mr Bradlaugh's argument were regarded by the Lord Justices
of Appeal as of no weight; while any value they might have had was
absolutely in favour of the defendants.
The total amount disbursed in this defence and provided by public
subscriptions was £1065. The expenses of the prosecution must have
been enormous; but to the end the name of the prosecutor was refused.
In March 1878 Mr Bradlaugh wrote: "It is not the Government, we are
assured on the highest authority; it is not the Vice Society; and it
is positively stated that it is not the city authorities, and yet the
City Solicitor instructed counsel, and the proceedings are conducted
from the law offices of the Corporation." However, in spite of the
positive statement of the City Solicitor, the official report of the
Common Council mentioned that the prosecution was ordered by Alderman
Ellis; and later, at a meeting of the Common Council, presided over
by the Lord Mayor, the Solicitor, in answer to a question, said
the prosecution was instituted by the city police and carried on
by him under the direction of Alderman Ellis. The actual costs of
the prosecution would be, he thought, "about £700." As Mr Bradlaugh
commented: "This becomes embarrassing; on 4th May 1877 Mr T. J.
Nelson wrote that 'the Corporation of London has nothing and never
has had anything to do with the prosecution.' If so, why do the city
authorities pay even £700 towards the costs? And who pays the rest?
For with three counsel to fee all through, £700 will most certainly
not cover the bill.... Why, unless the Solicitor-General, as a labour
of love, worked half-price, his fees alone would spoil the £700."
And, as my father further asked, "Why did Alderman Ellis direct the
prosecution?" for he was not even the sitting magistrate.
In addition to the main proceedings in the Court of Queen's Bench and
the Court of Error there were a number of side issues which were heard
before other Courts; points were argued in _banco_; an application was
made to Mr Vaughan for the 650 copies of the Knowlton pamphlet seized
by the Vice Society at Mr Truelove's. An appeal was lodged at the
General Sessions against Mr Vaughan's order for their destruction, a
successful application was made to the Court of Queen's Bench to quash
Mr Vaughan's order, and a summons heard against Inspector Wood for
unlawfully detaining the pamphlets. Not a few were the comments in the
press when twice within six months Mr Bradlaugh succeeded in getting
quashed decisions given against himself (first, the indictment, and
with it the sentence of imprisonment and fine, and next the magisterial
order). One journal even suggested that "much loss of time might be
avoided" if Mr Bradlaugh were appointed "to consult with our legal
luminaries and revise their decisions."
In the meantime Mr Edward Truelove had been twice tried. At the first
trial the jury did not agree; but at the second, which took place in
May 1878, he was sentenced to four months' imprisonment and a £50 fine.
Scores of purses were eagerly opened to furnish the fine, but no one,
alas! could relieve this brave heart from the hardships of a prison.
Mr Truelove, suffering for his opinion's sake, was obliged to wear the
garb of common felons and to associate with them, and although nearly
seventy years of age, he was compelled to pick oakum and to sleep upon
a plank bed.
The immediate effect of these prosecutions was to draw public attention
to the teaching of Malthus and his disciples. Works upon the population
question were eagerly bought and read; and as the subsequent gradual
lowering of the birth-rate in England testifies, the idea of the
limitation of the family to the means has certainly, if slowly, made
some way. The Malthusian League, first started by Mr Bradlaugh in
the early sixties, was, in 1877, revived on a much larger scale; its
branches and its literature soon spread to all parts of the kingdom,
and enormous meetings were held everywhere. In November Mrs Besant
brought out a pamphlet to supersede the Knowlton essay, entitled "The
Law of Population: its Consequence and its Bearing upon Human Conduct
and Morals." It was dedicated to the poor, and was eagerly welcomed
by them. Mrs Besant in 1891 withdrew her pamphlet from circulation,
a step which matters the less as, since 1877, there have been other
books written by medical men dealing with the same subject and issued
at popular prices. But although there was this distinct gain to the
public, not only in the stand made for the free discussion of such a
question of vital economical importance, and in the sweeping away of
general indictments, the cost to the principals in the drama was heavy
indeed. Mr Truelove, a man of unimpeachable integrity, was, as I have
just said, cut off from his family, and made the associate of felons.
In April 1878 Mr Besant appealed to the law to give him the custody
of his daughter.[8] The litigation arising out of this lasted many
months; Mrs Besant lost her child, was grossly insulted by Sir George
Jessel, and at length, the strain proving too much even for her strong
constitution, her health gave way, and she was thrown upon a bed of
sickness.
[Footnote 8: One of the reasons given for withdrawing Mabel Besant from
her mother's charge was that while with her she was liable to come in
contact with Charles Bradlaugh.]
Nor was the position much less trying for Mr Bradlaugh. It must not
be lost sight of that the ultimate responsibility for the defence, in
every detail of these different law proceedings continuing over several
years, remained with him: his hand was in it all. He made a great
fight, but his days and often the greater part of his nights were spent
in constant work and anxiety.
CHAPTER IV.
AN UNIMPORTANT CHAPTER.
In the foregoing account of the prosecution of my father and Mrs Besant
I have thought it best not to burden the narrative with any side issues
not immediately important. As, however, it is my object in this book
to picture my father and his surroundings as clearly as possible, so
that from the picture a just judgment of his character may be derived,
I will now devote a few pages to passing details more or less directly
connected with this prosecution or arising out of it.
As soon as Mr Watts decided to plead "guilty," under the circumstances
which have already been mentioned, and it became known that Mr
Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant had determined to publish the prosecuted
pamphlet, it was found that there were would-be prosecutors eager for
the fray, and ready to commence on anything else, whilst awaiting the
new issue of Knowlton's essay.
One morning I was seated on the floor (chairs were a scarce commodity
at Turner Street) in my father's study sorting some pamphlets when a
knock was heard at the street door; the landlady opened it, and then
came to say that a man had called who particularly wished to see Mr
Bradlaugh. "Ask him in," said my father, and I began hurriedly to rise
from my lowly position, but a "Stay where you are" nailed me to the
floor. "What can I do for you?" asked Mr Bradlaugh pleasantly, as a
thick-set man of middle age, with a reddish beard, entered the room.
The man replied that he wished to buy a copy of a book written by my
father and entitled, "Man, whence and how." Rather to my surprise,
because as a rule he refused to sell any literature from his Turner
Street lodgings, and indeed kept none there for sale, my father hunted
up a copy of the Freethinker's Text-Book, Part I., entitled "Man,
whence and how? or Revealed and Real Science in Conflict," carefully
dusted it, and handed it to the man, asking suavely, "Is there
anything more I can do for you?" The man replied that that was all,
put the book in his pocket, paid for it, and went away. He was hardly
outside the door when my father began to laugh. "Did you see his boots,
Hypatia?" he asked. "His boots!" I repeated vaguely, wondering rather
what the joke was. "Yes; he actually came in the regulation boots," he
said. "That was a detective, and those who instructed him evidently
think that 'Man, whence and how?' is some book upon the population
question." Undoubtedly it is a book upon the population question, but
not exactly from the Malthusian point of view; and if it was bought
in that idea, the purchasers must have felt rather foolish when they
read the first lines referring to the Hebrew chronology and the alleged
creation of Adam and Eve!
* * * * *
In 1876 my father was relieved from the pressure of those debts which
had been burdening him for so long. First of all a Liverpool friend
died, bequeathing to Mr Bradlaugh £100, less legacy duty. This is a
"new experience," said my father on receiving the money, adding, "I
owe £90 less than I owed last week." Then in August he received £2500
through a compromised will suit. Mr Henry Turberville, brother of Mr
R. D. Blackmore, had a very great admiration for my father; so much
so that the year before his death, when my father was about to go to
the United States, he felt so anxious not to lose sight of him that
he offered to pay the whole of his debts if only he would not go.
He made a will leaving the bulk of his property, valued at £15,000,
to Mr Bradlaugh, and to simplify matters he also made him his sole
executor. Not long after this Mr Turberville, while staying at Yeovil,
died suddenly, having a few hours before made his will in favour of
a daughter of a chemist of the neighbourhood. Mr Blackmore asked the
Court to pronounce for an intestacy, and he joined with Mr Bradlaugh
as against the propounders of the new will. At last a compromise was
agreed upon, by which Mr Bradlaugh received £2500 in addition to his
costs. Like the £90 legacy, the £2500 was immediately applied by my
father to the discharge of his liabilities. I was in Court with him
when the suits were compromised, and we went straight from the Court
to the office of his chief creditor. "That was only just in time, my
daughter," he said, as we turned towards home.
As one or other of us girls was now almost continuously with my father,
and his books were bursting all available bounds at Turner Street,
in February 1877 he decided to seek some more wholesome and more
commodious lodging. Turner Street left much to be desired from the
sanitary point of view. I remember one hot summer's evening a kindly,
enthusiastic gentleman, who lived in the west of London, came eastwards
to speak at one of the working-men's clubs. My father was to take
the chair for him, and he came to Turner Street before going to the
club. We all walked down together, and this gentleman, turning with
enthusiasm to my sister and me, said, "I think your father living here
is just the right man in the right place!" My sister and I looked at
one another; it had been so hot that day, yet we had not been able to
open our windows to let in the air because of the abundance of smells
which came in with it. If Turner Street was the "right" place, we, at
least, did not appreciate it.
At the end of February we removed to 10 Portland Place (as it was then
called), Circus Road, St John's Wood. It was a queerly-arranged house;
we had the top floor and the basement, with a bath-room on the first
floor, the ground floor and the rest of the first floor being occupied
by a firm of music-sellers. In the basement was a very large and dark
room, which we used for meals, and in which at first our tiny table and
four chairs looked very desolate. On the top floor was one large room
given over to my father's study, the other rooms being quite small. The
library again outgrowing its bounds, in 1880 it descended to the still
larger room on the first floor, whence the books were sold after the
death of their owner in 1891.
At Circus Road my sister and I started housekeeping for my father, with
one little servant much given to fainting. I was appointed head cook
to the establishment, and my father and sister uncomplainingly devoted
themselves to the task of swallowing my experiments in the culinary
art. Never once, either while I cooked for him myself, or later when we
ordered his dinners for him, do I remember my father grumbling at the
food we set before him. His meals had to be punctual to the moment, or,
if asked for at an unaccustomed hour, they had to be promptly served;
if that was done, he was content with whatever was given him.
We had been only a few weeks at Circus Road when the new edition of
the Knowlton pamphlet was printed. Mr Bradlaugh was away in Scotland,
and as Mrs Besant's mind was filled with the idea of the possibility
of a police raid and seizure of the stock, we hid parcels of the
pamphlet in every conceivable place. We buried some by night in her
garden, concealed some under the floor, and others behind the cistern.
When my father was informed of this cleverness he was by no means
pleased, and sent word immediately that there should be no more hiding;
and as soon as he came home again the process began of finding as
quickly as possible these well-hidden treasures--some indeed so well
hidden that they were not found till some time afterwards. He also
knew that a search was possible, but he had no wish to look supremely
ridiculous--to put it no more seriously--by parcels being found in all
these eccentric places.
When the Saturday came on which Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant attended at
Stonecutter Street to sell the new edition of the Knowlton pamphlet,
my sister and I went with them: not to sell the book--that my father
would not allow--but to help in the mechanical work of counting out
dozens or in giving change; for although there had been no other
advertisement than the one announcement in the _National Reformer_, the
crush of buyers in the little shop was enormous, and in the course of
twenty minutes over 500 copies changed hands, in single copies or in
small numbers. Several days elapsed between this formal sale and the
arrest, but my father had told me that in the event of such an arrest
I was immediately to go home and fetch his volumes of Russell "On
Crime and Misdemeanours," while my sister was to remain with them to
take any instructions at the moment. Mr Bradlaugh notified the police
headquarters that he and Mrs Besant would attend at 28 Stonecutter
Street from 10 to 11 A.M. for the convenience of the arrest.
The police accordingly made their appearance promptly at ten o'clock
one morning; I flew off to St John's Wood, collected the great books,
and caught the next train to the city. It was a warm morning, I was
hot with running, and anxious, for I rather think that I had some sort
of notion that "Russell" was a sort of golden key to unlock all legal
difficulties. City men in the train, going to their ordinary business,
looked at me rather curiously as I sat in the carriage closely hugging
those three bulky red volumes (which would slip about on one another,
for I had not stayed to tie them together) on criminal procedure, of
all things for a girl of nineteen to be carrying about with her on a
sunny April morning.
But my sister and I felt very, very lonely and very cold at heart as we
sat in the dreary Police Court at the Guildhall--I hardly know how we
got there--listening to cases of drunkenness or assault, and waiting,
with a shudder of horror and disgust at the thought, for our father
and Mrs Besant to come and take their places in that dock which we had
seen occupied by some of the lowest specimens of London low life. The
time came for people to snatch what lunch they could get; and a kindly
gentleman with a slightly foreign accent came to us and wanted to take
us to lunch. He knew us, for he was my father's very good friend, Mr
Joannes Swaagman, though we did not know him. However, he talked to
us of our father, and found the way to persuade us, so we went with
him; and I shall never forget the feeling of gratitude towards him,
and the sensation of comfort we felt in seeing his friendly face
and hearing his friendly voice. We attended the first day's hearing
at the Guildhall, but at our father's wish we were not afterwards
present during the trying of the case, either at the Guildhall or at
Westminster. After they were committed for trial Mr Bradlaugh proceeded
to make his arrangements for the conduct of his paper, and of his new
business in case of a hostile verdict. The course he then took proves,
as I have said, in a startling way how utterly alone he felt at that
moment--old ties were broken, new ones were not yet tested; to whom
could he turn to help him in this emergency? There was no one but his
daughters--girls with no experience, and in many ways young for their
years. But we might be ignorant, we might be stupid; still we loved him
so well that we could not help being absolutely faithful to any trust
he might confide to us. I was apt to be more forward than my sister;
she was nearly two years my elder, but she was needlessly distrustful
of herself, and so I was the one whom my father selected to instruct in
the possible editorial duties. I sat with him, note-book in hand, with
fainting heart at the frightful prospect, and meekly took note of all
his wishes. I was then taken into the bank, introduced to the manager,
and recorded my signature, for I was to be the financial agent also!
