Prisoner for Blasphemy
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Title: Prisoner for Blasphemy
Author: G. W. Foote
Release date: December 1, 2004 [eBook #7076]
Most recently updated: March 24, 2009
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7076
Credits: Produced by Freethought Archives, and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRISONER FOR BLASPHEMY ***
Produced by Freethought Archives
PRISONER FOR BLASPHEMY
By George William Foote
Originally published 1886
Persecution is not refutation, nor even triumph: the
"wretched infidel" as he is called, is probably happier in
his prison than the proudest of his assailants--BYRON.
London:
Progressive Publishing Company
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1886
CHAPTERS
I. The Storm Brewing
II. Our First Summons
III. Mr. Bradlaugh Included
IV. Our Indictment
V. Another Prosecution
VI. Preparing for Trial
VII. At the Old Bailey
VIII. Newgate
IX. The Second Trial
X. "Black Maria"
XI. Holloway Gaol
XII. Prison Life
XIII. Parson Plaford
XIV. The Third Trial
XV. Loss and Gain
XVI. A Long Night
XVII. Daylight
PREFACE.
This little volume tells a strange and painful story; strange, because
the experiences of a prisoner for blasphemy are only known to three
living Englishmen; and painful, because their unmerited sufferings are a
sad reflection on the boasted freedom of our age.
My own share in this misfortune is all I could pretend to describe with
fidelity. Without (I hope) any meretricious display of fine writing,
I have related the facts of my case, giving a precise account of
my prosecutions, and as vivid a narrative as memory allows of my
imprisonment in Holloway Gaol. I have striven throughout to be truthful
and accurate, nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice;
and I have tried to hit the happy mean between negligence and prolixity.
Whether or not I have succeeded in the second respect the reader must
be the judge; and if he cannot be so in the former respect, he will at
least be able to decide whether the writer means to be candid and bears
the appearance of honesty.
One reason why I have striven to be exact is that my record may be of
service to the future historian of our time. It is always rash to
appeal to the future, as a posturing English novelist did in one of his
Prefaces; and it is well to remember the witticism of Voltaire, who,
on hearing an ambitious poeticule read his Ode to Posterity, doubted
whether it would reach its address. But it is the facts, and not
my personality, that are important in this case. My trial will be a
conspicuous event in the history of the struggle for religious
freedom, and in consequence of Lord Coleridge's and Sir James Stephen's
utterances, it may be of considerable moment in the history of the
Criminal Law. It is more than possible that I shall be the last prisoner
for blasphemy in England. That alone is a circumstance of distinction,
which gives my story a special character, quite apart from my
individuality. As a muddle-headed acquaintance said, intending to be
complimentary, Some men are born to greatness, others achieve it, and I
had it thrust upon me.
Prosecutions for Blasphemy have not been frequent. Sir James Stephen was
able to record nearly all of them in his "History of the Criminal
Law." The last before mine occurred in 1857, when Thomas Pooley, a poor
Cornish well-sinker, was sentenced by the late Mr. Justice Coleridge to
twenty months' imprisonment for chalking some "blasphemous" words on
a gate-post. Fortunately this monstrous punishment excited public
indignation. Mill, Buckle, and other eminent men, interested themselves
in the case, and Pooley was released after undergoing a quarter of his
sentence. From that time until my prosecution, that is for nearly a
whole generation, the odious law was allowed to slumber, although tons
of "blasphemy" were published every year. This long desuetude induced
Sir James Stephen, in his "Digest of the Criminal Law" to regard it as
"practically obsolete." But the event has proved that no law is obsolete
until it is repealed. It has also proved Lord Coleridge's observation
that there is, in the case of some laws, a "discriminating laxity," as
well as Professor Hunter's remark that the Blasphemy Laws survive as a
dangerous weapon in the hands of any fool or fanatic who likes to set
them in motion.
In the pamphlet entitled _Blasphemy No Crime_, which I published during
my prosecution, and which is still in print if anyone is curious to
see it, I contended that Blasphemy is only our old friend Heresy in
disguise, and that, we know, is a priestly manufacture. My view has
since been borne out by two high authorities. Lord Coleridge says that
"this law of blasphemous libel first appears in our books--at least the
cases relating to it are first reported--shortly after the curtailment
or abolition of the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts in matters
temporal. Speaking broadly, before the time of Charles II. these things
would have been dealt with as heresy; and the libellers so-called of
more recent days would have suffered as heretics in earlier times."
[Reference: _The Law of Blasphemous Libel_. The Summing-up in the case
of Regina v. Foote and others. Revised with a Preface by the Lord Chief
Justice of England. London, Stevens and Sons.] Sir James Stephen also,
after referring to the writ _De Heretico Comburendo_, under which heresy
and blasphemy were punishable by burning alive, and which was abolished
in 1677, without abridging the jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts
"in cases of atheism, blasphemy, heresie, or schism, and other damnable
doctrines and opinions," adds that "In this state of things, the Court
of Queen's Bench took upon itself some of the functions of the old
Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, and treated as misdemeanours
at common law many things which those courts had formerly punished...
This was the origin of the modern law as to blasphemy and blasphemous
libel." [Reference: _Blasphemy and Blasphemous Libel_. By Sir James
Stephen. _Fortnightly Review_, March, 1884.]
Less than ten years after the "glorious revolution" of 1688 there was
passed a statute, known as the 9 and 10 William III., c. 32, and
called "An Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and
Profaneness." This enacts that "any person or persons having been
educated in, or at any time having made profession of, the Christian
religion within this realm who shall, by writing, printing, teaching, or
advised speaking, deny any one of the persons in the Holy Trinity to be
God, or shall assert or maintain there are more gods than one, or shall
deny the Christian doctrine to be true, or the Holy Scriptures of the
Old and New Testament to be of divine authority," shall upon conviction
be disabled from holding any ecclesiastical, civil, or military
employment, and on a second conviction be imprisoned for three years and
deprived for ever of all civil rights.
Lord Coleridge and Sir James Stephen call this statute "ferocious," but
as it is still unrepealed there is no legal reason why it should not
be enforced. Curiously, however, the reservation which was inserted to
protect the Jews has frustrated the whole purpose of the Act; at any
rate, there never has been a single prosecution under it. So much of
the statute as affected the Unitarians was ostensibly repealed by the 53
George III., c. 160. But Lord Eldon in 1817 doubted whether it was
ever repealed at all; and so late as 1867 Chief Baron Kelly and Lord
Bramwell, in the Court of Exchequer, held that a lecture on "The
Character and Teachings of Christ: the former defective, the latter
misleading" was an offence against the statute. It is not so clear,
therefore, that Unitarians are out of danger; especially as the judges
have held that this Act was special, without in any way affecting
the common law of Blasphemy, under which all prosecutions have been
conducted.
Dr. Blake Odgers, however, thinks the Unitarians are perfectly safe, and
he has informed them so in a memorandum on the Blasphemy Laws drawn
up at their request. This gentleman has a right to his opinion, but no
Unitarian of any courage will be proud of his advice. He deliberately
recommends the body to which he belongs to pay no attention to the
Blasphemy Laws, and to lend no assistance to the agitation for repealing
them, on the ground that when you are safe yourself it is Quixotic to
trouble about another man's danger; which is, perhaps, the most cowardly
and contemptible suggestion that could be made. Several Unitarians were
burnt in Elizabeth's reign, two were burnt in the reign of James I., and
one narrowly escaped hanging under the Commonwealth. The whole body was
excluded from the Toleration Act of 1688, and included in the Blasphemy
Act of William III. But Unitarians have since yielded the place of
danger to more advanced bodies, and they may congratulate themselves on
their safety; but to make their own safety a reason for conniving at the
persecution of others is a depth of baseness which Dr. Blake Odgers has
fathomed, though happily without persuading the majority of his fellows
to descend to the same ignominy.
It will be observed that the Act specifies certain heterodox _opinions_
as blasphemous, and says nothing as to the _language_ in which they
may be couched. Evidently the crime lay not in the _manner_, but in
the _matter_. The Common Law has always held the same view, and my
Indictment, like that of all my predecessors, charged me with bringing
the Holy Scriptures and the Christian religion "into disbelief and
contempt." With all respect to Lord Coleridge's authority, I cannot but
think that Sir James Stephen is right in maintaining that the crime of
blasphemy consists in the expression of certain opinions, and that it
is only an _aggravation_ of the crime to express them in "offensive"
language.
Judge North, on my first trial, plainly told the jury that any denial
of the existence of Deity or of Providence was blasphemy; although on
my second trial, in order to procure a conviction, he narrowed his
definition to "any contumelious or profane scoffing at the Holy
Scriptures or the Christian religion." It is evident, therefore, what
his lordship believes the law to be. With a certain order of minds it is
best to deal sharply; their first statements are more likely to be
true than their second. For the rest, Judge North is unworthy of
consideration. It is remarkable that, although he charged the jury
twice in my case, Sir James Stephen does not regard his views as worth a
mention.
Lord Coleridge says the law of blasphemy "is undoubtedly a disagreeable
law," and in my opinion he lets humanity get the better of his legal
judgment. He lays it down that "if the decencies of controversy are
observed, even the fundamentals of religion may be attacked without a
person being guilty of blasphemous libel."
Now such a decision can only be a stepping-stone to the abolition of the
law. Who can define "the decencies of controversy?" Everyone has his own
criterion in such matters, which is usually unconscious and fluctuating.
What shocks one man pleases another. Does not the proverb say that one
man's meat is another man's poison? Lord Coleridge reduces Blasphemy to
a matter of taste, and _de gustibus non est disputandum_. According to
this view, the prosecution has simply to put any heretical work into the
hands of a jury, and say, "Gentlemen, do you like that? If you do, the
prisoner is innocent; if you do not, you must find him guilty." Such
a law puts a rope round the neck of every writer who soars above
commonplace, or has any gift of wit or humor. It hands over the
discussion of all important topics to pedants and blockheads, and bans
the _argumentum ad absurdum_ which has been employed by all the great
satirists from Aristophanes to Voltaire.