During the long hours of the four days' trial at Westminster, my sister
and I used to walk up and down the great hall, watching for any one
to come out with any news of how the case was going on. Melancholy
figures we must have looked, nearly always alone, dressed in black
gowns--for our mother had died suddenly in the midst of all this--and
very frightened at heart at what might happen. There was one person
who used invariably to step out of his way to speak to us as he passed
up the great hall to his place in the House of Commons, and that was
Joseph Biggar, the Member for Cavan. A little kindness at an hour such
as this makes an impression on the mind that nothing can efface, and my
sister and I never afterwards heard Mr Biggar's name mentioned without
recalling how he thus kindly went out of his way to say a pleasant word
to a couple of girls miserably walking up and down outside those Law
Courts at Westminster. On the fourth day we were summoned inside the
Court. The jury had retired, and every one was so sure of a verdict
for the defence, that my father thought we should like to hear it--for
in spite of all his worries and anxieties, he could yet think of us at
such a moment. When the verdict came it was a shock, the more so that
until a few minutes before, when an idea of the truth somehow reached
the Court, a favourable one had been anticipated.
On the first day (Monday) of the trial, in giving the history of the
Knowlton pamphlet, Mrs Besant, as a matter of course, mentioned that
it had been sold by Messrs Holyoake & Co., saying, "One of the firm is
Mr George Jacob Holyoake, whose name is probably well known to you.
The other is Austin Holyoake," and further, "from Mr Holyoake the book
went into the hands of a Mr C. Watts." On Wednesday, the third day,
a communication from Mr G. J. Holyoake appeared in the _Times_, in
which he attempted to explain away his connection with the pamphlet,
adding, moreover, that after the Bristol trial he advised Mr Watts to
discontinue its publication. As the only effect of this letter could
be to injure the defendants, it may be imagined that my father did not
take it as a very kindly act.[9] Indeed, Mrs Besant put it that the
letter was one "carefully calculated to prejudice the jury against
us, and sent to the very paper with which one of our jurymen[10] was
connected." As Mr Holyoake had been silent so long, "silent while he
sold it, silent while he profited by the sale, would it have been too
great an exercise of self-control," she asked, "if he had maintained
his silence for two days longer?"
[Footnote 9: From the time when Mr Holyoake refused to continue to
publish "The Bible: what it is," there were several instances of a want
of friendliness on his part towards Mr Bradlaugh, and sometimes--as
at this trial and in the Parliamentary struggle--these occurred at a
most critical moment in my father's career. Mr Bradlaugh, of course,
generally retaliated; but when his first vexation and anger had passed,
he always showed himself willing to forget and forgive. One of the very
first things he did on his return from America in 1875 was to join in
an effort to buy an annuity for Mr Holyoake, who had been so prostrated
by illness that at that time it was thought that he would not be
capable of continuous work again. Notwithstanding old differences, some
of which had been extremely and bitterly personal, my father joined in
the appeal with the utmost heartiness, and expressed his vexation that
the readers of the _National Reformer_ had not been permitted to be
amongst the earliest subscribers to the fund.]
[Footnote 10: Mr Arthur Walter, son of the principal proprietor of the
_Times_, was on the jury.]
The next week my sister and I were with my father and Mrs Besant all
day in Court when sentence was pronounced; but in spite of all our
vague fears, I do not think we altogether realised what imprisonment
could mean until the Judge pronounced the awful words. The whole Court
seemed to fade away as I listened, and it needed the knowledge that my
father relied upon me to do something for him to bring me to myself.
I took his pocket-book from him as he had bidden me, and was with my
sister mechanically following him from the Court when we were stopped
by the Lord Chief Justice, his mild tones forming a contrast to the
last sharply uttered words. It seemed, indeed, as though ages of agony
had been lived through in those few minutes.
Apparently Sir Alexander Cockburn had been told of our waiting outside,
and had noticed us in the Court, as afterwards some very kindly words
which he had said of Mr Bradlaugh and ourselves were repeated to my
father.
* * * * *
When, later on, Mrs Besant was directed by order of Sir George Jessel
to give up her daughter, my father knew that Mr Besant's advisers would
not lose a moment in claiming her. By his instructions we drove at once
to Mrs Besant's house and carried off Mabel to Circus Road. We then
took her by road to Willesden Junction Station, and there gave her
into Mrs Besant's keeping as she was passing through, on her way to
fulfil a lecturing engagement at Manchester. Thus the poor mother was
able to take her farewell of her child in peace, instead of having her
torn from her arms at a moment's notice. Then when Mrs Besant's health
gave way we nursed her through her illness, and went with her to North
Wales, where she rapidly regained her strength.
Up to the time of Mrs Besant's illness she used to ride with us
regularly when time permitted, but after that she gave it up for a
while. I was never very strong, and one day the doctor had said to me,
"If you were a rich young lady, I should order you horse exercise," to
which my father, who was with me, replied, "She is not a rich young
lady, doctor, but we will see what can be done." And my riding, which
was purely the outcome of fatherly love and a desire for his daughter's
health, has been turned by some people into a sort of crime against Mr
Bradlaugh!
My sister cared very little about riding, so after Mrs Besant gave it
up I used to go out alone, riding a little mare, Kathleen, which Mrs
Besant then kept at livery stables. As Kathleen had several little
peculiarities of temper, and I was accustomed to ride quite alone, I
used to ride her in Regent's Park in the quiet of the morning. One
snowy morning in March she bolted with me, and after a considerable
run we fell together just within the Clarence Gate. I was carried
insensible to the nearest doctor, and my sister was summoned by a
passer-by who recognised me. Mr Bradlaugh had been lecturing in
Scotland, and was travelling all night so that he might reach London
in time to be in the Appeal Court at half-past ten, where Mrs Besant
was appealing against the decision of the Master of the Rolls. When he
was near home some one stopped my father's cab, and he came on at once,
to find me lying unconscious on the floor of the doctor's parlour.
Nothing had been done for me; the doctor could not even say whether
any bones were broken; his wife had indeed brought me a cup of tea,
but of that I knew nothing. To make up for any lack of attentions to
my poor body, they turned their thoughts to my sister's soul, and in
the afternoon the doctor's wife wrote to my sister that she would pray
to her "Heavenly Father" that "in this great affliction you may be led
to know Him as your Saviour and Comforter." If a Freethinker wrote to
a Christian who was sick or in trouble that hell was a delusion and
heaven a myth, it would justly be considered an outrage, but the zealot
has two codes of morality--one for those who differ from him, and
another for himself.
It must have been very hard for my father that day in Court; three
lectures the day before, travelling all night, and at home a daughter
who, for aught he had been able before leaving to learn to the
contrary, might be dying or permanently injured.
CHAPTER V.
MORE DEBATES.
In April 1874 the preliminaries for a six nights' discussion between
Mr Bradlaugh and the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., were arranged. It was
to be held in the Bow and Bromley Institute, and to commence on the
20th of May. It will be remembered that Mr Grant was no novice in
debate, and had in fact several times previously met Mr Bradlaugh on
the platform. These encounters had been so unpleasant that my father
quite shrank from any renewal of them, and the present debate was
brought about mainly through the mediation of the Rev. A. J. Harrison,
M.A. On the first three nights Mr Grant was to attack Secularism,
and Mr Bradlaugh to defend, and then Mr Bradlaugh was to assail
Christianity, and Mr Grant defend. On the first evening the chair
was taken by the Rev. Arthur Mursell, and Mr Grant as the opener had
the opportunity to set the course of the debate, but so little did
he realise his responsibilities that in his opening speech, almost
indeed in his opening words, he fell back upon his old tactics of
vulgar personalities, and this, of course, provoked some reply from Mr
Bradlaugh. On the second night the Rev. Brewin Grant was perhaps not
quite so bad, and my father for his part had resolved to try and endure
the taunts levelled against himself, and against those with whom he
worked. With the fourth night, when the chair was taken by the Rev. Mr
Driffield, Rector of Bow, came Mr Bradlaugh's opportunity, and he made
the most of it; this time he was the first speaker, and he opened the
debate in a careful and closely reasoned speech, but unfortunately Mr
Grant was not content to follow him. The _Eastern Post_, in an article
on the first four nights, remarked that if the Rev. Brewin Grant was
selected by the churchmen of the district, the choice did "no credit
to their judgment." The writer went on to point out that although
Mr Grant had the advantage of being able to prepare his speech for
the first three nights, he did not show himself capable of speaking
with any sequence or coherence, but instead he flung all sorts of
opprobrious charges at Mr Bradlaugh, and introduced the most trivial
personalities, which had not the remotest bearing upon the subject.
"Mr Bradlaugh in his first speech gave his definition of Secularism,
which ought to have furnished excellent material for criticism and
debate; but his reverend opponent adhered to the system of personal
disparagement, and at last Mr Bradlaugh retaliated.... Things improved
somewhat on the fourth night, but this was perhaps due to the fact that
the exponent of Secularism led the debate."[11] This, from the pen of
an outsider, will serve to show the impression produced upon those who
listened to the speeches. The chairman of the committee of the Bow and
Bromley Institute waited upon Mr Bradlaugh after the first night, and
told him in the presence of the Rev. Mr Schnadhorst (one of Mr Grant's
committee) that in consequence of Mr Grant's conduct they had received
a requisition, in which clergymen had joined, asking them to put an end
to the debate.
[Footnote 11: _Eastern Post._]
On the fifth night the North London Railway Company, to whom the
Institute belonged, stepped in and closed the hall just as the people
were assembling to go in. As there was no proper legal agreement for
the hire of the hall, there was no redress. There had been no notice
of the closing of the hall, hence Mr Bradlaugh and Mr Grant, the
chairman and the committees, were all in attendance at the Bow and
Bromley Institute, as well as the audience who had paid their money to
hear the debate. It was decided, on taking a vote of those present, to
adjourn to the nearest available place and finish the debate there.
The Clay Hall grounds were suggested, and there is an amusing account
of Mr Bradlaugh proceeding to this place followed by the audience,
who were considerably added to from the general public _en route_.
The proprietor was at first rather alarmed at the advent of such a
besieging party, but a reassurance from Mr Bradlaugh and a payment in
advance soon calmed his fears. Mr Grant, however, for reasons best
known to himself, did not come to Clay Hall, although the Revs. A.
Mursell, W. Schnadhorst, S. Bardsley, and W. Loveridge came, as well
as other friends of Mr Grant. Mr M. D. Conway, who was to have taken
the chair, also followed the party to the Clay Hall grounds, where
he presided at the informal meeting then held. The whole matter was
discussed, and the kindly words on both sides cleared away much of the
ill feeling which had grown up during the debate; and at the conclusion
of the meeting, in replying to the vote of thanks, Mr Conway said:--
"GENTLEMEN,--I must say that I came to-night with a good
deal of pain and apprehension. Though I accepted the invitation to
preside at this discussion, I did so in the interests of truth, and
from my desire to promote anything like honest discussion. When I
read the debate as reported in the _National Reformer_ for the first
time, I thought that Mr Bradlaugh seemed to resemble St Paul--that is,
that he was fighting with beasts; and I came down with a great deal
of apprehension that there might be scenes that were not decorous.
I quite felicitate you and myself that instead of that, and instead
of such recriminations, we happen to be in the presence of gentlemen
on both sides who have indicated so much fairness and so much fine
spirit. I will say for Christians, that if what has been levelled at
Mr Bradlaugh, as it seems to me, has conveyed any impression against
the Christian religion, as perhaps it has to some minds, the extremely
gentlemanly discourse of some of the Christians we have had here
to-night is calculated to recall that."
Mr Mursell spoke to Mr Bradlaugh as to fresh arrangements, but Mr
Bradlaugh had never wanted to meet Mr Grant, and now would only do so
if a dozen clergymen put him forward as their representative; "then,
and then only," he said, he would meet him, "not as Mr Grant, but as
the representative of those dozen clergymen." For his part, he would
be no party to doing anything voluntarily towards renewing such scenes
as they had just had. Strange as it must seem to any one who has read
the pages of these debates, Mr Grant found fifteen clergymen willing
to vouch for him as a fit and proper person to represent their views
on Christianity, and another (and happily, final) debate was arranged
for the following year. My father, in order to show that he did not
measure all clergymen by Mr Grant's inches, selected Mr Mursell to
represent him in the preliminary arrangements, just as on the previous
occasion he had consented to abide by the decision of the Rev. A. J.
Harrison. The debate was to be held on one night in each week for six
weeks,[12] and by securing South Place Chapel as the building in which
it should be held the Committee were ensured against the possibility
of intolerant proprietors closing the doors of the hall upon them in
the midst of the discussion. The subject to be argued as chosen by
the Committee was, "Is Atheism, or is Christianity, the true Secular
Gospel, as tending to the improvement and happiness of mankind in this
life, by human efforts, and material means?" Mr Grant was to lead on
the first three nights, with objections to show that Atheism was not
the true Secular Gospel. Mr Bradlaugh on the remaining three nights was
to show that Christianity was not the true Secular Gospel. As might
have been expected, this debate was only a modified repetition of
what took place on the previous occasion; Mr Grant was certainly less
free of speech, but with all that he could not keep clear of personal
accusations and epithets which at times provoked much unseemly uproar
and confusion.
[Footnote 12: June and July 1875.]
Much has been said at one time or another about Mr Bradlaugh's
adoption of the views of Spinoza, and to leave his position perfectly
clear on that head I will quote the words he himself used in answer
to his opponent on the third night of this debate. "It is perfectly
true," he said, "that the argument as to one existence was adopted
from Spinoza.... The precise distinction between the views of Spinoza
and myself is this: Spinoza contended for the infinite attributes
of extension and intelligence. I cannot conceive the possibility of
attributes, except as the characteristics of the thing conditioned,
the mode thought, and, therefore, cannot conceive infinite attributes
at all. Spinoza held one existence, which, to him having infinite
intelligence, made him a Pantheist; and I, not able to conceive that,
stand to Spinoza in the relation of Atheist, and that is just the
distinction between my thought and that of Spinoza."
On the fourth night the Rev. A. Mursell took the chair, and made kindly
acknowledgment of the uniform courtesy he had all through received
from Mr Bradlaugh. On this, and for the remaining nights, my father,
according to the arrangements, had the debate. On each occasion his
opening speech was carefully prepared, and was listened to with the
most profound attention; but although a man may "lead" a debate, he
cannot compel his antagonist to follow, and on the fifth night the Rev.
Brewin Grant actually brought a manuscript prepared beforehand, which,
unless by the merest coincidence, could obviously be no kind of reply
to the arguments Mr Bradlaugh was advancing. This MS. he read very
quickly, and often almost inaudibly, and again his conduct resulted in
uproar and confusion. At the conclusion of Mr Bradlaugh's final speech,
although there was still one to come from the Rev. Brewin Grant, the
audience had become so incensed with that gentleman that the majority
determined to leave. Mr Grant thereupon bent down to his own reporter,
and read to him from his MS. quickly and in a low tone of voice. As it
was impossible to argue upon propositions which he could not hear, Mr
Bradlaugh also rose and left the building. On the sixth and last night
Mr M. D. Conway occupied the chair. At the very outset considerable
confusion was caused by Mr Grant's demand that some rules should be
read from a book which Mr Bradlaugh objected to as incorrect and
unauthorised. At length the chairman settled the matter by saying to Mr
Grant, "If you can give me the Divine Authority for the infallibility
of this little volume, I will read it all." When Mr Bradlaugh sat
down after his last speech, he had so moved the audience that they
called for three cheers for him; but he begged them, if they thought
he deserved praise, to show it by remaining perfectly quiet during the
fifteen minutes that Mr Grant had still to address them. His hearers
responded to his appeal, and listened mutely to the end.
A few words from a speech delivered by the Rev. Arthur Mursell, in the
Free Trade Hall, Manchester, in the spring of the following year,[13]
give some insight into the impression Mr Bradlaugh's eloquence
produced, even under such difficult circumstances as those of a debate
with Mr Grant. Said Mr Mursell:--
[Footnote 13: April 23rd, 1876.]
"I am indebted to one whom the world calls an Atheist, and who accepts
the designation, but whom, in social intimacy, I would rather call my
friend than thousands of the Christians whom I know; a man who, while
casting doubt upon Him I call my Master, has shown more of His spirit
in the practical intercourse of life, as far as I know it, than many a
champion of orthodoxy; a man of honest, though religiously benighted
creed, and eloquent tongue; to such a man I am indebted for a stimulus
to fervour in the cause of what I deem the vital truth, which prompts
me to attempt to press it home with emphasis upon you now. In public
debate upon the principles of Christianity which he opposed, he closed
a speech, smarting under what he deemed the too flippant satire of his
antagonist, in words something like these:--'If I believed in a God,
which I do not; if I believed in a hell to be escaped, which I do not;
if I believed in a heaven to be won, which I do not; do you imagine I
could allow myself to rack my brain in coining the paltry jests of a
buffoon, and tickling the groundlings' ears with quips and quirks? No!
I would exhaust the logic of my brain, and the passion of my heart, in
seeking to convince and persuade mankind that they might shun the one
and gain the other, and try to seal a testimony which should be worthy
of my conscience and my creed.' I felt condemned at my own apathy, as
the eloquent sceptic lifted before me the standard of fidelity."
The debate held ten months later with Mr Walter R. Browne, M.A.,
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, is both pleasant and instructive
reading. The question discussed was, "Can miracles be proved possible?"
and the debate arose out of some lectures upon the subject of Miracles,
delivered a little while before by Mr Browne in Leeds. The discussion
was held in the Albert Hall, Leeds, on two evenings in April 1876. The
Mayor (Alderman Croft) presided at the request of the Vicar of Leeds,
and on both evenings there was a large audience of earnest and orderly
people, who gave the closest attention to the whole proceedings. The
report is pleasant reading, because one sees the undoubted intention
on the part of each disputant to make his position clear to the other
and to the audience; that he was influenced by no mere desire to catch
the other tripping for the sake of a moment's applause. The moods of
disputants and auditors seemed in complete harmony, and throughout
there was not the slightest sign of disturbance or disorder. Mr Browne
at the outset expressed his small confidence in the utility of public
debates as a means of arriving at truth, and thought they were of
little advantage either to the debaters or to the audience; but Mr
Bradlaugh met this by remarking that he thought "that every objection
which applies to a debate in public between two persons, applies with
equal, if not greater, force to an _ex parte_ statement made by one
person in public, and that the mere delivery of controversial lectures
upon such a subject necessitates that the person delivering the
controversial lecture should be prepared to recognise at least as much
utility in the clashing of his thought publicly with another man's,
disagreeing with him, as in the mere utterance of his own thought where
there is no one to check it at the moment."
The instructive character of the debate does not lie in any definite
conclusion which might be arrived at by a reader in doubt as to the
possibility or impossibility of miracles, but rather in a realisation
of the difficulty two capable men with different points of view may
have in settling upon a common meaning for certain words. In Mr
Browne's first speech he defined a miracle to be "a supernatural marvel
wrought by God," but this was a definition upon which they could not
agree, because Mr Browne would not accept Mr Bradlaugh's meaning for
"nature," as "the totality of all phenomena," and as equivalent to the
word "existence," or the word "universe," nor would he himself define
"God," for that, he said, was "beyond definition." The meaning of the
words "force" and "creation," the idea of "perception," the doctrine
of "free-will," and the existence of evil, all proved stumbling blocks
to the smooth course of the debate; but as Mr Browne truly said in his
concluding speech on the first evening, while it was true that they
had not at that time advanced very far in the argument, it was better
to make the ground sure as they went along than to attempt too much
before their conceptions were clear. Some of Mr Browne's arguments
were, for a trained speaker and debater, amazingly feeble. For example,
his objection to Mr Bradlaugh's definition of the word "nature" was
founded upon "the simple reason that such words as 'supernatural,'
'preternatural,' and 'unnatural,' are certainly used amongst us,"
and it did not seem to have occurred to him that these might be
merely instances of a popular misuse of words. He also thought that
the American War, which resulted in the abolition of slavery, showed
"conclusively that there was a God who governs the world;" in this
case his mind seemed to dwell only on the one fact of the abolition of
slavery, and to ignore the waste of human life and the horrors of the
war as well as the prior fact of the slavery itself.
Mr Bradlaugh has often been accused of talking about the "unknowable,"
but a passage from this debate will show in what sense he used the
word--if, indeed, he ever did use it. Referring to the allegation of
creation, he said: "To me creation is a word without meaning; I only
know creation in relation to change. I do not mean by it origination of
substance; I only mean change of condition. I do not mean the bringing
into being that which was not; I only mean the conditioning existence
by characteristics by which I had not hitherto conditioned it. I cannot
conceive the possibility of a period when existence was less than it
is now. I do not mean that because I cannot conceive it, therefore
it is not true. But I do mean that, as I cannot conceive it, you who
say you can are bound to give me your conception of it. Understand me
clearly, I do not put any such monstrous proposition in this debate
as that the inconceivable is therefore the untrue, or that because a
position is inconceivable to me, therefore I have a right to call on
all other men to reject it. But I do put it, that you have no right
to call upon me to accept any position which is inconceivable to me;
that you are bound to tell me how you conceive it before you have a
right to ask me to accept that it is possible." I do not remember to
have heard Mr Bradlaugh speak of the "unknowable;" and that he should
use such a term is quite contrary to the whole of my experience of his
careful methods of speech. In any case the above will serve to show
that he would not be likely to put "any such monstrous proposition," as
that the to him "unknowable" was therefore unknowable to men with wider
means of knowledge.
* * * * *
In June of the same year Mr Bradlaugh held a debate with Mr Robert
Roberts, a leader of a sect called the Christadelphians. He had
challenged Mr Bradlaugh to the discussion, and the subject selected
was, "Are the Scriptures the Authentic and Reliable Records of Divine
Revelation?" The question was to be argued for six nights, two at
Leicester and four at Birmingham. After the two nights at Leicester
Mr Bradlaugh avowed his disappointment; he had hoped that at any
rate the discussion would bring out some new thought, but after
two evenings' experience, he doubted whether that result would be
attained. "He may be a good preacher," said my father; "he is most
certainly not a good disputant." At Leicester the audience were small;
at Birmingham they were larger, but the debate does not seem to have
been any more enlightening. Mr Roberts was described by one of the
Birmingham auditors as "a man of considerable fluency of speech, and
overflowing with religious enthusiasm," and also "in all respects a
courteous gentleman," but unfortunately those qualities did not make
him a debater. On each evening a quarter of an hour was occupied by
each disputant in questioning his antagonist according to the Socratic
method, and this feature of the proceedings seemed specially to attract
the audience, although indeed it must require considerable practice
and skill before it can be successfully carried out. Mr Roberts
challenged Mr Bradlaugh to further debate, but this the latter felt
obliged to respectfully decline on the ground of the challenger's
"utter incompetency."
* * * * *
A few days later Mr Bradlaugh was at Liverpool discussing the necessity
for disestablishing and disendowing the State Church. His antagonist
was Mr William Simpson, the working men's candidate at Liverpool at the
general election of 1874. The Concert Hall, Lord Nelson Street, was
densely packed, and it was said that there were thousands unable to
obtain admission. The arguments were closely followed by those present,
and although there was no sort of disturbance, the audience were
sufficiently excited to give audible expression to their appreciation
or disapproval, and such interruptions were generally met by a sharp
repartee from the speaker of the moment.
Mr Simpson, while praised for his fluency, courage, and resource, was
not thought equal to his task,[14] and in reading the verbatim report
of the debate, one is drawn to the conclusion that he scored his
greatest successes when making his greatest jokes.
[Footnote 14: _Liverpool Post._]
* * * * *
My father had an unusual number of debates this year, and a little
later in the summer was at Darlington discussing with a Mr J. H. Gordon
on the question of "Atheism, is it rational?" The proceeds, after
paying expenses, were given to the Darlington Hospital. There was
no shorthand report, but in an article very hostile to Mr Bradlaugh
which appeared in a local paper, there is a description of him well
worth reproducing. The writer professed to think that my father's
Atheism--which he said, with that calm assurance born of ignorance,
paid him well "in money and gratified vanity"--was not a matter of
conviction, but merely the result of a desire to be in opposition
to the majority. He further ventured to prophesy that in Parliament
he would be a failure.[15] The following portrait of Mr Bradlaugh
sketched by a pen so unfriendly, is a singular testimony to his power:--
[Footnote 15: "At the Bar he would be a bully, in the pulpit a passing
sensation, on the stage a passion-tearing Othello, in the Press a
competent American editor, in Parliament a failure."]
"Mr Bradlaugh is a tall, muscular man, who stands firm on his legs,
with broad shoulders, between which is a massive, square, powerful
head. He dresses in plain black, relieved only by an ordinary
display of linen, and a slender watch chain. He is closely shaven
as a Roman priest. His features are large and open, his eyes are
of a grayish hue, and his hair, which is fast turning gray, falls
back from a brow on which intelligence, perception, and power are
strongly marked. He has a face which can be very pleasing and very
stern, but which conceals the emotion at will. As he sits listening
to the denunciations of his opponent the smile of incredulity, the
look of astonishment, the cloud of anger, pass quickly over his
countenance. Rising from his seat, and resting one hand upon the
table, he commences very quietly in a voice which, until the ear is
accustomed to it, sounds unpleasant and harsh, but which, when it
becomes stronger, loses much of its twang, and sounds almost musical.
His enunciation is singularly distinct, not one word being lost by the
audience. He addresses himself to all parts of the house--gallery as
well as body. When warmed by his subject, he advances to the centre
of the platform, and looking his audience full in the face, and with
right hand emphasizing every important sentence, he expresses himself
in tones so commanding and words so distinct that his hearers may
be hostile or friendly, but cannot be indifferent. One may retire
horrified at his sentiments, even disgusted at his irreverence and
audacity--from a Christian's standpoint--but no one would go to sleep
under him. He can be complimentary and humorous, but is more at home
in sarcasm and denunciation. He is never ponderous; nevertheless, the
grave suits him better than the gay. Cheering does not seem to affect
him, though he is by no means indifferent to it; but he is quick to
perceive disapproval, and is most powerful when most loudly hissed.
With head erect, face coloured with a flush which has in it a little
of defiance as well as earnestness, now emphasising with his right
hand, now with folded arms, now joining the tips of his fingers as
if to indicate the closeness of his reasoning, as he would have the
audience believe it, he stands defying opposition, even going out of
his way to increase it, and revelling in his Ishmaelism."
Then, comparing him with his opponent:--
"Mr Bradlaugh has not much action, but what he has is dignified, which
Mr Gordon's never is. He can be severe, even harsh, but never petulant
and peevish, which Mr Gordon frequently is. Mr Bradlaugh may abuse
his opponent, but it is boldly, not like a bad-tempered school-girl.