When Bishop South was reproached by an Episcopal brother for being witty
in the pulpit, he replied, "My dear brother in the Lord, do you mean to
say that if God had given you any wit you wouldn't have used it?" Let
Bishop South stand for the "blasphemer," and his dull brother for the
orthodox jury, and you have the moral at once.
"Such a law," says Sir James Stephen, "would never work." You cannot
really distinguish between substance and style; you must either forbid
or permit all attacks on Christianity. Great religious and political
changes are never made by calm and moderate language. Was any form of
Christianity ever substituted either for Paganism or any other form of
Christianity without heat, exaggeration, and fierce invective? Saint
Augustine ridiculed one of the Roman gods in grossly indecent language.
Men cannot discuss doctrines like eternal punishment as they do
questions in philology. And "to say that you may discuss the truth
of religion, but that you may not hold up its doctrines to contempt,
ridicule, or indignation, is either to take away with one hand what you
concede with the other, or to confine the discussion to a small and in
many ways uninfluential class of persons." Besides, Sir James Stephen
says,
"There is one reflection which seems to me to prove with
conclusive force that the law upon this subject can be
explained and justified only on what I regard as its true
principle--the principle of persecution. It is that if the
law were really impartial, and punished blasphemy only because
it offends the feelings of believers, it ought also to punish
such preaching as offends the feelings of unbelievers. All
the more earnest and enthusiastic forms of religion are extremely
offensive to those who do not believe them. Why should not
people who are not Christians be protected against the rough,
coarse, ignorant ferocity with which they are often told that
they and theirs are on the way to hell-fire for ever and ever?
Such a doctrine, though necessary to be known if true, is, if
false, revolting and mischievous to the last degree. If the
law in no degree recognised these doctrines as true, if it were
as neutral as the Indian Penal Code is between Hindoos and
Mohametans, it would have to apply to the Salvation Army the
same rule as it applies to the _Freethinker_ and its contributors."
Excellently put. I argued in the same way, though perhaps less tersely,
in my defence. I pointed out that there is no law to protect the
"decencies of controversy" in any but religious discussions, and this
exception can only be defended on the ground that Christianity is
true and must not be attacked. But Lord Coleridge holds that it may be
attacked. How then can he ask that it shall only be attacked in polite
language? And if Freethinkers must only strike with kid gloves, why are
Christians allowed to use not only the naked fist, but knuckle-dusters,
bludgeons, and daggers? In the war of ideas, any party which imposes
restraints on others to which it does not subject itself, is guilty
of persecution; and the finest phrases, and the most dexterous special
pleading, cannot alter the fact.
Sir James Stephen holds that the Blasphemy Laws are concerned with the
_matter_ of publications, that "a large part of the most serious
and most important literature of the day is illegal," and that every
book-seller who sells, and everyone who lends to his friend, a copy of
Comte's _Positive Philosophy_, or of Renan's _Vie de Jesus_, commits a
crime punishable with fine and imprisonment. Sir James Stephen dislikes
the law profoundly, but he prefers "stating it in its natural naked
deformity to explaining it away in such a manner as to prolong its
existence and give it an air of plausibility and humanity." To terminate
this mischievous law he has drafted a Bill, which many Liberal
members of Parliament have promised to support, and which will soon be
introduced. Its text is as follows:
"Whereas certain laws now in force and intended for the promotion
of religion are no longer suitable for that purpose and it is
expedient to repeal them,
"Be it enacted as follows:
"1. After the passing of this Act no criminal proceedings
shall be instituted in any Court whatever, against any person
whatever, for Atheism, blasphemy at common law, blasphemous
libel, heresy, or schism, except only criminal proceedings
instituted in Ecclesiastical Courts against clergymen of the
Church of England.
"2. An Act passed in the first year of his late Majesty King
Edward VI., c. 1, intituled 'An Act against such as shall
unreverently speak against the sacrament of the body and blood
of Christ, commonly called the sacrament of the altar, and for
the receiving thereof in both kinds,' and an Act passed in the
9th and 10th year of his late Majesty King William III., c. 35,
intituled an Act for the more effectual suppressing of blasphemy
and profaneness are hereby repealed.
"3. Provided that nothing herein contained shall be deemed
to affect the provisions of an Act passed in the nineteenth year
of his late Majesty King George II., c. 21, intituled 'An Act
more effectually to prevent profane cursing and swearing,' or
any other provision of any other Act of Parliament not hereby
expressly repealed."
Until this Bill is carried no heterodox writer is safe. Sir James
Stephen's view of the law may be shared by other judges, and if a bigot
sat on the bench he might pass a heavy sentence on a distinguished
"blasphemer." Let it not be said that their _manner_ is so different
from mine that no jury would convict; for when I read extracts from
Clifford, Swinburne, Maudsley, Matthew Arnold, James Thomson, Lord
Amberley, Huxley, and other heretics whose works are circulated by
Mudie, Lord Coleridge remarked "I confess, as I heard them, I had, and
have a difficulty in distinguishing them from the alleged libels. They
do appear to me to be open to the same charge, on the same grounds, as
Mr. Foote's writings."
Personally I understand the Blasphemy Laws well enough. They are the
last relics of religious persecution. What Lord Coleridge read from
Starkie as the law of blasphemous libel, I regard with Sir James Stephen
as "flabby verbiage." Lord Coleridge is himself a master of style, and
I suppose his admiration of Starkie's personal character has blinded his
judgment. Starkie simply raises a cloud of words to hide the real nature
of the Blasphemy Laws. He shows how Freethinkers may be punished without
avowing the principle of persecution. Instead of frankly saying that
Christianity must not be attacked, he imputes to aggressive heretics "a
malicious and mischievous intention," and "apathy and indifference to
the interests of society;" and he justifies their being punished, not
for their actions, but for their motives: a principle which, if it were
introduced into our jurisprudence, would produce a chaos.
Could there be a more ridiculous assumption than that a man who braves
obloquy, social ostracism, and imprisonment for his principles,
is indifferent to the interest of society? Let Christianity strike
Freethinkers if it will, but why add insult to injury? Why brand us as
cowards when you martyr us? Why charge us with hypocrisy when we dare
your hate?
Persecution, like superstition, dies hard, but it dies. What though I
have suffered the heaviest punishment inflicted on a Freethinker for a
hundred and twenty years? Is not the night always darkest and coldest
before the dawn? Is not the tiger's dying spring most fierce and
terrible?
My sufferings, therefore, are not without the balm of consolation. I see
that the future is already brightening with a new hope. Without rising
to the supreme height of Danton, who cried "Let my name be blighted that
France be free," I feel a humbler pleasure in reflecting that I may
have been instrumental in breaking the last fetter on the freedom of the
press.
G. W. FOOTE.
_February 1st_, 1886.
CHAPTER I. THE STORM BREWING.
In the merry month of May, 1881, I started a paper called the
_Freethinker_, with the avowed object of waging "relentless war against
Superstition in general and the Christian Superstition in particular." I
stated in the first paragraph of the first number that this new journal
would have a new policy; that it would "do its best to employ the
resources of Science, Scholarship, Philosophy and Ethics against the
claims of the Bible as a Divine Revelation," and that it would "not
scruple to employ for the same purpose any weapons of ridicule or
sarcasm that might be borrowed from the armoury of Common Sense."
As the _Freethinker_ was published at the people's price of a penny,
and was always edited in a lively style, with a few short articles and
plenty of racy paragraphs, it succeeded from the first; and becoming
well known, not through profuse advertisement, but through the
recommendation of its readers, its circulation increased every week.
Within a year of its birth it had outdistanced all its predecessors. No
Freethought journal ever progressed with such amazing rapidity.
True, this was largely due to the fact that the Freethought party had
immensely increased in numbers; but much of it was also due to the
policy of the paper, which supplied, as the advertising gentry say, "a
long-felt want." Although the first clause of its original programme was
never wholly forgotten, we gradually paid the greatest attention to the
second, indulging more and more in Ridicule and Sarcasm, and more and
more cultivating Common Sense. A dangerous policy, as I was sometimes
warned; but for that very reason all the more necessary. The more
Bigotry writhed and raged, the more I felt that our policy was telling.
Borrowing a metaphor from Carlyle's "Frederick," I likened Superstition
to the boa, which defies all ponderous assaults, and will not yield to
the pounding of sledge-hammers, but sinks dead when some expert thrusts
in a needle's point and punctures the spinal column.
I had a further incentive. Mr. Bradlaugh's infamous treatment by the
bigots had revolutionised my ideas of Freethought policy. Although never
timid, I was until then practically ignorant of the horrible spirit of
persecution; and with the generous enthusiasm of youth I fondly imagined
that the period of combat was ended, that the liberty of platform and
press was finally won, that Supernaturalism was hopelessly scotched
although obviously not slain, and that Freethinkers should now devote
themselves to cultivating the fields they had won instead of raiding
into the enemy's territory. Alas for the illusions of hope! They were
rudely dispelled by a few "scenes" in the House of Commons, and barred
from all chance of re-gathering by the wild display of intolerance
outside. I saw, in quite another sense than Garth Wilkinson's, the
profound truth of his saying that--
"The Duke of Wellington's advice, Do not make a little war, is
applicable to internal conflicts against evil in society. For
little wars have no background of resources, they do not know
the strength of the enemy, and the peace that follows them for
the most part leaves the evil in dispute nearly its whole territory;
perhaps is purchased by guaranteeing the evil by treaty; and
leaves the case of offence more difficult of attack by reason
of concession to wrong premises."
("Human Science and Divine Revelation," Preface, p. vi.)
Yes, the war with Superstition must be fought _a outrance_. We must
decline either treaty or truce. I hold that the one great work of our
time is the destruction of theology, the immemorial enemy of mankind,
which has wasted in the chase of chimeras very much of the world's best
intellect, fatally perverted our moral sentiments, fomented discord
and division, supported all the tyranny of privilege and sanctioned all
debasement of the people. Far be it from me to argue this point with
any dissident. I prefer to leave him to the logic of events, which has
convinced me, and may some day convince him.
But to recur. Before the _Freethinker_ had reached its third number I
began to reflect on the advisability of illustrating it, and bringing in
the artist's pencil to aid the writer's pen. I soon resolved to do this,
and the third and fourth numbers contained a woodcut on the front page.
In the fifth number there appeared an exquisite little burlesque sketch
of the Calling of Samuel, by a skilful artist whose name I cannot
disclose. Although not ostensibly, it was actually, the first of those
Comic Bible Sketches for which the _Freethinker_ afterwards became
famous; and from that date, with the exception of occasional intervals
due to difficulties there is no need to explain, my little paper was
regularly illustrated. During the whole twelve months of my imprisonment
the illustrations were discontinued by my express order. I was not
averse to their appearing, but I knew the terrible obstacles and dangers
my temporary successor would have to meet, and I left him a written
prohibition of them, which he was free to publish, in order to shield
him against the possible charge of cowardice. Since my release from
prison they have been resumed, and they will be continued until I go to
prison again, unless I see some better reason than Christian menace for
their cessation.
The same fifth number of the _Freethinker_ contained an account of
the first part of "La Bible Amusante," issued by the Anti-Clerical
publishing house in the Rue des Ecoles. That notice was from my own pen,
and I venture to reprint the opening paragraphs.
"Voltaire's method of attacking Christianity has always approved
itself to French Freethinkers. They regard the statement that
he treated religious questions in a spirit of levity as the
weak defence of those who know that irony and sarcasm are the
deadliest enemies of their faith. Superstition dislikes argument,
but it hates laughter. Nimble and far-flashing wit is more
potent against error than the slow dull logic of the schools;
and the great humorists and wits of the world have done far
more to clear its head and sweeten its heart than all its
sober philosophers from Aristotle to Kant.
"We in England have Comic Histories, Comic Geographies, and
Comic Grammars, but a Comic Bible would horrify us. At sight
of such blasphemy Bumble would stand aghast, and Mrs. Grundy
would scream with terror. But Bumble and Mrs. Grundy are less
important personages in France, and so the country of Rabelais
and Voltaire produces what we are unable to tolerate in thought."
I concluded by saying--"We shall introduce the subsequent numbers to the
attention of our readers, and, if possible, we shall reproduce in the
_Freethinker_ some of the raciest plates. We shall be greeted with
shrieks of pious wrath if we do so, but we are not easily frightened."
There was really more than editorial fashion in this "we," for at
that time Mr. Ramsey was half proprietor of the _Freethinker_, and his
consent had of course to be obtained before I could undertake such a
dangerous enterprise. I gladly avow that he showed no hesitation; on
the contrary, he heartily fell in with the project. He frankly left the
editorial conduct of our paper in my hands, despised the accusation
of Blasphemy, and defied its law. His half-proprietorship of the
_Freethinker_ has terminated, but we still work together in our several
ways for the cause of Freethought. Mr. Ramsey went with me into the
furnace of persecution, and he bore his sufferings with manly fortitude.
The _Freethinker_ steadily progressed in circulation, and in January,
1882, I was able to secure the services of my old friend, Joseph Mazzini
Wheeler, as sub-editor. He had for long years contributed gratuitously
to my literary ventures, and those who ever turn over a file of the
_Secularist_ or the _Liberal_ will see with what activity he wielded his
trenchant pen. When he became my paid sub-editor, our relations remained
unchanged. We worked as loyal colleagues for a cause we both loved, and
treated as a mere accident the fact of my being his principal. The same
feeling animates us still, nor do I think it can ever suffer alteration.
The new year's number, dated January 1, 1882, referred to Mr. Wheeler's
accession, and to that of Dr. Edward Aveling, who then became a
member of the regular staff. It also referred to the policy of the
_Freethinker_, and to another subject of the gravest interest--namely,
the threats of prosecution which had appeared in several Christian
journals. As "pieces of justification," to use a French phrase, I quote
these two passages:
"Our ill-wishers (what journal has none?) have been of two kinds.
In the first place, the Christians, disgusted with our "blasphemy,"
predicted a speedy failure. The wish was father to the thought.
These latter-day prophets were just as false as their predecessors.
Now that they witness our indisputable success, they shake their
heads, look at us askance, mutter something like curses, and pray
the Lord to turn us from our evil ways. One or two bigots, more
than ordinarily foolish, have threatened to suppress us with the
strong arm of the law. We defy them to do their worst. We have
no wish to play the martyr, but we should not object to take a
part in dragging the monster of persecution into the light of day,
even at the cost of some bites and scratches. As the _Freethinker_
was intended to be a fighting organ, the savage hostility of the
enemy is its best praise. We mean to incur their hatred more
and more. The war with superstition should be ruthless. We ask
no quarter and we shall give none.
"Secondly, we have had to encounter the dislike of mealy-mouthed
Freethinkers, who want omelettes without breaking of eggs
and revolutions without shedding of blood. They object to
ridiculing people who say that twice two are five. They even
resent a dogmatic statement that twice two are four. Perhaps
they think four and a half a very fair compromise. Now this
is recreancy to truth, and therefore to progress. No great
cause was ever won by the half-hearted. Let us be faithful
to our convictions, and shun paltering in a double sense.
Truth, as Renan says, can dispense with politeness; and while
we shall never stoop to personal slander or innuendo, we shall
assail error without tenderness or mercy. And if, as we believe,
ridicule is the most potent weapon against superstition, we
shall not scruple to use it."
These extracts from my old manifestoes may possess little other
value, but they at least show this, that the peculiar policy of the
_Freethinker_ was not adopted in a moment of levity, but was from the
first deliberately pursued; and that while I held on the even tenor of
my way, I was fully conscious of its dangers.
Early in January there fell into my hands a copy of a circular to
Members of Parliament by Henry Varley, the Notting Hill revivalist.
This person was a notorious trader in scandal, and he still pursues
that avocation. Many of his discourses are "delivered to men only,"
an advertisement which is sure to attract a large audience; and one
of them, which he has published, is just on a level with the quack
publications that are thrust into young men's hands in the street. Henry
Varley had already issued one private circular about Mr. Bradlaugh,
full of the most brazen falsehoods and the grossest defamation; and
containing, as it did, garbled extracts from Mr. Bradlaugh's writings,
and artfully-manipulated quotations from books he had never written or
published, it undoubtedly did him a serious injury. The new circular was
worthy of the author of the first. It was addressed "To the Members
of the House of Commons," and was "for private circulation only." The
indignant butcher, for that is his trade, wished "to submit to their
notice the horrible blasphemies that are appended, and quoted from a new
weekly publication issued from the office where Mr. Bradlaugh's weekly
journal, the _National Reformer_, is published. The paper is entitled
the _Freethinker_, and is edited by G. W. Foote, one of Mr. Bradlaugh's
prominent supporters, and one of his right hand men at the Hall of
Science." The Commons of England were also requested to notice that
"Dr. Aveling, who for some years has been one of Mr. Bradlaugh's chief
helpers, is another contributor to this disgraceful product of Atheism."
In conclusion, they were called upon to "devise means to stay this
hideous prostitution of the liberty of the Press, by making these
shameless blasphemers amenable to the existing law."
It is a curious thing that such a fervid champion of religion should
always attack unbelievers with private circulars. Yet this is the policy
that Henry Varley has always pursued. He is a religious bravo, who lurks
in the dark, and strikes at Freethinkers with a poisoned dagger. More
than once he has flooded Northampton with the foulest libels on Mr.
Bradlaugh, invariably issued without the printer's name, in open
violation of the law. He is liable for a fine of five pounds for
every copy circulated, but the action must be initiated by the
Attorney-General, and our Christian Government refuses to punish when
the offence is committed by one of their own creed, and the sufferer is
only an Atheist.
Varley's circular served its evil purpose, for soon after Parliament
assembled in February, Mr. C. K. Freshfield, member for Dover, asked
the Home Secretary whether the Government intended to prosecute the
_Freethinker_.
Sir William Harcourt gave the following reply:
"I am sorry to say my attention has been called to a paper
bearing the title of the _Freethinker_, published in Northampton,
and I agree that nothing can be more pernicious to the minds of
right-thinking people than publications of that description--
(cheers)--but I think it has been the view for a great many
years of all persons responsible in these matters, that more
harm than advantage is produced to public morals by Government
prosecutions in cases of this kind. (Hear, hear). I believe
they are better left to the reprobation which they will meet
in this country from all decent members of society. (Cheers)."
This highly disingenuous answer was characteristic of the member for
Derby. His reference to the _Freethinker_ as published at Northampton,
clearly proves that he had never seen it; and his unctuous allusions to
"public morals" and "decent members of society" are further evidence
in the same direction. The _Freethinker_ was accused of blasphemy,
but until Sir William Harcourt gave the cue not even its worst enemies
charged it with indecency. In a later stage of my narrative I shall
have to show that the "Liberal" Home Secretary has acted the part of an
unscrupulous bigot, utterly regardless of truth, justice and honor.
I thought it my duty to write an open letter to Sir William Harcourt on
the subject of his answer to Mr. Freshfield, in which I said--"I tell
you that you could not suppress the _Freethinker_ if you tried. The
martyr spirit of Freethought is not dead, and the men who suffered
imprisonment for liberty of speech a generation ago have not
left degenerate successors. Should the necessity arise, there are
Freethinkers who will not shrink from the same sacrifice for the same
cause." The sequel has shown that this was no idle boast.