He can be pleasant, but never assumes the grimaces and gestures of
a Merry Andrew. His features are expressive, but he never pulls
faces. He is essentially a strong man, strong in his language and his
oratory, self-sustained, bold in the way he meets and even avoids the
topic of dispute."[16]
[Footnote 16: From the _Darlington and Stockton Times_.]
There are, of course, some phrases in this description which I should
contravene, but apart from these, it is a most vivid and lifelike
picture of my father as a speaker. It is, however, a mistake to
suppose that Mr Bradlaugh wantonly went out of his way to increase
opposition, or revelled in his "Ishmaelism;" what is quite true is,
that if in pursuing the path he had marked out for himself he increased
opposition, he went on just the same, and did not turn away by so
much as a hair's-breadth to avoid it. At heart he might be bitterly
wounded, but that did not make him falter. To take, for example, one
of the latest cases: when his attitude on the Employers' Liability
Bill provoked such a storm of opposition from the very men for whom he
worked, he wrote pathetically to a friend: "It is a little saddening to
me to find that in the close of my life I am to be regarded as doing
disservice to the men whom I desire to serve." But although he felt
the men's distrust thus keenly, he did not hesitate nor turn from his
course.
Nor did he revel in his "Ishmaelism;" he had no pride in being an
outcast, neither had he any shame in it; the shame of his position was
not his, it was theirs who thrust him into it. It shows a complete lack
of appreciation of the facts to suggest that a man like Mr Bradlaugh
could delight in being regarded as a sort of moral leper by his
fellow-men, who indeed neglected no means to exclude him and his from
society.
I have noticed these two points because it has been a common error
to assume that because my father did not quail before opposition,
therefore he courted it, and that because he was not ashamed when
the law said, "You are an Atheist, and as such you are outside our
protection," therefore he rejoiced in being so distinguished. Both
assumptions are equally and entirely without foundation.
* * * * *
In the same year also Mr Bradlaugh held a written discussion with
the Rev. John Lightfoot, of Wolverhampton, on the subject of
Eternal Torment. This controversy consisted of four letters from
each disputant, and was printed in the _National Reformer_; it was
afterwards issued in pamphlet form, and is still obtainable.
In 1877 he had too much work to allow him to indulge in public
discussions on theological subjects, but in 1878 he held a debate
with the Rev. R. A. Armstrong, a Unitarian minister much respected in
Nottingham. This encounter was the result of a lecture given by Mr
Bradlaugh in Nottingham in defence of Atheism, and as a reply to some
lectures delivered by Professor Max Müller under the Hibbert Trust.
Mr Armstrong offered some opposition at the close of Mr Bradlaugh's
address, and a debate was suggested. Nothing further was said at the
time, but the local Secular Society took the matter up, and pressed
Mr Armstrong in such "courteous and earnest terms," that after
consultation with his friends, he agreed to accept the challenge. The
subject selected for discussion was, "Is it reasonable to worship
God?" and the time appointed was the 5th and 6th of September. The
debate was a great success, not indeed as furnishing the audience
with a cut-and-dried answer "Yes" or "No" to the question argued by
the disputants--a result rarely, if ever, attained--but both sides
of the question were put forward with a calm and serious earnestness
which must have been very pleasant to listen to. Mr G. B. Rothera
made an admirably impartial chairman, and the audience, which crowded
every corner of the Co-operative Hall long before the hour fixed for
commencement, listened throughout with close and appreciative attention.
On the morning of the 5th Mr Bradlaugh had gone early to Coldbath
Fields Prison to attend the release of Edward Truelove from his six
months' imprisonment in defence of a free press. It had been a dull,
close morning, damp with the rain which had not long ceased falling;
inside the gaol the chaplain, not seeing my father and Mr Truelove's
son, had sneered at the crowd of Freethinkers waiting in the damp
and gloomy street without; had sneered, too, at the Freethinker, the
prisoner, within, whose age might have been his protection. This was
a sorry preparation for debate, but when the evening was over my
father said, "I left London in no mood for debating. Coldbath Fields
atmosphere hung about me all day, but the debate, as far as the first
night has gone, is the most pleasant one in which I have ever taken
part."
The discussion was afterwards republished as a pamphlet, to which Mr
Armstrong added, by invitation, a few prefatory words giving his
reasons for taking part in it, and suggesting books for study to those
who wished to learn more of the positive argument for Theism and
Worship.
* * * * *
The last debate in which Mr Bradlaugh took part prior to 1880 was
one in the early part of March 1879, with the Rev. W. M. Westerby, a
Congregational minister of Burnley. The subject agreed upon, and worded
by Mr Westerby, was, "Has, or is, man a soul?" The chair was taken on
each of the two evenings by the Rev. R. Littlehales, Baptist minister,
and the audiences were large and orderly. "The Rev. R. Littlehales
was thoroughly impartial" said Mr Bradlaugh, "quite doing his duty,
but scarcely saying a word that was not absolutely necessary." Of his
opponent Mr Westerby, he spoke as "an able speaker, with considerable
tact and judgment, and showing the utmost courtesy." The proceeds were
given to the Blackburn and East Lancashire Infirmary, without any
deduction for the expenses of the disputants. That was all very well
as far as Mr Westerby was concerned, for the discussion took place in
his own town; but Mr Bradlaugh had to journey from London to Burnley at
his own cost, and pay his own hotel expenses. This heavy tax he rightly
regarded as unreasonable, and such as should not have been demanded of
him, nevertheless he thought the result was worth the sacrifice, and
was glad he had made it. Indeed, this debate is regarded by many as
one of the best in which Mr Bradlaugh ever took part. Amongst them,
the Burnley and Preston papers gave about thirty-five columns of
report; leading articles were written and sermons were preached upon
the subject, and in that part of Lancashire, at least, the arguments
were pretty thoroughly discussed. A verbatim report was published,[17]
and in that and in a little pamphlet[18] issued many years before this
discussion, Mr Bradlaugh's position on the question of the "soul" is
fully set out.
[Footnote 17: "Has, or is, Man a Soul?" Two nights' debate with Rev. W.
M. Westerby.]
[Footnote 18: "Has Man a Soul?" Theological Essays by C. Bradlaugh,
vol. i.]
CHAPTER VI.
SOME LATER LECTURES.
Mr Bradlaugh addressed an audience in Oxford for the first time early
in May 1875, when he spoke upon the subject of "Land and Labour."
Some difficulty had been made as to the use of the Town Hall, and a
smaller hall, known as the Holywell Music Room, was engaged. A number
of undergraduates put in an appearance, but as Mr A. R. Cluer, who was
also present, observed, it was evident that they had come "more with
the intention of attempting to interrupt than to listen quietly. But
after the first few sallies of undergraduate wit had been effectively
met and replied to by Mr Bradlaugh, in which encounters the laugh
always remained on his side, the audience was tolerably peaceful." The
Oxford papers gave their different versions of the lecture, but they
all joined in the announcement that the chairman was a sweep by trade,
whereat my father immediately wrote, "If Mr Hines is not ashamed to
again preside for me, I shall be glad to ask him to take the chair at
my next meeting." The "next meeting" followed close on the heels of the
first, for on the 26th Mr Bradlaugh was again in Oxford, speaking in a
room crowded to excess, upon the subject of "One Hundred Years of Tory
Rule." The majority of the audience was composed of undergraduates,
and the interruption kept up by these gentlemen in embryo was so
continuous that "a complete sentence was almost impossible." Appeals
to the good sense and decency of the audience were in vain; cigars and
pipes were lit and smoked; shouts, yells, hisses, and insulting remarks
were continued throughout the lecture. One of the most prominent of
the disturbers was said to be Lord Lymington, son of the Earl of
Portsmouth, who not only himself misbehaved, but also encouraged others
to do likewise. In January 1877 my father was once more in Oxford,
lecturing this time in the Town Hall. Again the undergraduates mustered
for a disturbance, and at one time, when a townsman was knocked down
by a gownsman, it seemed as though a general _melée_ was imminent.[19]
This time, however, firmness and good temper brought all things right,
and the lecture was allowed to come to a peaceful termination. It was
succeeded by a sharp fire of questions, enjoyed no less by the person
questioned than by the questioners.
[Footnote 19: Although the lecture was purely political, the subject
being "National Taxation," the _Oxford Times_ attempted to justify this
rowdyism by saying, "A man who identifies himself with a creed which
denies the doctrine of reward and punishment in the future life cannot
reasonably expect toleration here."]
* * * * *
A subject which Mr Bradlaugh lectured upon very much in 1876,
especially during the early part of the year, was the Suez Canal.
He had only just returned from America when he learned privately of
the purchase by the English Government of the Viceroy of Egypt's
shares in the Suez Canal. Ill as he was--he was just convalescent
from typhoid fever--he at once gave a lecture protesting against the
purchase, a protest in which for some time he stood quite alone. He
wrote a stirring article asking, "Why should the people of England
pay £4,000,000 to the Viceroy of Egypt?" and he lectured against the
purchase week after week. About four or five weeks later others also
began to protest. Sir Geo. Campbell, M.P., in the _Fortnightly Review_,
was one of the first to take ground against the Government. Inspired
by Mr Bradlaugh, resolutions of protest were passed in different parts
of the country, and so thoroughly did public opinion change that by
the end of March the _Standard_ itself was corroborating statements my
father had made early in January.
* * * * *
An amusing circumstance happened at Darwen when Mr Bradlaugh was
lecturing there in the summer of 1876. A foolish Christian challenged
him to pay a visit of consolation to an old bed-ridden woman named
Peggy Jepson, and offered him a sovereign if he would go. Amidst much
laughter and cheering, he took the sovereign, and carried it straight
to the old woman, who was of course surprised and delighted beyond
measure with the unexpected gift; this was a form of "consolation"
which met with her decided approval. Not so with the Christian
challenger, however. He was so irritated that he threatened Mr
Bradlaugh with County Court proceedings for the return of his pound.
* * * * *
At the end of September in this year my father and Mrs Besant had been
invited to lecture at Congleton on two successive evenings, and to
be the guests of Mr and Mrs Wolstenholme Elmy, at Buglawton, during
their stay. The Town Hall having been refused for their lectures, the
Salford Mill, an old silk mill, was engaged. Mr Bradlaugh spoke the
first evening on "The right to speak and the right to think," but a
certain section of the inhabitants of Congleton thought so little of
these rights that they kept up a perpetual din outside the mill, and
smashed the windows by throwing stones. While the attention of those
on the platform was distracted by the removal of a little child out of
reach of the falling glass, some coward threw something at Mrs Besant,
striking her a severe blow on the back of her head. After the lecture
the little party had a mile and a half to walk to Buglawton, which they
did accompanied by a noisy crowd, which alternately used language of
opprobrium and sang "Safe in the arms of Jesus." When the escort got
too demonstrative Mr Bradlaugh and Mr Elmy turned about and faced them,
and then, like sheep, the crowd turned about too. A woman was struck
full in the face by a Methodist shoemaker, whom she had detected in the
act of throwing mud and had reproved. At the house the crowd remained
yelling outside until midnight. But if Monday (the first night) was
bad, Tuesday was worse, because the rioting was more organised. For
two hours before the lecture a crowd assembled in front of Mr Elmy's
gate, hooting impartially every one seen entering or leaving the house.
A cab had been engaged to drive to the mill where Mrs Besant was to
lecture, although she was still suffering from the hurt of the evening
before, and as they got into the vehicle a volley of stones was thrown,
but fortunately no one was hurt. During the lecture eight persons came
in together, and it was soon evident that a thorough disturbance was
planned. One of the new-comers shouted, "Put her out," and as this
seemed the signal for a fight, my father said sternly that the next
one who interrupted should be put out. A man named Burbery, a local
tradesman and well-known wrestler who boasted his prize cups, invited
Mr Bradlaugh to make the attempt upon him. My father saw that if the
lecture was to go on something must be done, and that quickly, so he
descended from the platform, and laying hands upon the champion, after
a short struggle ejected him, and handed him over to the charge of
the police outside. The audience inside cheered and hooted; the crowd
outside yelled and threw stones--one of which, striking Mrs Elmy, cut
her severely over the right eye. The excitement subsided in a few
minutes, however, and the lecture concluded, and discussion was held
in perfect quiet and order. An attempt was made at Mr Elmy's house to
repeat the scene of the night before, but my father and his host went
out, and at length succeeded in frightening the disturbers away.
* * * * *
I was myself present on one occasion when Mr Bradlaugh had himself
to put some rufflers out of a hall in Newman Street, London. In June
1877 a meeting on the Population question was held at Cambridge Hall,
and was attended by a number of medical students from, I believe, the
Middlesex Hospital. There was a crowded meeting, and there were, in
addition to my father, several speakers, both men and women. Several
of the medical students got up to move amendments, and in the midst of
a very coarse speech by one of them, some of his friends at the side
commenced to flourish thick sticks, and emphasize their opinions by
bringing these same sticks into contact with the heads of the peaceful
members of the audience. A general fight seemed imminent, when Mr
Bradlaugh in commanding tones requested every one to keep his seat,
and himself going up to the ringleaders, seized three of them by their
collars--two in one hand and one in the other--and partly carrying,
partly pushing them down the hall, cast them out of the door amidst
cheers of delight from the audience.[20] The students who remained
ventured on no more disturbance, and the meeting proceeded in peace and
order.
[Footnote 20: Dr Nichols had an amusing article on this meeting in
the _Living Age_. "The juvenile sawbones," he said, "climbed upon the
platform and moved their amendments with admirable audacity. They had
not much to say, and they did not know how to say what they had thought
of saying; but they mounted the breach bravely enough for all that. And
the Malthusian majority behaved very well--much better than English
audiences usually do when there is opposition. In the sudden charge
that swept the forlorn hope out of the fortress, it looked for a few
moments as if there might be a case for the coroner, but Mr Bradlaugh's
disciples were mindful of his teachings."]