A few days later the _Freethinker_ was again the subject of a question
in the House. Mr. Redmond, member for New Ross, asked the Home Secretary
"whether the Government had power to seize and summarily suppress
newspapers which they considered pernicious to public morals; and, if
so, why that power was not exercised in the case of the _Freethinker_
and other papers now published and circulated in England." Sir William
Harcourt repeated the answer he gave to Mr. Freshfield, and added that
it would not be discreet to say whether the Government had power to
seize obnoxious publications.
Mr. Redmond's question was a fine piece of impudence. Assuming that he
represented all the voters in New Ross, his constituents numbered two
hundred and sixty-one; and they could all be conveyed to Westminster in
a tithe of the vehicles that brought people to Holloway Gaol to welcome
me on the morning of my release. The total population of New Ross,
including men, women and children, is less than seven thousand; a number
that fell far short of the readers of the _Freethinker_ even then.
Representing a mere handful of people, Mr. Redmond had the audacity to
ask for the summary suppression of a journal which is read in every part
of the English-speaking world.
Nothing further of an exciting nature in connexion with my case occurred
until early in May, when a prosecution for Blasphemy was instituted at
Tunbridge Wells against Mr. Henry Seymour, Honorary Secretary of the
local branch of the National Secular Society. This Branch had been the
object of continued outrage and persecution, chiefly instigated, I have
reason to believe, by Canon Hoare. The printed announcements outside
their meeting-place were frequently painted over in presence of the
police, who refused to interfere. Finally the police called on all the
local bill-posters and warned them against exhibiting the Society's
placards. Stung by these disgraceful tactics, Mr. Seymour issued a
jocular programme of an evening's entertainment at the Society's hall,
one profane sentence of which, while it in no way disturbed the peace or
serenity of the town, aroused intense indignation in the breasts of the
professional guardians of religion and morality. They therefore cited
Mr. Seymour before the Justices of the Peace, and charged him with
publishing a blasphemous libel. He was committed for trial at the next
assizes, and in the meantime liberated on a hundred pounds bail. Acting
under advice, Mr. Seymour pleaded guilty, and was discharged on finding
sureties for his appearance when called up for judgment. This grievous
error was a distinct encouragement to the bigots. Their appetite was
whetted by this morsel, and they immediately sought a full repast.
My own attitude was one of defiance. In the _Freethinker_ of May 14 I
denounced the bigots as cowards for pouncing on a comparatively obscure
member of the Freethought party, and I challenged them to attack its
leaders before they assailed the rank and file. This challenge was cited
against me on my own trial, but I do not regret it; and indeed I doubt
if any man ever regretted that his sense of duty triumphed over his
sense of danger.
CHAPTER II. OUR FIRST SUMMONS.
Some day in the first week of July (I fancy it was Thursday, the 6th,
but I cannot distinguish it with perfect precision, as some of my
memoranda were scattered by my imprisonment) I enjoyed one of those
very rare trips into the country which my engagements allowed. I
was accompanied by two old friends, Mr. J. M. Wheeler and Mr. John
Robertson, the latter being then on a brief first visit to London. We
went up the river by boat, walked for hours about Kew and Richmond,
and sat on the famous Terrace in the early evening, enjoying the lovely
prospect, and discussing a long letter from Italy, written by one of our
best friends, who was spending a year in that poet's paradise. How we
chattered all through that golden day on all subjects, in the heavens
above, on the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth! With
what fresh delight, in keeping with the scene, we compared our favorite
authors and capped each other's quotations! Rare Walt Whitman told Mr.
Conway that his _forte_ was "loafing and writing poems." Well, we loafed
too, and if we did not write poems, we startled the birds, the sheep,
the cattle, and stray pedestrians, by reciting them. I returned
home with that pleasant feeling of fatigue which is a good sign of
health--with tired limbs and a clear brain, languid but not jaded.
Throwing myself into the chair before my desk, I lit my pipe, and sat
calmly puffing, while the incidents of that happy day floated through my
memory as I watched the floating smoke-wreaths. Casually turning round,
I noticed a queer-looking sheet of paper on the desk. I picked it up and
read it. It was a summons from the Lord Mayor, commanding my attendance
at the Mansion House on the following Tuesday, to answer a charge
of Blasphemy. Strange ending to such a day! What a tragi-comedy life
is--how full of contrasts and surprises, of laughter and tears.
Two others were summoned to appear with me: Mr. W. J. Ramsey, as
publisher and proprietor, and Mr. E. W. Whittle, as printer. Mr.
Bradlaugh, who was not included in the prosecution until a later stage
of the proceedings, rendered us ungrudging assistance. Mr. Lickfold, of
the well-known legal firm of Lewis and Lewis, was engaged to watch the
case on behalf of Mr. Whittle. As for my own defence, I resolved from
the very first to conduct it myself, a course for which I had excellent
reasons, that were perfectly justified by subsequent events. In the
_Freethinker_ of July 30, 1882, I wrote:
"I have to defend a principle as well as myself. The most
skilful counsel might be half-hearted and over-prudent. Every
lawyer looks to himself as well as to his client. When Erskine
made his great speech at the end of last century in a famous
trial for treason, Thomas Paine said it was a splendid speech
for Mr. Erskine, but a very poor defence of the "Rights of Man."
If Freethought is attacked it must be defended, and the charge
of Blasphemy must be retorted on those who try to suppress
liberty in the name of God. For my part, I would rather be
convicted after my own defence than after another man's; and
before I leave the court, for whatever destination, I will make
the ears of bigotry tingle, and shame the hypocrites who profess
and disbelieve."
For whatever destination! Yes, I avow that from the moment I read the
summons I never had a doubt as to my fate. I knew that prosecutions for
Blasphemy had invariably succeeded. How, indeed, could they possibly
fail? I might by skill or luck get one jury to disagree, but acquittal
was hopeless; and the prosecution could go on trying me until they found
a jury sufficiently orthodox to ensure a verdict of guilty. It was a
foregone conclusion. The prosecution played, "Heads I win, tails you
lose."
And now a word as to our prosecutor. Nominally, of course, we were
prosecuted by the Crown; and Judge North had the ignorance or impudence
to tell the Old Bailey jury that this was not only theory but fact. Lord
Coleridge, when he tried us two months later in the Court of Queen's
Bench, told the jury that although the nominal prosecutor was the Crown,
the actual prosecutor, the real plaintiff who set the Crown in motion,
was Sir Henry Tyler. _He_ provided all the necessary funds. Without his
cash, nobody would have paid for the summons, and the pious lawyers,
from Sir Hardinge Giffard downwards, who harangued the magistrates, the
judge and the jury, would have held their venal tongues, and left poor
Religion to defend herself as she could. And who is Sir Henry Tyler? or,
rather, who was he? for after emerging into public notoriety by playing
the part of a prosecutor, he fell back into his natural obscurity.
He remained a Member of Parliament, but no one heard of him in that
capacity, except now and then when he asked a foolish question, like
others of his kind, who are mysteriously permitted to sit in our
national legislature. Three years ago, however, he was a more
conspicuous personage. He was then chairman of the Board of Directors of
the Brush Light Company; and according to Henry Labouchere's statements
in _Truth_, he was a "notorious guinea-pig." He was certainly an adept
in the profitable transfer of shares: so much so, indeed, that at length
the shareholders revolted against their pious chairman, and appointed a
committee to investigate his proceedings. Whereupon this modern Knight
of the Holy Ghost levanted, preferring to resign rather than face the
inquiry. This is the man who asked in the House of Commons whether Mr.
Bradlaugh's daughters could not be deprived of their hard-earned
grants for their pupils who successfully passed the South Kensington
examinations! This is the man who posed as the amateur champion of
omnipotence! Surely if deity wanted a champion, Sir Henry Tyler is about
the last person who would receive an application. Yet it is men of
this stamp who have usually set the Blasphemy Laws in operation. These
infamous laws are allowed to slumber for years, until some contemptible
wretch, to gratify his private malice or a baser passion, rouses them
into vicious activity, and fastens their fangs on men whose characters
are far superior to his own. With this fact before them, it is strange
that Christians should continue to regard these detestable laws as a
bulwark of their faith, or in any way calculated to defend it against
the inroads of "infidelity."
Sir Henry Tyler may after all have been a tool in the hands of others,
for the _St. Stephen's Review_ has admitted that the object of this
prosecution was to cripple Mr. Bradlaugh in his parliamentary struggle,
and we expected a prosecution long before it came, in consequence of
some conversation on the subject overheard in the Tea Room of the House
of Commons. But this, if true, while it heightens his insignificance, in
no wise lessens his infamy; and it certainly does not impair, but rather
increases, the force of my strictures on the Blasphemy Laws.
Lord Coleridge, in the Court of Queen's Bench, on the occasion of Mr.
Bradlaugh's trial, sarcastically alluded to Sir Henry Tyler as "a person
entirely unknown to me"--a very polite way of saying, "What does such
an obscure person mean by assuming the _role_ of Defender of the Faith?"
His lordship must also have had that individual in his mind when, on the
occasion of my own trial with Mr. Ramsey in the same Court on April
25, 1883, he delivered himself of these sentiments in the course of his
famous summing-up:
"A difficult form of virtue is quietly and unostentatiously
to obey what you believe to be God's will in your own lives.