In the autumns of 1877 and 1878 Mr Bradlaugh took my sister and me with
him on a lecturing tour he was making in Scotland with Mrs Besant.
These tours were a sort of combination of work and holiday, in which
the work was to pay for the holiday, and they were both greatly enjoyed
by us all. We went as far north as Aberdeen, and came south as far
as Hawick. In several of the towns we visited--notably at Perth and
Edinburgh--we found kind and hearty friends equally eager to make the
holiday part of our visit as great a success as the work itself.
The arrangements were all well made, and it was not until the second
visit that any serious hitch arose, and that came unexpectedly at
Edinburgh. In 1877 Professor Flint had delivered a series of lectures
on "Theism," under the auspices of the Baird Trustees. My father wrote
some replies to them, and on sending the first to Professor Flint he
received this kindly letter in acknowledgment:--
"Johnstone Lodge, Craigmillar Park,
"Edinburgh, December 25th, 1877.
"SIR,--I thank you kindly for sending me a copy of the
_National Reformer_ for December 23rd. I shall read with interest any
criticisms you may be pleased to make on my book on 'Theism,' and I
shall endeavour to answer them in a note or notes to the volume on
'Anti-theistic Theories,' a copy of which will be forwarded to you. I
regret that my time will not allow me to do more than this.--Thanking
you sincerely for your personal courtesy towards me, from whose
views you so thoroughly dissent, I am, Sir, yours very truly, R.
FLINT.
"C. BRADLAUGH."
In the autumn of 1878 Mr Bradlaugh determined to take one of Professor
Flint's lectures, "Is belief in God reasonable?" and make some reply
to it from an Edinburgh platform. The Music Hall was duly engaged,
the lectures were advertised for the 26th and 27th of September, and
everything promised successful meetings both for himself and for Mrs
Besant. On the 23rd, however, the directors of the hall cancelled the
hiring. As Mrs Besant's subject was "Christianity: Immoral in Theory
and Demoralising in Practice," it was thought at the outset that the
refusal was on her account, but a special mention of the subject of Mr
Bradlaugh's lecture in the letter written by the directors contradicted
this impression. The Edinburgh Freethinkers were indignant; they
sought legal advice, but found they had no redress, Professor Flint's
lectures had been largely attended and fully reported in the Scotch
papers, but of course he had argued in the affirmative. The Committee
who had arranged the lectures for Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant then went
to the Artillery Hall, and explained all the circumstances; the hall
was then hired and paid for, but on the same afternoon the hall-keeper
returned the money, saying that the proprietors would not let it for
the purposes required, and further, that he was instructed to have the
place "guarded by police" on the Thursday and Friday evenings. Many
fruitless attempts were made to obtain a hall. On Thursday Mrs Besant's
lecture had to be abandoned, and we went to the theatre instead,
whilst a large number of persons, who had not seen the notices of
postponement, assembled at the Artillery Hall. The Society of Arts Hall
was obtained for Friday, and when this was known, much pressure was put
upon the proprietors to rescind their contract; they held out until the
afternoon, then they also gave way and refused the hall, and when the
audience came in the evening they found the doors locked and the place
under police protection. At last Mr Bradlaugh wrote to Professor Flint,
shortly stating the case, and appealing to his sense of fair play to
aid him in procuring a platform in Edinburgh where he might reply to
his arguments. To this letter he received the following reply:--
"Edinburgh, September 30, 1878.
"SIR,--It appears to me that you have very good reason to
complain of the injustice of the persons who, after granting you the
use of their halls, cancelled their contracts. I sincerely regret the
treatment you have met with in Edinburgh in this respect. I have no
influence, however, with the directors of public halls in this city,
and therefore cannot do more than assure you that I cordially wish
you the fullest liberty you can desire to discuss and criticise my
lectures on Theism. The more freely the grounds of religious belief
are examined from all points of view the better.--I am, etc. R.
FLINT."
One immediate outcome of this exhibition of intolerance was an offer,
publicly made and advertised in the _Scotsman_, of a sum of £500
towards the building of a hall in which free discussion might be held.
Mr Bradlaugh lectured many times in Edinburgh both before and after
this date, but, as far as I am aware, this is the only time on which he
had any difficulty about obtaining a hall to speak in.
Many Scarborough people will recall the fuss made over Mr Bradlaugh's
lecture there in the Old Town Hall on "Eternal Hope and Eternal
Torment" in April 1879. A protest, signed by nearly every clergyman
in the borough, was sent to the Corporation. That Mr Bradlaugh should
lecture in a public building belonging to the town was, said these
intolerant clerics, "a public scandal," and "a most serious outrage
upon the convictions of the rate-payers." The Mayor moved that this
protest be entered upon the Minutes, but there were only five votes in
favour of his motion, and it was therefore rejected. My father lectured
in Scarborough in 1882 on "Perpetual Pensions," and was to have
lectured there again in 1889, but this engagement had to be cancelled
in consequence of his serious illness.
CHAPTER VII.
LUNATICS.
I suppose that all public men are more or less troubled with lunatic
correspondents and lunatic visitors, so that in this respect Mr
Bradlaugh was in no way singular; but perhaps they gave him more
trouble than most men because he was so easy of access. Any one who
wished to see him had only to knock at the door, to ask, and to be
admitted if my father were at home.
Letters from insane persons were of constant occurrence, but they were
soon disposed of--the wastepaper basket was large and was always at
hand. There was one man, however, who wrote my father daily for years;
indeed, sometimes he would write twice in a day. His letters were
without coherence, written on scraps of paper of all shapes and sizes,
and I do not remember that he ever gave either his name or his address.
But if there was the ever-hospitable wastepaper basket ready to receive
a lunatic's letters, a lunatic visitor needed to be treated more
discreetly. This was especially the case at Turner Street, where the
room was small, and there was not much space in which to move about.
When a visitor called he was usually requested to be seated at the side
of the writing-table opposite my father. The chairs were few, and if
the visitors were many, some had to sit on piles of books or pamphlets.
One day a man called at Turner Street, and was asked to sit down in the
customary way. My father inquired his business, and without going much
into detail the visitor explained, with a queer, uncertain look in his
eyes, that he had "a mission from God" to kill him; and thereupon he
drew out a formidable-looking knife. Mr Bradlaugh examined the man's
face, and saw that it was no foolish hoax being played upon him. There
was a quiet determination about his would-be murderer that was anything
but reassuring.
The chair in which my father always sat was an old-fashioned,
high-backed oaken chair, with arms, and from the back at the right
hand hung, suspended by a strap, his heavy Colt's revolver; between
himself and the lunatic was the small writing-table, 27 inches wide. My
father carefully felt behind him until he felt the revolver under his
fingers, and then he quietly asked the man if he was quite sure that
God had given him this mission. Yes, the man said; he was "quite sure."
"Have you consulted any one about it?" "No," was the reply. "Don't you
think it would be better to do so?" gently insinuated Mr Bradlaugh; "I
should be inclined to talk it over with some one--with the Archbishop
of Canterbury, for instance--were I in your place. You see it might
be rather awkward afterwards if there should happen to be any mistake
about the matter."
This apparently was a view of the case which had not previously
occurred to the lunatic, but he promptly accepted it, and announced
his determination to go to Lambeth Palace forthwith; and it was with
a perceptible feeling of relief that my father heard the street door
close upon his visitor. He knew that there was no danger to the
Archbishop, as there was no probability of such a man being allowed to
see him.
Mr Bradlaugh had had a case a little before this of which the
circumstances were rather peculiar. A man named John Sladen came
up from his home in Cheshire on Thursday, March 31st, 1870, and in
the evening he went to the New Hall of Science in Old Street, where
a social gathering was about to be held to commemorate the tenth
anniversary of the publication of the _National Reformer_. Before
the proceedings commenced, John Sladen made himself known to Mr
Austin Holyoake, to whom he was previously an entire stranger, and
asked him if he could speak with Mr Bradlaugh for a few minutes. Mr
Holyoake introduced him to Mr Bradlaugh, who took him into a private
room. In the course of conversation Sladen informed my father that he
had determined to kill the Queen, giving as his chief reason (if my
memory serves me) that she wanted to marry him. Mr Bradlaugh returned
to Mr Holyoake, and explained the state of affairs to him, and they
both agreed that the police ought to be informed, so my father went
to the police station and saw the inspector, who sent an officer in
plain clothes to the Hall. In order to avoid any disturbance amongst
the people present, Sladen was allowed to remain until ten o'clock,
when, as Mr Holyoake said, the police officer "very adroitly got him
away." Sladen was so sensible on most matters that at first the police
were disinclined to believe in his madness, but before the night was
out they had more than sufficient proof. On the following morning Mr
Bradlaugh telegraphed to Sladen's friends, and went himself to the
police station to see that he was properly cared for. Eventually he
was sent to Hanwell Asylum, and on the earliest opportunity he wrote
reproaching my father. Of course he did not think he was mad, and he
told Mr Bradlaugh that as he had been the means of putting him in the
Asylum, it was his duty to get him out, or at any rate to send him
papers to read. Later on my father communicated with Dr Bayley, the
physician to the Asylum, who assured him that Sladen was not fit to
be released, and that any political reading would be calculated to
excite him and retard his cure. But a few years later I believe he was
allowed to have the _National Reformer_. My father never lost sight of
him; he used to send to the Asylum to make enquiries, and Sladen also
wrote to him occasionally; he always felt Sladen's to be a sad case,
and was oppressed by a feeling of responsibility in the matter just
because he was the one to hand him over to the police. Of course there
was a small public sensation about the matter, which the newspapers did
their best to fan into a big one at Mr Bradlaugh's expense. The east
end of London was posted with large placards announcing "A Threat to
murder the Queen at the New Hall of Science."[21] An evening paper[22]
giving a report of the proceedings, told how Sladen "heard Mr Bradlaugh
lecture" at the Hall of Science, and _after the lecture_ told Mr
Bradlaugh of his determination to kill the Queen. The next morning
this report was repeated, but with additional embellishments. Now it
was said that Sladen "went to hear a lecture by Mr Bradlaugh, and soon
afterwards burst into threats of such violence towards Her Majesty that
he was taken into custody as a dangerous lunatic."[23] That there was
no lecture at the Hall that evening, that there was no bursting out
into threats of violence, that Sladen spoke to Mr Bradlaugh _before_,
and not _after_, the commencement of the evening's proceedings, were
of course matters of mere detail, without value when compared with the
opportunity of raising a prejudice against Mr Bradlaugh. Similarly,
when the lad O'Connor tried to frighten the Queen with an empty pistol,
it was said that probably a large "share of the mischief was caused
by the lad's attendance on the lectures of a notorious Infidel and
Republican lecturer, whose inflammatory discourses, falling on a weak,
excitable, untrained mind, produced the natural effect and goaded him
on to mischief."[24] That there was no evidence that the lad had ever
attended any such lectures was apparently of small importance.
[Footnote 21: This was done by the _Eastern Post_.]
[Footnote 22: The _Pall Mall Gazette_. Mr Austin Holyoake wrote a short
letter contradicting this report, and giving the simple facts of the
case, but his letter was not inserted.]
[Footnote 23: _Daily News._]
[Footnote 24: _City Press._]
* * * * *
At Circus Road I can recall several mad visitors: one in shirt sleeves
and leather apron, who offered to reveal a secret to Mr Bradlaugh
whereby he might become possessed of millions; another, a little
old lady, who told with a mysterious air how she was "the Secret
History;" another, who was so noisy that he had to be put out, and who
then remained in the street below shouting out that Mr Bradlaugh had
ill-used him, till he brought out all the neighbours to their doors,
and the commotion he raised threatened to hinder the traffic. Then
there were some who claimed to be descendants of one or other of the
Brunswicks, and as such entitled to the Crown; but provided they were
quietly listened to, these gave little trouble save in the time they
wasted.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE "WATCH" STORY.
There have been some fictions so pertinaciously circulated about Mr
Bradlaugh that any story of his life would be incomplete without some
reference to them. Lies are so proverbially hard to kill, however,
that I dare not feel confident that even an exposure of them here will
altogether discredit these old favourites, but at least I hope that it
may have some little effect.
I think the most popular of all these is what has come to be known as
"the watch story," and for this reason I have taken the trouble to
trace back its history, not exactly to its origin, but for the last
hundred years or so. The defiance of Deity, which is really only the
converse of the prayer, is a very ancient idea, and the old stories
mostly ended in the punishment or death of the person who so rashly
defied the Omnipotent. The so-called Atheist who, in the time of the
French Revolution, defied God to prevent him drinking his cup of wine,
was struck dead to the ground, and the cup was dashed untasted from his
lips. Even during this century, as late as 1849 or 1850, the story was
told of a wicked soldier who rode out of the ranks, and turning his
horse's head, faced his companions, exclaiming, "If there be a God, let
Him now prove it by striking me dead before you." In a few minutes this
rash young man was a corpse--a victim to the wrath of an outraged Deity
and a solemn warning to his comrades.
When this fable is related, not of vague personalities such as the
"Atheist" or the "wicked soldier," but of actual living persons, the
termination has to be amended,[25] and the moral loses something of
its point. The first time that it was told of Mr Bradlaugh was, as far
as I can trace, in the year 1867. There was at that time a certain
Conservative journal called the _British Monarchy_, the editor of
which, desiring to damage the Reform League, expressed his opinion in
choice and elegant language that the meetings of the League gave
"An opportunity to the roughs of the Metropolis to sack the shops,
... goaded on by the fool who says in his heart there is 'no God,'
which reminds us," he went on, "of a fact related of a resigned
leading member of the Reform League, and the supposed projector of
the 'Good Friday meeting'[26] of this year. This would-be lawgiver
and law-maker, travelling on the Great Eastern Railway, was as usual
endeavouring to propagate his hateful opinions. He had the presumption
to offer, it is said, as a proof of his assertion that 'there is no
God,' the fact that if, on taking out his watch from his pocket, he
held it in his hand for some minutes and was not struck dead, it would
be conclusive evidence of the truth of his opinions. He was not struck
dead because of God's long-suffering mercy. He reminds us of Pharaoh;
may he escape his fate!"