It is not very easy to do that, and if you do it, you don't
make much noise in the world. It is very easy to turn upon
somebody who differs from you, and in the guise of zeal for
God's honor, to attack somebody who differs from you in point
of opinion, but whose life may be very much more pleasing to God,
whom you profess to honor, than your own. When it is done by
persons whose own lives are full of pretending to be better
than their neighbors, and who take that particular form of zeal
for God which consists in putting the criminal law in force
against somebody else--that does not, in many people's minds,
create a sympathy with the prosecutor, but rather with the
defendant. There is no doubt that will be so; and if they
should be men--I don't know anything about these persons--but
if they should be men who enjoy the wit of Voltaire, and who
do not turn away from the sneer of Gibbon, but rather relish
the irony of Hume--one's feelings do not go quite with the
prosecutor, but one's feelings are rather apt to sympathise
with the defendants. It is still worse if the person who takes
this course takes it not from a kind of rough notion that God
wants his assistance, and that he can give it--less on his own
account than by prosecuting other--or if it is mixed up with
anything of a partisan or political nature. Then it is impossible
that anything can be more foreign from one's notions of what is
high-minded, religious and noble. Indeed, I must say it strikes
me that anyone who would do that, not for the honor of God, but for
his own purposes, is entitled to the most disdainful disapprobation
that the human mind can form."
Some of the orthodox Tory journals censured Lord Coleridge for these
scathing remarks, but his lordship is not easily frightened by anonymous
critics, and it is probable that, if he ever has to try another case
like ours, he may denounce the prosecutors in still stronger language
if their motives are so obviously sinister as were those of Sir Henry
Tyler.
There was a great crowd of people outside the Mansion House on Tuesday
morning, May 11, and we were lustily cheered as we entered. Long before
the Lord Mayor, Sir Whittaker Ellis, took his seat on the Bench, every
inch of standing space in the Justice Room was occupied. Mr. Bradlaugh
took a seat near Mr. Lickfold and frequently tendered us hints and
advice. Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Whittle, and I took our places in the dock as
our names were called out by Mr. Gresham, the chief clerk of the court.
Our summons alleged that we unlawfully did publish, or caused to
be published, certain blasphemous libels in a newspaper called the
_Freethinker_, dated the 28th of May, 1882.
Mr. Maloney, who appeared for the prosecution, seemed fully impressed
with the gravity of his position, and when he rose he had the air of a
man who bore the responsibility of defending in his single person the
honor, if not the very existence, of our national religion. His first
proceeding was very characteristic of a gentleman with such a noble
task. He attempted to hand in as evidence against us several numbers
of the _Freethinker_ not mentioned in the summons, and these would have
been at once admitted by the Lord Mayor, who was apparently used
to accepting evidence in an extremely free and easy fashion, as is
generally the case with the "great unpaid"; but Mr. Lickfold promptly
intervened, and his lordship, seeing the necessity of carefulness, then
held that it would be advisable to adhere to the one case that morning,
and to take out fresh summonses for the other numbers. Mr. Maloney then
proceeded to deal with the numbers before the Court. There were numerous
blasphemies which, if we were committed for trial, would be set forth in
the indictment, but he would "spare the ears of the Court." One passage,
however, he did read, and it is well to put on record, for the sake
of those who talk about our "indecent" attacks on Christianity, what a
prosecuting barrister felt he could rely on to procure our committal.
It was as follows: "As for the Freethinker, he will scorn to degrade
himself by going through the farce of reconciling his soul to a God whom
he justly regards as the embodiment of crime and ferocity." Those words
were not mine; they were from an article by one of my contributors;
but I ask any reasonable man whether it is not ludicrous to prate
about religious freedom in a country where writers run the risk
of imprisonment for a sentence like that? As Mr. Maloney ended the
quotation his voice sank to a supernatural whisper, he dropped the
paper on the desk before him, and regarded his lordship with a look of
pathetic horror, which the worthy magistrate fully reciprocated. As I
contemplated these two voluntary augurs of our national faith, and at
the same time remembered that far stronger expressions might be found
in the writings of Mill, Clifford, Amberley, Arnold, Newman, Conway,
Swinburne, and other works in Mudie's circulating library, I could
scarcely refrain from laughter.
The witnesses for the prosecution were of the ordinary type--policemen,
detectives, and lawyer's clerks--with the exception of Mr. Charles
Albert Watts, who by accident or design found himself in such
questionable company. This young gentleman is the son of Mr. Charles
Watts and printer of the _Secular Review_, and he was called to prove
that I was the editor of the _Freethinker_. With the most cheerful
alacrity he positively affirmed that I was, although he had absolutely
no more _knowledge_ on the subject--as indeed he admitted on
cross-examination--than any other member of the British public. His
appearance in the witness-box is still half a mystery to me and I can
only ask, _Que le diable allait-il faire dans cette galere?_
Ultimately the case was remanded till the following Monday, Mr. Maloney
intimating that he should apply for fresh summonses for other numbers
of the _Freethinker_, as well as a summons against Mr. Bradlaugh for
complicity in our crime.
Let me here pause to consider how these prosecutions for blasphemy are
initiated. Under the Newspaper Libels Act no prosecution for libel
can be commenced against the editor, publisher or proprietor of any
newspaper, without the written fiat of the Public Prosecutor. This post
is occupied by Sir John Maule, who enjoys a salary of L2,000 a year, and
has the assistance of a well-appointed office in his strenuous
labors. _Punch_ once pictured him fast asleep before the fire, with a
handkerchief over his face, while all sorts of unprosecuted criminals
plied their nefarious trades; and Mr. Justice Hawkins (I think) has
denounced him as a pretentious farce. He is practically irresponsible,
unlike the Attorney-General, who, being a member of the Government,
is amenable to public opinion. Press laws, except in cases of personal
libel, ought not to be neglected or enforced at the discretion of such
an official. Every interference with freedom of speech, whenever it is
deemed necessary, should be undertaken by the Government, or at least
have its express sanction. Nothing of the sort happened in our case. On
the contrary, Sir John Maule allowed our prosecution after Sir William
Harcourt had condemned it. The Public Prosecutor set himself above the
Home Secretary. Unfortunately the general press saw nothing anomalous
or dangerous in such a state of things; for an official like Sir John
Maule, while ready enough to sanction the prosecution of an unpopular
journal, which presumably has few friends, is naturally reluctant, as
events have shown, to allow proceedings against a powerful journal whose
friends may be numerous and influential. Fortunately, however, a Select
Committee of the House of Commons has taken a more sensible view of the
Public Prosecutor and the duties he has so muddled, and recommended
the abolition of his office. Should this step be taken, his duties will
probably be performed by the Solicitor-General, and the press will be
freed from a danger it had not the sense or the courage to avert. As for
Sir John Maule, he will of course retire with a big pension, and live in
fat ease for the rest of his sluggish life.
CHAPTER III. MR. BRADLAUGH INCLUDED.
Mr. Maloney obtained his summons against Mr. Bradlaugh, whose name was
included in a new document which was served on all of us. I have lost
our first Summons, but I am able to give a copy of the second. It ran
thus:
"TO WILLIAM JAMES RAMSEY, of 28 Stonecutter Street, in the City
of London, and 20 Brownlow Street, Dalston, in the county of
Middlesex; GEORGE WILLIAM FOOTE, of 9 South Crescent, Bedford
Square, in the county of Middlesex; EDWARD WILLIAM WHITTLE, of
170 Saint John Street, Clerkenwell, in the county of Middlesex;
and CHARLES BRADLAUGH, of 20 Circus Road, Saint John's Wood, in
the county of Middlesex, and 28 Stonecutter Street, in the City
of London.
"Whereas you have this day been charged before the under-signed,
the Lord Mayor of the City of London, being one of Her Majesty's
justices of the peace in and for the said City, and the liberties
thereof, by Sir Henry Tyler, of Dashwood House, 9 New Broad Street,
in the said City, for that you, in the said City, unlawfully did
publish, or cause and procure to be published, certain blasphemous
libels in a newspaper called the _Freethinker_, dated and published
on the days following--that is to say, on the 26th day of March,
1882, on the 9th, 23rd and 30th days of April, 1882, and on the
7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days of May, 1882, and on the 11th and
18th days of June, 1882, against the peace, etc.:
"These are therefore to command you, in Her Majesty's name, to
be and appear before me, on Monday, the 17th day of July, 1882,
at eleven of the clock in the forenoon, at the Mansion House
Justice-Room, in the said City, or before such other justice
or justices of the peace for the same City as may then be there,
to answer to the said charge, and to be further dealt with
according to law. Herein fail not.
"Given under my hand and seal, this 12th day of July, in the
year of our Lord 1882, at the Mansion House Justice-Room,
aforesaid.
"WHITTAKER ELLIS, Lord Mayor, London."
On the following Monday, July 17, the junior Member for Northampton
stood beside us in the Mansion House dock. The court was of course
crowded, and a great number of people stood outside waiting for a chance
of admission. The Lord Mayor considerately allowed us seats on hearing
that the case would occupy a long time, a piece of attention which he
might also have displayed on the previous Tuesday. It seems extremely
unjust that men who are defending themselves, who need all their
strength for the task, and who may after all be innocent, should be
obliged to stand for hours in a crowded court in the dog-days, and waste
half their energies in the perfectly gratuitous exertion of maintaining
their physical equilibrium.
I shall not describe the proceedings before the Lord Mayor on this
occasion. Properly speaking, it was Mr. Bradlaugh's day, and some time
or other its incidents will be recorded in his biography. Suffice it to
say that he showed his usual legal dexterity, sat on poor Mr. Maloney,
and sadly puzzled the Lord Mayor. I must, however, refer to one point,
as it illustrates the high Christian morality of our prosecutors. Mr.
Maloney had obtained an illegal order from the Lord Mayor to inspect Mr.
Bradlaugh's bank account, and armed with this order, which, even if it
were legal, would not have extended beyond the limits of the City, this
enterprising barrister had overhauled the books of the St. John's
Wood Branch of the London and South-Western Bank. Lord Coleridge's
astonishment at this unheard-of proceeding was only equalled by his
trenchant sarcasm on the Lord Mayor as a legal functionary, and his
bitter cold sneer at Mr. Maloney, who, it further appeared, had actually
played the part of an amateur detective, by setting street policemen to
watch Mr. Bradlaugh's entries and exits from his publishing office.
On the following Friday, July 21, the hearing of our case was resumed.
We were all committed for trial at the Old Bailey, with the exception of
Mr. Whittle, the printer, against whom the prosecution was abandoned on
the ground that he had ceased to print the _Freethinker_. This was an
unpleasant fact, and alas! it was only one of a good many I shall have
to relate presently.
Before our committal I essayed to read a brief protest against the
prosecution, which I had carefully prepared. In defiance of the statute,
the Lord Mayor refused to hear it. An altercation then ensued, and I
should have insisted on my right unless stopped by brute force; but
on his lordship promising that a copy should be attached to the
depositions, I yielded in order to let Mr. Bradlaugh have a full
opportunity of stigmatising Sir Henry Tyler, who had left his
questionable business at Dashwood House during a part of the day, to
gloat over the spectacle of his enemy in a criminal dock.
Some portions of my half-suppressed protest ought not to be omitted
in this history. After dealing in a few lines with the origin of the
Blasphemy Laws, censuring the conduct of Sir Henry Tyler, and alluding
to Sir. William Harcourt's reply to Mr. Freshfield, I expressed myself
as follows:
"What, indeed, do the prosecutors hope or expect to gain?
Freethought is no longer a weak, tentative, apologetic thing;
it is strong, bold, and aggressive; and no law could now suppress
it except one of extermination. Every breach made in its ranks
by imprisonment would be instantly filled; and as punishment
is not eternal on this side of death, the imprisoned man would
some day return to his old place, fiercer than ever for the fight,
and inflamed with an unappeasable hatred of the religion whose
guardians prefer punishment to persuasion, and supplement the
weakness of argument by the force of brutality.
"Blasphemy is a very general offence if we take even the lenient
definitions of Sir James Stephen in his 'Digest of the Criminal Law.'
All who publicly advocate the disestablishment of the Church
are guilty under one clause, and half the leading writers of
our age are guilty under another. It is difficult to find a
book by any eminent scientist or thinker which does not contain
open or covert attacks on Christianity and Scripture, and the
Archbishop of Canterbury has pathetically complained that it
is dangerous to introduce high-class magazines to the family
circle, because they are nearly sure to contain a large quantity
of scepticism. Why are these propagators of heresy never molested?
Because it would be perilous to touch them. Prosecutions are
always reserved for those who are unprotected by wealth and
position. Heresy in expensive books for the upper classes is
safe, but heresy in cheap publications for the people incurs
a terrible danger. The one is flattered and conciliated, while
the other is liable at any moment to be put on its defence in
a criminal court, and is always at the mercy of any man who may
choose to indulge his political animosity, his social enmity,
or his private spite.
"Blasphemy is entirely a matter of opinion. What is blasphemy
in one country is piety in another. Progress tends to reduce
it from a crime to an affair of taste. To deal with it in the
bad spirit of the old laws, which are only unrepealed because
they have been treated as obsolete, is to outrage the conscience
of civilisation, and to violate that liberty of the press which
Bentham justly called 'the foundation of all other liberties.'
If opinions are not forced on people's attention, if they are
expressed in publications which are sold, which can be patronised
or neglected, and which must be deliberately sought before they
can be read; then, unless they contain incitements to crime,
they are entitled to immunity from molestation, and to interfere
with them is the height of gratuitous impertinence."
In the ordinary course our Indictment would have been tried at the Old
Bailey. The grand jury found a true bill against us, after being charged
by the Recorder, Sir Thomas Chambers, who addressed them as fellow
Christians, quite forgetful of the fact that Jews and Deists are
eligible as jurymen no less than orthodox believers. According to the
newspapers this bigot described our blasphemous libels as "shocking,"
and said that "it was impossible for any Christian man to read them
without feeling that they came within that description, and they ought
to return a true bill." This same Sir Thomas Chambers is a patron of
piety, especially when it takes the form of aggressive polemics. Some
time afterwards he joined a committee, with the late Lord Shaftesbury,
Lord Mayor Fowler, and other religious worthies, whose object was to
raise a testimonial to Samuel Kinns, an obscure author who has written a
stupid volume on "Moses and Geology" for the purpose of showing that the
book of Genesis, to use Huxley's expression, contains the beginning and
the end of sound science. It thus appears that a Christian magistrate
may subscribe (or, which is quite as pious and far more economical,
induce others to subscribe) for the confutation of heretics, and
afterwards send them to gaol for not being confuted. What a glorious
commentary on the great truth that England is a free country, and that
Christianity relies entirely on the force of persuasion! Fortunately,
however, our case was not tried at the Old Bailey. Mr. Bradlaugh
obtained a writ of _certiorari_ removing the indictment to the Court
of Queen's Bench, where our case was put in the Crown List, and did not
come on for hearing until two months after I was imprisoned on another
indictment. Mr. Bradlaugh obtained the writ on July 29, 1882. It was
during the long vacation, and we had to appear before more than one
judge in chambers, Mr. Justice Stephen being the one who granted the
writ. I remember roaming the Law Courts with Mr. Bradlaugh that morning.
We went from office to office in the most perplexing manner. Everything
seemed designed to baffle suitors who conduct their own cases. Obsolete
technicalities, only half intelligible even to experts, met one at every
turn, and when I left the Law Courts I felt that the thing was indeed
done, but that it would almost puzzle omniscience to do it again in
exactly the same way. Over seven pounds was spent in stamps, documents,
and other items; and I was informed that a solicitor's charges for the
morning's work would have exceeded thirty pounds. Securities for costs
were required to the extent of six hundred pounds, and of course they
had to be given. Yet we were merely seeking justice and a fair trial! As
I walked home I pondered the great truth that England is a free country,
and that there is one law for the rich and the poor; yet I reflected
that as only the rich could afford it, the poor might as well have no
law at all.
I have already referred to our printer's defection. Acting under advice,
Mr. Whittle declined to print the Comic Bible Sketch in the number for
July 16, and the following week he refused to print at all. He announced
this decision after all the type was set up and the "formes" were
almost ready for the press. Only forty-eight hours remained before the
_Freethinker_ was due. During that period, in company with my friend and
sub-editor, Mr. J. M. Wheeler, I made desperate efforts to get a printer
to undertake the work. At last I discovered a Freethinker who placed his
inadequate resources at my disposal. He could only set up four pages of
type, and only print copies with a hand-press. Even that was better than
nothing; anything being preferable to lowering the flag in the heat of
battle. But alas! fate is stronger than gods or men. I was foiled at the
last moment, just as victory seemed within my grasp; _how_ I forbear
to explain, although the incidents of that eventful day would form an
interesting chapter of my Autobiography. Enough copies were pulled
to constitute a legal issue of the paper, and one of these is safely
deposited in the British Museum; but none were printed for the market,
and it was everywhere reported that the _Freethinker_ was dead.
Christian Evidence lecturers joyously announced the fact at their
meetings, and Mr. Maloney ironically alluded to it in Court. I bore all
these taunts with grim silence, which was at last broken, not by words,
but by deeds. These people did not know that the _Freethinker_, like the
founder of their faith, had disappeared one week only to reappear
the next. With the aid of Mr. Ramsey, who again stood by our side,
we succeeded in restoring our paper to the light of day. Type was
purchased, compositors were engaged, and a little shop was taken in Harp
Alley. The _Freethinker_ for July 30 struck astonishment into the souls
of those who had rejoiced over its death when they saw no _Freethinker_
for July 23. From that moment our issue was never once suspended,
although we had some desperate close shaves.
In the number for August 6, as I could not get our machiner to print any
Comic Bible Sketches just then, I published a serious one, reproduced
from an old Dutch Bible of 1669. It represented Moses obtaining a
panoramic view of Jehovah's back parts. Below the text I inserted the
following notice: "As the bigots object to our Comic Bible Sketches, we
shall publish a few Serious Bible Sketches, copied accurately from
old Bibles of the ages of faith, to show what the Christians have done
themselves in the way of familiar interpretation. We hope the bigots
will like the change." By the next week, however, I had overcome our
machiner's scruples, and the Comic Bible Sketches were resumed and
continued up to the day of my imprisonment.
My attitude towards the prosecution is amply expressed by these
facts, but a few words from my pen at that time may not be altogether
superfluous. In an article entitled "Crucify Him!" in the _Freethinker_
of August 6, 1882, I wrote:
"We are charged with blasphemy, and so was Jesus Christ. What
a grim joke it will be if the _Freethinker_ is found guilty and
punished for the same crime as the preacher of the Sermon on
the Mount! Truly adversity makes us acquainted with strange
bedfellows.
"Yet, whatever happens, we will not quail. We will not vapor
about legions of angels, but trust in the living legions of
Freethought. We will not yield to the weakness of an agony
and bloody sweat, nor pray that the cup may pass from us, nor
cry out that we are forsaken; for our sources of strength are
all within us, and cannot be taken away. We have a sense of
truth, a conviction of right, and a spirit of courage, caught
from the gallant men who fought before. Let the bigots do
their worst; they will not break our spirit nor extinguish our
cause. Let the Christian mob clamor as loudly as they can,
'Crucify him, crucify him!' They will not daunt us. We look
with prophetic eyes over all the tumult, and see in the distance
the radiant form of Liberty, bearing in her left hand the olive
branch and in her right hand the sword, the holy victress,
destined by treaty or conquest to bring the whole world under
her sway. And across all the din we hear her great rich voice,
banishing despair, inspiring hope, and infusing a joyous ardour
in every nerve."