[Footnote 25: As late as January 1884, however, Mr Bradlaugh noted
a case reported in several newspapers of a private in the Hampshire
Regiment, who cried, "God strike me blind!" and who thereupon "felt
drowsy, and stretched himself on his bed, but when he attempted to
open his eyes, he found he could not do so, and he has since been
wholly deprived of the use of his eyes. He was conveyed to the Haslar
Military Hospital, where he remains." As this was tolerably definite,
inquiries were made at the Hospital. In answer to these, the principal
wrote: "There is no truth whatever in the statement, and the lad who is
supposed to have sworn never swore at all. He has a weak right eye; it
was slightly inflamed--the result of a cold--but he is now quite well.
He is very indignant and hurt at the statement, and, if he did swear,
he is not blind."]
[Footnote 26: Mr Bradlaugh was neither the projector nor the advocate
of the Good Friday promenade.]
Mr Bradlaugh never by any chance sought to propagate his opinions in a
railway carriage, nor was he ever guilty of "such ridiculous folly," as
he contemptuously termed it, as that attributed to him by the _British
Monarchy_. Long before this story was attached to Mr Bradlaugh name it
was told of Abner Kneeland, the Pantheist and abolitionist in America;
indeed, the defiance of Deity in this particular manner is said to have
originated in a story told by an American of Abner Kneeland.[27] It was
ascribed to Mrs Emma Martin,[28] a Freethought speaker in England, who
was eulogised by Mr G. J. Holyoake as "beautiful in expression, quick
in wit, strong in will, eloquent in speech, coherent in connection, and
of a stainless character, she was incomparable among public women." It
was related again and again of Mr G. J. Holyoake, who wrote a denial of
it as early as January 1854. Many times also was the challenge ascribed
to Mrs Harriet Law, a lecturer on the Freethought platform thirty years
ago; and later, when Mrs Besant came into the movement, she was made
to play the part of heroine in this affecting drama, although, as she
herself pointed out, "there is one very queer thing about the story;
it never appears in any report given at the time of any lecture, and
no one speaks of having heard the challenge the day, week, or month,
or year after it was done. The pious Christian always heard it about
twenty years ago, and has kept it locked in his bosom ever since."[29]
[Footnote 27: Kneeland died in 1844. The tale was repeatedly
contradicted.]
[Footnote 28: Emma Martin died in 1857. In her case also it was
contradicted.]
[Footnote 29: _National Reformer_, June 6th, 1880.]
From 1867, when the _British Monarchy_ first associated this story
with Mr Bradlaugh's name, down to 1880, when my father commenced a
prosecution against a man named Edgcumbe, not a single year passed
without some repetition of it. Since this prosecution, although it
still occasionally shows signs of life, it is not nearly so vigorous.
The story was circulated, not merely by vulgar and irresponsible
purveyors of slander, but even by persons whose position gave an air of
unimpeachable veracity to anything they might choose to say.
The first person to relate the "watch" story orally of Mr Bradlaugh was
Mr Charles Capper, M.P., who, as it may be remembered, told it with
some detail at a public meeting at Sandwich during the general election
of 1868, giving the name of Mr Charles Gilpin as his authority.[30] My
father at once wrote to Mr Capper that he had read his speech "with
indignation, but without surprise, for no inventions on the part of
my enemies would now surprise me." He had, he said, "seen Mr Charles
Gilpin, and so far as he is concerned, I have his distinct authority to
entirely deny that he ever told you anything of the kind, and I have
therefore to apply to you for an immediate retraction of and apology
for your cowardly falsehood, which has been industriously circulated in
Northampton, and which could only have been uttered with the view of
doing me injury in my candidature in that borough. Permit me to add,
that I never in my life (either in Northampton or any other place)
have uttered any phrase affording a colour of justification for the
monstrous words you put in my mouth."
[Footnote 30: _Deal and Sandwich Mercury_, Sept. 26.]
But Mr Charles Capper would not retract, and would not apologise, so Mr
Bradlaugh, who felt all the more incensed about this, because of the
dragging in of Mr Gilpin's name as authority for the slander, brought
an action against him. Before it could be brought into Court, however,
Mr Capper died.
* * * * *
In the December of the same year, during the hearing of the proceedings
in the _Razor_ libel case, the counsel for the defendant Brooks asked
Mr Bradlaugh, in cross-examination, "Did you not once at a public
lecture take out your watch and defy the Deity, if he had an existence,
to strike you dead in a certain number of minutes?" "Never. Such a
suggestion is utterly unjustifiable," was my father's indignant answer.
* * * * *
In the winter of 1869, the Rev. P. R. Jones, M.A., of Trinity Church,
Huddersfield, added the weight of his authority to the slander.
The municipal elections were about to take place, and the cry of
"infidel" had been raised against one of the candidates for the West
Ward. Hence, on the Sunday immediately before the election, Mr Jones
preached a sermon against "infidels" and "infidelity," and, as an
"apt illustration of his subject," he charged Mr Bradlaugh with the
watch episode. When this came to the ears of the Huddersfield Secular
Society, they lost no time in writing to ask Mr Jones whether he had
indeed made such a statement concerning Mr Bradlaugh. This, said the
_Huddersfield Examiner_, the reverend gentleman had not "the manliness
to admit ... nor even the courtesy to acknowledge the receipt of the
secretary's letter." The Committee of the local Secular Society waited
for seven days, and then appointed a deputation to wait upon the Rev.
Mr Jones. The editor of the _Examiner_ observed that the explanation
then given by that gentleman was "not very satisfactory, and I do
not wonder he was so tardy about making it. He had heard the absurd
story some years ago, but the person who told it to him had left
Huddersfield; and on such slender authority as this he brought a charge
of using senseless and blasphemous words against Mr Bradlaugh." The
Rev. P. R. Jones, M.A., in the course of his duties must have preached
obedience to the ninth commandment, but he evidently did not always
enforce his teachings by a personal example.
* * * * *
Just about the same time another clergyman, the Rev. Dr Harrison of St
James's Church, Latchford, in a sermon preached upon that favourite but
not very polite text, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no
God," was reported[31] to have told the story, with a slight variation,
of some unnamed person.
[Footnote 31: _Crewe Guardian._]
"What did they think of a man at Manchester," he asked, "standing up
at a public assembly and opening the Bible in the presence of the
people, and saying if the Bible was true he hoped God would strike him
dead? That was in the newspapers not long ago. A creature, a worm, a
being dependent upon the Almighty, raising his puny arm against the
Deity, asking God to strike him dead if the Bible were true. It would
not have been a wonder if God had struck him dead; the wonder was that
God should be so merciful as to let him live."
When the Rev. Dr Harrison was challenged as to the name of the man,
the time, and place of the occurrence, and the names of the newspapers
which reported it, he could of course give no satisfactory authority
for his statements.
* * * * *
In the summer of 1870 the _Christian_, in a tirade against infidelity,
stated that "the well-known Atheist Bradlaugh, at a public meeting in
London, is reported to have taken out his watch, with these words, 'If
there be a God in heaven, I give Him five minutes to strike me dead.'"
Upon this being brought under his notice, my father said that he was
"really weary with contradicting this monstrous lie."
* * * * *
The _Liverpool Porcupine_ in the same year gave a startling variation
on the ordinary version. A certain unnamed person--by implication,
Mr Bradlaugh--"called on the Almighty, if he had any existence, to
strike dead _some relative_, and thus prove his power." The _Porcupine_
forgot that it is the Christian creed which teaches the doctrine of
the scapegoat, and even the sacrifice of a relative. It forms no part
whatever of Atheistic teachings.
The Rev. R. S. Cathcart, agent to the Religious Tract Society, in
addressing a meeting in the Corn Exchange, Gloucester, in the autumn
of 1871, lamented the spread of infidelity in the north of England,
where, he said, it was encouraged by a "blatant orator, Bradlaugh,
from London." He added that there was even "one poor benighted woman"
who "had actually produced her watch and challenged God, if, she said,
there be one, to appear before them on the platform at a given time."
Mr Cathcart, on being asked as to the when, and where, and the woman,
failed to make reply.
* * * * *
The next carrier of the slander was an important one. The _Financial
Reformer_ for the December of the same year (1871) described Mr
Bradlaugh as "the superenlightened gentleman who pulled out his watch
at an open-air meeting and challenged Almighty God to strike him
dead within five minutes, if God there were." My father was becoming
somewhat accustomed to having this accusation made by persons who
wished to make out a case against the "infidel," but to find it in
the _Financial Reformer_ was an unexpected blow. He wrote a courteous
letter to the editor, but the editor made no reply; he wrote to Mr
Robertson Gladstone, the president of the council publishing the
paper, but Mr Robertson Gladstone left the letter without notice. At
length, thoroughly angry, he wrote to the printers, threatening legal
proceedings. A proof of an "apology" already in type was sent him, but
it was not such as he felt he could accept, and he wrote to the printer
to that effect. The apology was then somewhat amended, and with the
copy of the _Financial Reformer_ containing it the editor sent a letter
to Mr Bradlaugh, conveying a frank and full expression of his regret.
Upon receiving this my father forgave not only the offence, but the
tardiness of the acknowledgment, and, moreover, expressed his sense of
indebtedness to the editor for his apology.
* * * * *
The _Stourbridge Observer_ of about the same date also repeated the
watch story of "Bradlaugh," and, with incredible coarseness, added
that "he has been known on another occasion to stop a lame man in the
streets, and tell him that he would spit upon such a God as his that
would allow him to remain in that deplorable condition." Mr Bradlaugh,
at the request of his Stourbridge friends, specifically contradicted
both these stories; but, he added, it was too much to expect him to
continually contradict every scandalous calumny to which the press gave
ready circulation against him.
* * * * *
One of the next places in which the story appeared was Dudley, where,
in the winter of 1873, during my father's absence in America, it was
related by the Rev. B. M. Kitson, who apparently introduced it into
a speech for the benefit of the Additional Curates' Aid Society. He
located the episode at the Hall of Science in Old Street, City Road.
As soon as Mr Bradlaugh could obtain the reverend gentleman's address
after his return to England, he wrote requesting Mr Kitson to retract,
or to furnish him with the name of his solicitor. Mr Kitson retracted
the statement, and expressed his regret for having made it.
* * * * *
In the spring of 1874, the Rev. Mr Herring related the tale to some
school children at a school near Goswell Road, and in the following
August the Rev. Edgar N. Thwaites, of the Church Pastoral Aid Society,
carried it to Salisbury.
* * * * *
A month later, the _Weekly News_, in referring to the Northampton
election, remarked that Northampton was specially prominent, "because
Mr Bradlaugh, the Radical orator who challenged the Almighty to
strike him dead, has appeared in person." Anything is fair in war or
elections, some people seem to think.
* * * * *
In the following year the Rev. Mr Cripps, of the Primitive Methodist
Chapel, Thetford, started a new variation on the old theme. At the
end of one of Mr Bradlaugh's lectures, a smith "fresh from work,"
induced him to go down on one knee (the narrator was extremely precise
in unimportant details) and proposed that they should pray to God to
"strike him dead in five minutes." This proposal seems to have somewhat
disturbed Mr Bradlaugh, for according to Mr Cripps, he "jumped up,
picked up his hat, and rushed out of the building." The Rev. Mr Cripps,
on being challenged by Mr Bradlaugh, referred him to another minister
as his authority--the Rev. M. Normandale, of Downham Market, Norfolk;
and, moreover, refusing to accept Mr Bradlaugh's "unsupported denial,"
adhered to his statement.
The next person to repeat the watch story--but without naming the
"infidel"--was, I deeply regret to say, the Rev. Basil Wilberforce,
at Southampton. The local Freethinkers were justly indignant, and Mr
J. F. Rayner, the Secretary of the Southampton Secular Society, at
once flatly contradicted the tale. The only reparation Mr Wilberforce
thought it necessary to make was to say that he was "glad to hear
it was not true," and this offhand mode of disposing of the matter
did not do much to soothe the irritated feeling of the Southampton
Freethinkers. The liberality and kindly-heartedness of the late Rev.
C. E. Steward, Vicar of St Peter's, in great measure disarmed their
anger; and later on Canon Wilberforce himself learned to hold the
Freethinkers of the district, as well as Mr Bradlaugh, in respect, and
in consequence taught them in turn to respect him.
* * * * *
A man at Longton in 1876, whose name I do not know, brought the story
to a finer point. Hitherto it had always been told on the authority of
some second person, but this man appears to have deliberately stated
that he _saw_ Mr Bradlaugh pull out his watch, and _heard_ him defy God
to strike him dead. This manner of telling the tale in the first person
soon found favour, for only a few months later a phrenologist, calling
himself Professor Pasquil, was reported to have said that he was
present at Huddersfield when Mr Bradlaugh went through the performance
before several hundred persons. He must have "the bump of falsehood
splendidly developed," commented Mr Bradlaugh. "No such event, or
anything to justify it, ever took place anywhere; it is a deliberate
untruth." The myth was repeated in the same year at Haughley by a Mr
Scarff, and in the following year at Bristol, where there seemed to be
some confusion as to whether it was Mr Bradlaugh or Mrs Besant who was
the chief actor; Mrs Besant's name being now introduced for the first
time. "This story is a deliberate lie," wrote my father in a state of
exasperation, "and has been formally contradicted at least one hundred
times."