From the first I was sure that the Freethought party would support those
who were fighting its battle, and I was not deceived. The _Freethinker_
Defence Fund was liberally subscribed to throughout the country, several
working men putting by a few pence every week for the purpose; and as I
travelled up and down on my lecturing tours I experienced everywhere
the heartiest greetings. I saw that the party's blood was up, and that
however it might ultimately fare with me, the battle would be fought to
the bitter end.
Considerable controversy took place in the daily and weekly press.
Professor W. A. Hunter contributed a timely letter to the _Daily News_,
in which he described the Blasphemy Laws as "a weapon always ready to
the hand of mischievous fools or designing knaves." Mr. G. J. Holyoake
wrote in his usual vein of covert attack on Freethinkers in danger. Mrs.
Besant joined in the fray anonymously, and a letter appeared also
from my own pen. There were articles on the subject in the provincial
newspapers, and amongst the London journals I must especially commend
the _Weekly Dispatch_, which never wavered in faithfulness to its
Liberal traditions, and stood firm in its censure of our prosecution
from first to last, even when other journals turned from the path of
religious liberty, proved traitors to their principles, and joined the
bigots in their cry of "To prison, to prison!" against the obnoxious
heretics.
For some time after this we pursued the even tenor of our way. Many of
the wholesale newsagents, who had been frightened when our prosecution
was initiated, regained confidence and resumed their orders. Early in
October we removed from Harp Alley to 28 Stonecutter Street, which had
just been vacated by the Freethought Publishing Company, and which has
ever since been the publishing office of the _Freethinker_. About the
same time I issued a pamphlet entitled "Blasphemy no Crime," a copy of
which was sent to every newspaper in the United Kingdom. It traversed
the whole field of discussion, and gave a brief history of past
prosecutions for Blasphemy, as well as the principal facts of our own
case. In November I announced the preparation of the second Christmas
Number of the _Freethinker_, the publication for which I paid the
penalty of twelve months' imprisonment. Before, however, I deal fully
with that awful subject I will redeem my promise to inform my readers of
the nature of our indictment, and what were the actual charges preferred
against us by Sir Henry Tyler on behalf of the insulted universe.
CHAPTER IV. OUR INDICTMENT.
Our Indictment covered twenty-eight large folios, and contained sixteen
Counts. Of course we had to pay for a copy of it; for although a
criminal is supposed to enjoy the utmost fair play, and according to
legal theory is entitled to every advantage in his defence, as a matter
of fact, unless he is able to afford the cost of a copy, he has no right
to know the contents of his Indictment until he stands in the dock to
plead to it.
It was evidently drawn up by someone grossly ignorant of the Bible. The
Apocalypse was described as the "Book of Revelations," and the Gadarean
swine came out as Gadderean. Probably Sir Henry Tyler and Sir Hardinge
Giffard knew as much of the Scriptures they strove to imprison us for
disputing as the person who drew up our Indictment. Mr. Cluer caused
some amusement in the Court of Queen's Bench when, in the gravest
manner, he drew attention to these errors. Lord Coleridge as gravely
replied that he could not take judicial cognisance of them. Whereupon
Mr. Cluer quietly observed that he was ready to produce the authorised
version of the Bible in court in a few minutes, as he had a copy in his
chambers. This remark elicited a smile from Lord Coleridge, a broad grin
from the lawyers in Court, and a titter from the crowd. It was perfectly
understood that a gentleman of the long robe might prosecute anybody for
blasphemy against the Bible and its Deity, but the idea of a barrister
having a copy of the "sacred volume" in his chambers was really too
absurd for belief.
The preamble charged us, in the stock language of Indictments for
Blasphemy, as may be seen on reference to Archibold, with "being wicked
and evil-disposed persons, and disregarding the laws and religion of the
realm, and wickedly and profanely devising and intending to asperse and
vilify Almighty God, and to bring the Holy Scriptures and the Christian
Religion into disbelief and contempt."
The first observation I have to make on this wordy jumble is, that
it seems highly presumptuous on the part of weak men to defend the
character of "Almighty God." Surely they might leave him to protect
himself. Omnipotence is _able_ to punish those who offend it, and
Omniscience knows _when_ to punish. Man's interference is grossly
impertinent. When the emperor Tiberius was asked by an informer to allow
proceedings against one who had "blasphemed the gods," he replied: "No,
let the gods defend their own honor." Christian rulers have not yet
reached that level of justice and common sense.
Next, it was flagrantly unjust to accuse us of aspersing and vilifying
Almighty God at all. The _Freethinker_ had simply assailed the
reputation of the god of the Bible, a tribal deity of the Jews,
subsequently adopted by the Christians, whom James Mill had described
as "the most perfect conception of wickedness which the human mind
can devise." What difference, I ask, is there between that strong
description and the sentence quoted from the _Freethinker_ in our
Indictment, which declared the same being as "cruel as a Bashi-Bazouk
and bloodthirsty as a Bengal tiger"? The one is an abstract and the
other a concrete expression of the same view; the one is philosophical
and the other popular; the one is a cold statement and the other a
burning metaphor. To allow the one to circulate with impunity, and to
punish the other with twelve months' imprisonment, is to turn a literary
difference into a criminal offence.
Further, as Sir James Stephen has observed, it is absurd to talk about
bringing "the Holy Scriptures and the Christian religion into disbelief
and contempt." One of these words is clearly superfluous. Considering
the extraordinary pretensions of the Bible and Christianity, it
is difficult to see how they could be brought into contempt more
effectually than by bringing them into disbelief.
But greater absurdities remain. Our Indictment averred that we had
published certain Blasphemous Libels "to the great displeasure of
Almighty God, to the scandal of the Christian religion and the Holy
Bible or Scriptures, and against the peace of our Lady the Queen, her
crown and dignity." Let us analyse this legal jargon.
How did our prosecutors learn that we displeased Almighty God? In what
manner did Sir Henry Tyler first become aware of the fact? Was it,
in the ancient fashion, revealed to him in a dream, or did it come by
direct inspiration? What was the exact language of the aggrieved Deity?
Did he give Sir Henry Tyler a power of attorney to defend his character
by instituting a prosecution for libel? If so, where is the document,
and who will prove the signature? And did the original party to the suit
intimate his readiness to be subpoenaed as a witness at the trial? All
these are very important questions, but there is no likelihood of their
ever being answered.
"The scandal of the Christian Religion" is an impertinent joke.
Christianity, as Lord Coleridge remarked, is no longer, as the old
judges used to rule, part and parcel of the law of England. I argued the
matter at considerable length in addressing the jury, and his lordship
supported my contention with all the force of his high authority. After
pointing out that at one time Jews, Roman Catholics, and Nonconformists
of all sorts--in fact every sect outside the State Church--were under
heavy disabilities for religion and regarded as hardly having civil
rights, and that undoubtedly at that time the doctrines of the
Established religion were part and parcel of the law of the land, Lord
Coleridge observed, as I had done, that "Parliament, which is supreme
and binds us all, has enacted statutes which make that view of the law
no longer applicable." I had also pointed out that there might be a Jew
on the jury. His lordship went further, and remarked that there might be
a Jew on the bench. His words were these:
"Now, so far as I know, a Jew might be Lord Chancellor; most
certainly he might be Master of the Rolls. The great and
illustrious lawyer [Sir George Jessel] whose loss the whole
profession is deploring, and in whom his friends know that they
lost a warm friend and a loyal colleague; he, but for the accident
of taking his office before the Judicature Act came into operation,
might have had to go circuit, might have sat in a criminal court
to try such a case as this, might have been called upon, if
the law really be that 'Christianity is part of the law of the
land' in the sense contended for, to lay it down as law to a jury,
amongst whom might have been Jews,--that it was an offence
against the law, as blasphemy, to deny that Jesus Christ was
the Messiah, a thing which he himself did deny, which Parliament
had allowed him to deny, and which it is just as much part of
the law that anyone may deny, as it is your right and mine, if
we believe it, to assert."
Clearly then, according to the dictum of the Lord Chief Justice, it
is not a crime to publish anything "to the scandal of the Christian
Religion," although it was alleged against us as such in our Indictment.
The only real point that can be discussed and tested is in the last
clause. I do not refer to the Queen's "crown and dignity," which we were
accused of endangering; for our offence could not possibly be construed
as a political one, and it is hard to perceive how the Queen's dignity
could be imperilled by the act of any person except herself. What I
refer to is the statement that we had provoked a disturbance of the
peace; a more hypocritical pretence than which was never advanced. I
venture to quote here a passage from my address to the jury on my third
trial before Lord Coleridge:--
"A word, gentlemen, about breach of the peace. Mr. Justice
Stephen said well, that no temporal punishment should be inflicted
for blasphemy unless it led to a breach of the peace. I have
no objection to that, provided we are indicted for a breach
of the peace. Very little breach of the peace might make a
good case of blasphemy. A breach of the peace in a case like
this must not be constructive; it must be actual. They might
have put somebody in the witness-box who would have said that
reading the _Freethinker_ had impaired his digestion and disturbed
his sleep. They might have even found somebody who said it
was thrust upon him, and that, he was induced to read it, not
knowing its character. Gentlemen, they have not attempted to
prove that any special publicity was given to it outside the circle
of the people who approved it. They have not even shown there
was an advertisement of it in any Christian or religious paper.
They have not even told you that any extravagant display was
made of it; and I undertake to say that you might never have
known of it if the prosecution had not advertised it. How can
all this be construed as a breach of the peace? Our Indictment
says we have done all this, to the great displeasure of Almighty
God, and to the danger of our Lady the Queen, her crown and dignity.