* * * * *
At length, in the spring of 1877, the Rev. Dr Parker, of the City
Temple, took the matter into his fostering charge. It left his lips,
if the report[32] of his sermon is to be believed, in a form the
coarseness of which quite equalled, if it did not transcend, all that
had gone before. Said he--
"There is a woman going up and down the country lecturing, and may be
in London city at this moment, and she proudly cries out that there
is no God, and she takes out her watch and says, 'Now, if there be a
God, I give him five minutes to strike me dead,' and she coolly stands
watching the hand of her watch dial, and because she is not struck
dead by the time she stipulates, she cries out that there is no God;
and working men run after this woman, and pay for listening to this
ginger-beer blasphemy, and the ravings of a half-drunken woman."
[Footnote 32: _Northern Ensign_, May 17.]
Mr Bradlaugh offered Dr Parker the use of the columns of the _National
Reformer_ in which to verify his statement, but, needless to say, Dr
Parker did not avail himself of this offer.
* * * * *
In 1878 the fable was told by "H. Clewarth, Esq.," at the Mile End
Assembly Hall, of Mrs Besant, and by a revivalist preacher named E. B.
Telford of Mrs Harriet Law. Mr Telford also indulged in the effective
first person, even mentioning the detail that the watch was a gold
one.[33]
[Footnote 33: This person was still telling this story in December
1883.]
* * * * *
Now we come to a still further development. In June 1879, Mr Bradlaugh
was lecturing in Huddersfield. He spoke three times on the Sunday, and
at the conclusion of his afternoon discourse a man got up, and with the
utmost assurance pretended to my father's face that he had heard him
defy God to strike him dead in the Philosophical Hall of Huddersfield
itself. A Christian gentleman, understood to be the editor of the local
_Examiner_, rose and warmly repudiated any complicity in this audacious
falsehood. Almost at the same time the story, with variations, was
repeated by a preacher of Aberdeen named Marr. He gave as his authority
a certain unknown person, John Kinch, who, it was asserted, had been
actually present when Mr Bradlaugh thus defied God.
I have been able to note here only recorded instances of the telling
of this story, but they will serve to show the astounding vitality of
a slander, even when it is one so monstrously absurd as this. It will
be seen how people of all kinds lent themselves to its circulation, and
how reluctant they were to apologise when convicted of error. I am far
from asserting that they all uttered the calumny knowing it to be a
calumny; that, in the case of such a man as the Rev. Basil Wilberforce,
would be unthinkable; but I do say that they did not take reasonable
pains to satisfy themselves of the truth of a story which, on the face
of it, was in the highest degree improbable and absurd.
* * * * *
When Mr Bradlaugh was elected to Parliament in 1880 the wildest tales
were told about him, and, of course, amongst others the old "watch"
story came up. A Leicester paper which published it retracted and
apologised; but another, the _British Empire_, was less ready; my
father, provoked beyond endurance, went to Bow Street and asked for a
summons against S. C. Lister, a director, and J. Edgcumbe (or Edgcome),
secretary to the _British Empire Company_. Edgcumbe was also the writer
of the paragraph in which the episode was dramatically described.
Mr Bradlaugh would have proceeded against the author only, but the
libel was repeated in the paper on a later date, and therefore he
felt that he could not excuse the directors. The summons was granted,
and when the case came before the magistrate, after Mr Bradlaugh had
made his opening statement, he went into the witness-box to declare
there was not a word of truth in the paragraph. In the course of the
cross-examination a rather amusing theological discussion arose between
magistrate, counsel, and witness, in which the two former seemed quite
unable to follow Mr Bradlaugh's reasoning. "One existence," Mr Vaughan
thought, must mean "supreme existence;" failing that, counsel asked
was it "mere actual physical existence"? My father was examined as
to a number of places where the "watch" episode was alleged to have
occurred, and about a man, John Field, then in court, who, induced by
Mr Bradlaugh, was supposed to have prayed on his knees to God to strike
him (Mr Bradlaugh) dead, whilst my father timed him, watch in hand.
When, however, John Field, who called himself a Baptist minister, was
in the witness-box, his replies were such that the magistrate said
that he had better be withdrawn, as he could not possibly receive his
evidence. A witness (Bridge) swore to having heard my father defy
God in the manner alleged at Tavistock in 1853; but at the adjourned
hearing, when he was wanted for cross-examination, he was not to be
found. Amongst the witnesses were three from Northampton, who all
swore they had heard my father make the challenge at various times
and places in Northampton. Two had travelled to London together,
having their tickets taken for them by a local missionary; but at
first they swore they knew nothing of each other, and the facts only
came out gradually under cross-examination. At the end of the second
day's hearing the defendants were committed for trial.[34] Mr Vaughan
suggested that the charge should be withdrawn against Lister, as he
was only a director. Mr Bradlaugh said, if Mr Lister would give his
assurance that he knew nothing of the first or subsequent publications
of the libel, he would be content to drop the charge against him. Mr
Lister protested that he knew nothing of the matter, and Mr Bradlaugh
was about to withdraw the charge when the defendants' counsel coolly
asked that it should be dismissed with costs. I imagine, however,
that at a later stage my father consented to withdraw the case
against Lister, for the name of Edgcumbe only figures in the further
proceedings.
[Footnote 34: The editor of the _Huddersfield Examiner_, commenting
on the evidence, said: "We do not believe it, as we do not think Mr
Bradlaugh such a fool as to make such a silly exhibition of himself;
and because we know that similar things have been affirmed of him in
Huddersfield. For instance, a person called at our office last week,
stating that he had heard Mr Bradlaugh utter such a challenge, and saw
him pull out his watch in the manner stated in the course of the debate
with the Rev. Mr M'Cann in Huddersfield. To our certain knowledge no
such occurrence ever took place, and yet the man making the statement
appeared to be fully convinced that he had heard and seen what he
described as having taken place, and he was prepared to give evidence
on the subject if called upon to do so.... Imagination and feeling play
a much larger part than reason in the mental operations of not a few
well-meaning persons and allowance must be made for this when we hear
such charges as that now made against Mr Bradlaugh. Strong dislike
is felt by many against both the man and his opinions on religious
subjects, and this exposes him to misrepresentation and injustice."]
The trial, which was removed by the defendants by _certiorari_ to the
Court of Queen's Bench, was expected to take place at the end of June,
and, since prosecutors in Crown cases cannot personally address the
jury or argue points of law, my father had to employ solicitors (Messrs
Lewis) and counsel (Mr Charles Russell, Q.C., M.P., and Mr Moloney);
Sir Hardinge Giffard was briefed to appear for Edgcumbe. After some
delays, Edgcumbe was ordered to deliver his pleas within a certain
time, so that the trial might come on in November. In these pleadings
the episode was alleged to have taken place at The Philosophical Hall,
Huddersfield, about 1860 or 1861; The Theatre, Northampton, 1860, 1862,
1863, 1865, or 1866; The Woolpack Inn, Northampton, 1859; The Corn
Exchange, Northampton, 1865 or 1866; The Hall of Science, London, 1879
or 1880; The Cleveland Hall, London, 1865 or 1866; The Nelson Street
Lecture Hall, Newcastle, 1875; Tavistock, 1853, 1854, or 1860; St
George's Hall, Southwark, 1862 or 1863; St James' Hall, Plymouth, 1870;
Duke of York Public House, Cardiff, 1868.
As the vagueness of these dates made it almost impossible to get
rebutting evidence, Mr Bradlaugh demurred to the plea on this ground,
and in March 1881 his demurrer was heard by Mr Justice Grove and Mr
Justice Lindley. Mr Moloney argued for Mr Bradlaugh that the plea
was not sufficiently particular: it was only necessary to prove one
occasion to justify the libel, hence evidence had to be brought to
negative every case, and Mr Justice Grove, intervening, said, "If this
plea is good, what is to prevent a party from pleading a volume of
instances all possibly untrue, and at all events putting it upon the
prosecutor to discover the particular instance really intended to be
relied upon?" Sir H. Giffard argued that the plea was sufficient, but
the Court did not agree with him. It held that the plea was bad, and Mr
Justice Lindley further said it was embarrassing and unfair. After some
discussion the Court gave the defendant leave to amend within three
weeks on payment of costs; otherwise judgment would be given for the
Crown.
Edgcumbe now gave a series of more or less specific dates on which he
alleged that Mr Bradlaugh had defied God. He also abandoned five of his
former cases and introduced new ones at Bristol, Keighley, Leeds, and
Stourbridge. He further stated that on two occasions, at the theatre at
Northampton, Mr Bradlaugh had cast a Bible upon the ground and stamped
upon it. My father was put to tremendous trouble in procuring witnesses
from the different places, but he received help which he greatly
appreciated from unexpected quarters--from Christians who had been
present on some of the alleged occasions.
When, however, the time came, the defendant did not proceed to trial,
as he was bound to under his recognisances. My father might have taken
proceedings to estreat the recognisances; but as the _British Empire_
had ceased to exist, and the editor had already been heavily fined by
having to pay the costs of the demurrer, he was advised to let the
matter rest. This course he was perhaps the more inclined to, as he was
himself so terribly harassed by the litigation and trouble arising out
of the Parliamentary struggle.
He was rewarded for his forbearance by having the "watch" story again
repeated of him--notably by Mr Grantham, Q.C., M.P.,[35]--with the
addition that he had "not dared to go on with his action."
[Footnote 35: At Selhurst, in June 1885.]
[_Note._--Where exact references are not given in this chapter, the
_National Reformer_ is cited.]
CHAPTER IX.
OTHER FABLES.
There are other fables told about my father which have enjoyed a
popularity almost equal to that of the famous watch episode. There
is the allegation--referred to elsewhere--that he compared God with
a monkey with three tails. This was started by the _Saturday Review_
in 1867, and was for years continually reappearing in all sorts of
unexpected quarters. Indeed, it was repeated as late as 1893 in a book
published by Messrs Macmillan.[36] Perhaps next in order should come
two, which have seen considerable service as arguments in favour of
Christianity. One, which I will call the "cob of coal" story, appeared
for the first time, as far as I am aware, in a Leeds paper in 1870 in
the following form:--
"Some time ago I heard an amusing story about Mr Bradlaugh and one
of his audience at Wigan. After concluding his lecture, Mr Bradlaugh
called upon any of them to reply to any of his arguments. Lancashire
produces a rare crop of shrewd, intelligent working men, and one
of these, a collier, rose and spoke somewhat as follows: 'Maister
Bradlaugh, me and my mate Jim were both Methodys till one of these
infidel chaps cam' this way. Jim turned infidel, and used to badger me
about attending class-meetings and prayer-meetings, but one day in the
pit a large cob of coal came down on Jim's 'yead.' Jim thought he was
killed, and ah! man, but he did holler.' Then turning to Mr Bradlaugh,
with a very whimsical, knowing look, he said, 'Young man, there's
nowt like cobs of coal for knocking infidelity out of a man.' We need
hardly say that the collier carried the audience with him."
[Footnote 36: "National Life and Character," by C. H. Pearson.]
This was copied into some London papers, and in the course of a couple
of years found its way to Belfast; but the scene of action had now
become changed from Wigan to Manchester. Two years later still it
appeared at Hereford, under the auspices of the Rev. J. W. Bardsley.
The "some time ago" of 1870 had contracted to "recently" by 1874, and
there were other small alterations of detail. By 1882, my father said
he had contradicted this anecdote fifty times at least. It never had
the slightest foundation in fact; it is unadulterated fiction from
beginning to end; it is absurdly improbable; and yet there are people
so credulous that it has been repeated year after year, and even since
my father's death. Indeed, the more childish this class of story, the
better it has seemed to satisfy those to whom it was addressed--at
least, if we may judge of its success by the number of its repetitions.
* * * * *
The next is the "old woman" anecdote, which I find first in the
_Christian Age_ for November 1871, put in this way:--
"The other day Mr Bradlaugh was lecturing in a village in the north of
England, and at the close he challenged discussion. Who should accept
the challenge but an old, bent woman, in most antiquated attire, who
went up to the lecturer and said, 'Sir, I have a question to put to
you.' 'Well, my good woman, what is it?' 'Ten years ago,' she said,
'I was left a widow with eight children utterly unprovided for, and
nothing to call my own but this Bible. By its direction, and looking
to God for strength, I have been enabled to feed myself and family.
I am now tottering to the grave; but I am perfectly happy, because I
look forward to a life of immortality with Jesus in heaven. That's
what my religion has done for me: what has your way of thinking done
for you?' 'Well, my good lady,' rejoined the lecturer, 'I don't
want to disturb your comfort, but--' 'Oh! that's not the question,'
interrupted the woman, 'keep to the point, sir; what has your way of
thinking done for you?'
"The infidel endeavoured to shirk the matter again; the feeling of the
meeting gave vent to uproarious applause, and Mr Bradlaugh had to go
away discomfited by an old woman."
This pious fiction is said to have originated with the Rev. Mr
Bradbury, of Openshaw, in the early part of 1871; but then it was Mr
Charles Watts who was the "discomfited infidel," and not Mr Bradlaugh.
From the _Christian Age_ the story was passed on, evidently without the
slightest examination or care for its accuracy. In 1872 it was repeated
in large type by the _Methodist Visitor_, word for word, "the other
day" included. Mr Bradlaugh contradicted this idiotic story again and
again; no such incident ever occurred at any of his lectures. In spite
of all contradiction, however, the "old woman" remained as lively as
ever, and my father was confronted with her year after year, until
I almost wonder he had patience left to write a civil denial of her
existence.
* * * * *
An anecdote, reported[37] to have been told by the Rev. H. W.
Webb-Peploe at a meeting of the Bible Society at Stroud in 1875, has at
least the merit of being amusing, and certainly came as news to no one
more than to the persons chiefly concerned. It was said that Spurgeon
"went to Bradlaugh's Hall to reply to the Infidel," and to that end
"read two or three texts from the Scriptures.... This seems to have
astonished Bradlaugh, for he arose, and as he went out of the room, he
said, 'What the devil is to be done with that man? he is in earnest.'"
If the Rev. Charles Spurgeon ever, by any chance, _did_ go to
"Bradlaugh's Hall," he carefully concealed his visit from "Bradlaugh."
[Footnote 37: _Stroud News_, May 28.]
* * * * *
Fictions concerning my father's treatment of various members of his
family have been very common. By a painful coincidence, my little
brother had only been a few days in his grave when my father was asked
to contradict a statement that he had "about twelve months ago deserted
his wife and children." Six months after, the story ran that he had
"caused his mother to die of a broken heart," had been "drummed out of
the army," and was "a man whose morality is of no higher stamp than
to suffer himself to be the father of an illegitimate child." It is
an interesting point in the study of the evolution of slanders, that
this most persistent one of Mr Bradlaugh having caused his mother to
die of a broken heart should have been started during his mother's
lifetime.[38] The allegation of deserting his children, and throwing
them upon the parish, was published by Mr Edmund Yates in the _World_
in 1875. A little later Mr Yates announced that Mr Bradlaugh had
written him contradicting this, and suggesting that if on inquiry Mr
Yates found his allegation untrue, he should contribute £5 to the
Masonic Boys' School. The editor of the _World_ formally expressed
his regret, "unreservedly" withdrew his accusation, and contributed
the £5. The suggestion was really the result of the intervention of a
mutual friend, as Mr Yates himself acknowledged in 1891, at the same
time admitting that the paragraph complained of would have afforded Mr
Bradlaugh "ample grounds for appealing to the law, with the likelihood
of recovering a large amount in damages."
[Footnote 38: Mrs Bradlaugh died in April 1871.]
But the slander thus floated by the _World_ could not be effaced from
the public mind, even by Mr Yates' "unreserved withdrawal," and later
in the same year it turned up in full vigour at Oxford. A Mr Bendall
went to the shop of a grocer and town councillor named Laker to make
some purchases, and in the course of conversation he mentioned that
he was going to London. Mr Laker asked if he was going to hear Moody
and Sankey, but Mr Bendall said that he was not; he was going to hear
Mr Bradlaugh. The man Laker then said, "Bradlaugh! he was had up for
neglecting his family, and leaving them chargeable to the Union. I read
it in the _Daily Telegraph_." Mr Bendall denied this, and bet Laker £50
to 5s. that it was not true. Laker took the bet, and Mr Bendall then
wrote out the statement, which they both signed. The paper was sent to
Mr Bradlaugh, who eventually brought an action against Mr Laker.[39]
[Footnote 39: Tried 25th April 1876 at Nisi Prius, before Mr Justice
Field and a special jury.]
The defendant pleaded "Not guilty," but did not attempt to justify his
statement or to offer any apology, although Mr Bradlaugh said that, if
during the course of the trial an apology had been offered, he should
have been quite content.
Mr Grantham, the counsel for the defence, was very coarse in his
remarks. He scouted the idea that "Bradlaugh" could be injured by
any slander, and told the jury that, if they did give him a verdict,
a farthing damages would be "far too much" at which to estimate the
damage "Bradlaugh" had sustained. As usual, an endeavour was made to
play upon the religious feelings of the jury, and when Mr Bendall was
in the witness-box he was questioned as to his belief in Christianity,
the Bible, and Jesus Christ, until Mr Justice Field, who heard the
case, interfered and reproved the counsel for importing these questions
into the case. Mr Grantham suggested the whole thing was a "plant,"
but this accusation, the judge later on pointed out, might rightfully
increase the damages awarded.
Mr Justice Field, in summing up, complimented Mr Bradlaugh on the
temperate manner in which he had stated his case, and warned the jury
not to allow their judgments to be warped by topics of prejudice which
had been introduced into the defendant's case. The jury returned a
verdict for Mr Bradlaugh, with £40 damages, which my father at once
handed over to a charity.
But even this did not quite kill the slander, and a few years later it
began again to show signs of life.
* * * * *
There was no limit of any kind to the fictions circulated about my
father, nothing was too vile, nothing too absurd, and nothing too
wildly impossible to say about him. As an example of the last, I think
it would be difficult to find anything to compare with one written by
the London correspondent of the _New York Herald_, during the illness
of the Prince of Wales from typhoid fever. I discovered an allusion to
this story in looking over a file of the _Newcastle Weekly Chronicle_
for 1872; reference was made to the _Pall Mall Gazette_, from which
I learned that the London correspondent of the _New York Herald_
professed that he had been informed by a mysterious person "well
posted" as to the doing of the different European Secret Societies,
that "a certain leader of the English Revolutionists whom he designated
'The English Delescluze,' has over and over again declared from public
platforms that the Prince should never sit on the throne, and that
lately, when Queen Victoria was seriously ill, the same man had said
in an interview with the reporter for a London paper, that although
the event of the Sovereign's death occurring just then would without
any doubt find the Society not quite prepared to act, yet that they
could never lose such an opportunity to advance their cause." "This,"
commented the _Pall Mall Gazette_, "is, of course, an atrocious libel
on Mr Bradlaugh." "The poison," continued the informant to his gaping
listener, the _Herald's_ London correspondent, "was a new and most
subtle one. How the Prince was actually dosed he did not pretend to
know. The emissary of the International charged with the execution of
the sentence of death was left to himself, and was simply bidden to
take as few innocent lives in carrying it out as possible; but it was
suggested to him to mix the poison with the contents of the Prince's
pocket flask, and this it was probable he had succeeded in doing."
This marvellous story was received in England with the condemnation
and ridicule it deserved, and I only give it here now to show to what
lengths prejudice and a disordered imagination will lead a man.
I suppose it is only in the natural course of things that an Irish
paper[40] should have the funniest story, and one too that seems really
original. This journal discovered that in the summer, when Republican
agitation was slack, Mr Bradlaugh took up "the more useful--if less
profitable--occupation of a bagman." Presumably this was intended to be
severely sarcastic; it was only ridiculous and untrue.
[Footnote 40: _Belfast Times_, April 8, 1872.]
At intervals throughout my father's career he has, of course, been
constantly accused of being in the pay of some one or other. This
kind of accusation is common to most public men, so it was not likely
that he would escape. In 1872, when it was asserted that "Bradlaugh
and Odger" were sold to "Gladstone and Morley," the _Saturday Review_
thought it no shame to suggest that "perhaps after all there is some
truth in the story."[41] A few months before, said my father, it was
"Bradlaugh was sold to the Tories, now it is the Whigs who have made
the purchase;" and he mockingly regretted "that neither party have
even paid a deposit." At other times he was charged with being in the
pay of the Prince Napoleon, of the Commune, of Sir Charles Dilke, of
the Carlists, and, last of all, in that of the Maharajah of Cashmere.
This was so much believed in, that a gentleman belonging to a prominent
Liberal Club actually told me that it was a good thing my father died
poor and in debt, as it, at least, discredited that rumour.
[Footnote 41: _Saturday Review_, September 14, 1872.]
I do not profess to have by any means exhausted the list of fables
associated with Mr Bradlaugh's name. I have merely taken a few of the
more persistent or more remarkable as examples of the whole.
* * * * *
To expose the misstatements and the travesties of Mr Bradlaugh's
opinions would require a whole volume. What he thought and what he
taught on theological, political, and social questions will be found
in his own writings, and his own words must necessarily be the most
effective contradiction or confirmation of the "hearsays" of prejudice.
CHAPTER X.
PEACE DEMONSTRATIONS, 1878.
During the Russo-Turkish War great anxiety was shown by the Tories to
drag England into the struggle; war songs were sung in the music halls;
the old hatred of Russia was fanned into a blaze, and the new love of
Turkey nourished into some sort of enthusiasm. The "Jingo" fever ran
high, and the more peacefully-disposed seemed quite overwhelmed by the
noise and clamour of the war party. Some of the working men of London,
however, determined to make a public protest in favour of peace, and
against those who were seeking to increase the burdens of the nation
at a time when there were people dying of starvation in Wales, in
Sheffield, and in the Forest of Dean. A meeting was consequently held
on the afternoon of February 24th, in Hyde Park, in response to a
general appeal made by the Hon. Auberon Herbert, Mr Ackrill, and Mr
Bradlaugh on behalf of the working men's committee to the working men
of the metropolis to resist the effort then being made to drag the
country into an Eastern war.
There had been so much rowdyism at former meetings on this subject,
that it was resolved to enrol a special force to prevent this one from
being broken up by ruffianism. Mr Bradlaugh's special contingent was to
consist of fifty marshals and five hundred deputy marshals, who wore
his Northampton colours, and were furnished with "wands of office." It
was not thought right to ask unarmed men to confront the brutality of
the war-at-any-price men, who came armed with all manner of weapons;
yet it was not desired to provoke an attack by any show of force, so
after some deliberation it was decided that the marshals should be
armed with short staves similar to the constables' truncheon. These
the men were instructed to keep concealed, unless they were required
for purposes of defence. Mr Herbert's special adherents were similarly
armed, and wore a green favour.
Fearing a fight, my father would not allow us to go with him to the
meeting, and would not be happy about our going at all, until we had
promised not to get into the crowd. So we went to the Park early to
watch the great masses of men gathering quietly together, with neither
bands, banners, nor procession, unless the clubs coming up in bodies
could be called coming in procession. The mauve, white, and green
rosettes--which we with a committee of ladies had so lately made--were
soon conspicuous by their number; above them were smiling holiday
faces, while below lay the formidable staves which we had helped to
serve out that very morning, but of which not a sign could be seen,
although we, who knew they were there, looked attentively for them.
The platform was set up, surrounded by a ring of men with locked arms
three or four deep. By and by groups of young men passed us armed with
sticks, long and thick; these joined together in gangs, and amused
themselves by making a series of brutal rushes, after the stupid
aimless fashion of the "roughs" on Lord Mayor's Day. But these medical
students--for the hospitals had been whipped up to turn out in aid of
the Tory and the Turk--unlike their honoured exemplars, deliberately
intended to injure.
The meeting was tremendous, orderly and quiet at first, and the
applause which greeted Mr Herbert when he rose to preside showed that
the majority were favourable to peace. Every facility had been given
to the war-party to move an amendment; every courtesy had been shown
them, and everything possible done to avoid a pretext for disturbance.
But no pretext was necessary. Mr Herbert had barely begun to speak when
an attack was made simultaneously on three sides of the ring; sticks
flashed in the air, and staff replied to stick with such energy that
the attack on two sides was repelled; that at the back, however, was
successful, the ring was broken through, and the platform destroyed. In
spite of all this, Mr Bradlaugh succeeded in putting the resolution,
and all those within hearing voted for it; but the tumult was so great
that it was impossible to guess how much was heard or understood.
My sister and I stood by the water breathlessly watching a dense mass
of men with sticks in air struggling slowly towards the gate, feeling
sure that Mr Bradlaugh must be the centre of a great a display of
enmity; and people even cried to us, "Your father is there. He will be
killed! he will be killed!" And while we were watching, we ourselves
nearly became involved in a rush of the war-party from another
direction. Frantic cries of "Duck him! The water! Duck him!" made us
glance round, and we found we had only just time to escape. When we
had reached a place of safety, and were able to look round again, the
fighting mass was broken up; and learning from some one, whom my father
had told to seek us, that he was unhurt and had gone home, we also
hastened to make the best of our way back. We learned that none of our
own friends were seriously hurt; and the hearty and repeated bursts of
cheering at my father's appearance where he lectured that night marked
the relief felt at seeing him safe and unhurt.
Mr Bradlaugh had held many meetings in Hyde Park, but he had never had
one broken up. He had had a magnificent gathering in 1875 to protest
against the grant of £142,000 to the Prince of Wales for his journey to
India, but all had been quiet and orderly. Now, neither he nor those
with whom he was acting liked the idea of their demonstration for peace
ending in this way, so it was determined to make another attempt. The
war party, however, who stood at nothing, determined to break up this
meeting also. An assault upon the leaders of the Peace movement was
deliberately planned, and Mr Bradlaugh afterwards obtained the names
of certain Tories who had paid and instigated the assailants. On this
occasion--Sunday, the 10th of March--no attempt was made to set up a
proper platform, but there were human volunteers for a living one--no
light matter when it came to bearing a man of Mr Bradlaugh's inches.
Mr Herbert briefly stated the object of the meeting, and called upon
my father to move the resolution, and from the shoulders of his living
platform he moved "that the meeting declares in favour of peace,"
and the resolution was forthwith seconded, formally put, and voted
upon with but few dissentients. So far all was well, and the meeting
was dissolved. Upon this, however, there immediately began a series
of regularly-organised attacks by paid roughs, militia-men, medical
students, and "gentlemen." Armed with sticks, pieces of twisted
gas-piping, sharpened iron, loaded bludgeons, and other weapons,
they were a truly gallant company. Some of the defending staves were
ominously cut and dug into by the sharp and pointed instruments used
by the attacking party. For a few minutes the fighting was severe; my
father for an instant was taken off his feet in the struggle, and his
upraised arm caught the murderous rain of blows intended for his head.
Up again almost at once, and having the fight thus forced upon him, he
struck five blows in reply, which were said to have sent as many men
to St George's Hospital. Those were the only blows he struck that day,
the rest of the time he merely warded off any aimed at himself. One man
attacked his head with some sharp iron instrument fastened to a long
stick, which cut his silk hat through from crown to rim. A brave little
party of "swells" attacked him at the back, but these were attended to
by his working-men friends. This assault by the war party was as wanton
as it was vicious, because the meeting was over, and had already began
to quietly disper
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