You must bear that in mind. The law-books say again and again
that a blasphemous libel is punished, not because it throws
obloquy on the deity--the protection of whom would be absurd--
but because it tends to a breach of the peace. It is preposterous
to say such a thing tends to a breach of the peace. If you want
that you must go to the Salvation Army. They have a perfect
right to their ideas--I have nothing to say about them; but
their policy has led to actual breaches of the peace; and even
in India, where, according to the law, no prosecution could
be started against a paper like the _Freethinker_, many are
sent to gaol because they will insist upon processions in
the street. We have not caused tumult in the streets. We
have not sent out men with banners and bands in which each
musician plays more or less his own tune. We have not sent
out men who make hideous discord, and commit a common nuisance.
Nothing of the sort is alleged. A paper like this had to be
bought and our utterances had to be sought. We have not done
anything against the peace. I give the Indictment an absolute
denial. To talk of danger to the peace is only a mask to hide
the hideous and repulsive features of intolerance and persecution.
They don't want to punish us because we have assailed religion,
but because we have endangered the peace. Take them at their
word, gentlemen. Punish us if we have endangered the peace,
and not if we have assailed religion; and as you know we have
not endangered the peace, you will of course bring in a verdict
of Not Guilty. Gentlemen, I hope you will by your verdict to-day
champion that great law of liberty which is challenged--the law
of liberty which implies the equal right of everyman, while he
does not trench upon the equal right of every other man, to print
what he pleases for people who choose to buy and read it, so
long as he does not libel men's characters or incite people
to the commission of crime."
Appealing now to a far larger jury in the high court of public opinion,
I ask whether Freethinkers are not one of the most orderly sections of
the community. Why should we resort to violence, or invoke it, or
even countenance it, when our cardinal principle is the sovereignty of
reason, and our hope of progress lies in the free play of mind on every
subject? We are perhaps more profoundly impressed than others with the
idea that all institutions are the outward expression of inward thoughts
and feelings, and that it is impossible to forestall the advance of
public sentiment by the most cunningly-devised machinery. We are _par
excellence_ the party of order, though not of stagnation. It is a
striking and pregnant fact that Freethought meetings are kept peaceful
and orderly without any protection by the police. At St. James's Hall,
London, the only demonstrations, I believe, for which the services of
a certain number of policemen are not charged for in the bill with the
rent, are those convened by Mr. Bradlaugh and his friends.
Lord Coleridge, ostensibly but not actually following Michaelis, raised
the subtle argument that as people's feelings are very tender on the
subject of religion, and the populace is apt to take the law into its
own hands when there is no legal method of expressing its anger and
indignation, "some sort of blasphemy laws reasonably enforced may be
an advantage even to those who differ from the popular religion of
a country, and who desire to oppose and to deny it." But this is an
inversion of the natural order of things. What reason is there in
imprisoning an innocent man because some one meditates an assault
upon him? Would it not be wiser and juster to restrain the intending
criminal, as is ordinarily done? I object to being punished because
others cannot keep their tempers; and I say further, that to punish a
man, not because he has injured others, but for his own good, is the
worst form of persecution. During the many years of my public advocacy
of Freethought in all parts of Great Britain, both before and since my
imprisonment, I have never been in a moment's danger of violence and
outrage. I never witnessed any irritation which could not be allayed
by a persuasive word, or any disturbance that could not be quelled by a
witticism. With all deference to Lord Coleridge, whom no one admires
and respects more than I do, I would rather the law left me to my own
resources, and only interfered to protect me when I need its assistance.
Now for the counts of our Indictment. There is danger in writing about
them, as it is held that the publication of matter found blasphemous
by a jury, except in a legal report for the profession, is itself
blasphemy, and may be punished as such. I am not, however, likely to be
deterred from my purpose by this consideration. On the other hand, as
the incriminated passages were all carefully selected from many numbers
of a journal never remarkable for its tender treatment of orthodoxy,
I do not see any particular advantage to be derived from their
republication. They are, of course, far more calculated to shock
religious susceptibilities (if these are to be considered) when they are
picked out and ranked together than when they stand amid their
context in their original places. Such a process of selection would be
exceedingly hard on any paper or book handling very advanced ideas, and
very backward ones, in a spirit of great freedom. Nay, it would prove
a severe trial to most works of real value, whose scope extended beyond
the respectabilities. Not to mention Byron's caustic remarks on the
peculiar expurgation of Martial in Don Juan's edition, it is obvious
that the Bible and Shakespeare could both be proved obscene by this
process; and setting aside ancient literature altogether, half our own
classics, before the age of Wordsworth and Scott, would come under the
same condemnation. I know I am intruding among my betters; but I do not
claim equality with them; I merely ask the same liberal judgment. A man
is no more to be judged by a few casual sentences from his pen, without
any reference to all the rest, than he is to be judged by a few casual
expressions he may let fall in a year's conversation.
Curiously, in all those twenty-eight folios of blasphemy, only three
sentences were from my own pen, and two of them were extracted from long
articles. One was a jocose reference to the Jewish tribal god, who, as
Keunen allows, was carried about, probably as a stone fetish, in that
wooden box known as the "ark of the covenant." Another occurred in a
long review of Jules Soury's remarkable book on the subject of Jesus
Christ's hallucinations and eccentricities, in which he endeavors to
show that the Prophet of Nazareth passed through certain recognised
stages of brain disease. Referring to the close of his career, I wrote
that, "When Jesus made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem he was
plainly crazed." That one sentence was picked out from a long review,
running through three numbers of the _Freethinker_, and filling six
columns of print. The third sentence was a satirical comment on the
sensational and blasphemous title of Dr. Parker's book on "The Inner
Life of Christ." I asked, "How did he contrive to get inside his maker?"
There was a fourth sentence I wrote for the _Freethinker_, but as it was
a verbatim report of some Bedlamite observations of a Salvationist at
Halifax, published, as I said, "to show what is being done and said in
the name of Christianity," I decline to be held responsible for it. Let
General Booth be answerable for the blasphemies of his own followers.
All the other passages in the Indictment were from the pens of
contributors, over whom, as they signed their articles, I never held
a tight rein. They were mostly amplifications of the sentence I have
already quoted about the cruel character of the Bible God. I did not,
however, dwell on this fact in my address to the jury. I took the full
responsibility, and fought my contributors' battle as well my own. I
bore their iniquities, the chastisement of their peace was upon me, and
by my stripes they were healed.
Four of the Comic Bible Sketches were included in the Indictment. They
appeared in the _Freethinker_ on the following dates:--January 29, April
23, May 28, and June 11 (1882). Readers who care to see what they were
like can refer to the file in the British Museum. Those illustrations
have not been declared blasphemous, for when the Indictment I have been
explaining was tried before Lord Coleridge, the jury, after several
hours' deliberation, could not agree to a verdict of Guilty.
The Indictment on which I was found guilty, and sentenced to twelve
months' imprisonment, was a later one. It was based on the Christmas
Number, 1882, to which I previously referred. Let me now give a brief
history of my second prosecution.
CHAPTER V. ANOTHER PROSECUTION.
In the month of November (1882) I announced my intention to bring out
a new monthly magazine entitled _Progress_. Several friends thought it
impolitic to launch my new venture in such troubled waters, and advised
me to wait for the issue of the prosecution. But I resolved to act
exactly as though the prosecution had never been initiated. It seemed to
me the wisest course to go on with my work until I was stopped, and risk
the consequences whatever they might be. The result has proved that I
was right; but I do not wish to boast of my judgment, for when I was
imprisoned all my interests were fearfully imperilled, and everything
depended on the loyal exertions of a few staunch Freethinkers (of whom
more anon) who stepped into the breach and defended them with great
courage and ability until I was able to resume my post. _Progress_
made its due appearance in January, 1883, and, notwithstanding the
extraordinary vicissitudes of its career, it has flourished ever since
without any solution of continuity.
While I was advertising _Progress_ I was also preparing the second
Christmas Number of the _Freethinker_. The announcement of its contents
caused a great deal of excitement, and I am prepared to admit that it
was, to use a common phrase, the "warmest" publication ever issued. It
was full from cover to cover of what the orthodox call blasphemy, and it
was speedily described by the Christian press as more "outrageous" than
any of the ordinary numbers for which we were already prosecuted.
The description was perfectly correct. I had concluded that my wisest
policy, as it was certainly the most courageous, was to disregard the
Blasphemy Laws and defy the bigots; to show that Freethought was not
to be cowed or intimidated by threats of imprisonment. Facing the enemy
boldly appeared to me better than running away; a course in which I
could see neither glory, honor, nor profit. Even if I had consulted my
safety above all things, I should have seen little wisdom in flight; and
being shot in the back, while no less dangerous, is far more ignominious
than being shot in the front. I have paid the full penalty of my policy;
I have suffered twelve months' torture in a Christian gaol; yet I do not
repent the course I took; and ever since my release from prison I
have felt it my duty to continue doing the very thing for which I was
punished.
Being tastefully got-up, well printed, profusely illustrated, and
extensively denounced by the organs of Toryism and piety, this Christmas
Number had a very large sale. Yet, strange as it may sound to some
bigoted ears, Mr. Ramsey and I were after all several pounds out of
pocket by it, the expenses being altogether out of proportion to
the price, and our object being less material gain than the wide
dissemination of our views. With the knowledge of this pecuniary loss
in our minds, it may be imagined how grimly we smiled when the counsel
sternly alluded to our "nefarious profits."
I shall have occasion to deal with the contents of this Christmas Number
when I explain our second Indictment; which, I repeat, as there is
general misunderstanding on the subject, was tried before the first, and
resulted in Judge North's atrocious and almost unparalleled sentence.
During the interval between the publication of this "budget of
blasphemy" and the date of our summons to answer a criminal charge
founded on it, I had several interviews with Mr. E. Truelove, a
gentleman well known to all advanced people in London as a veteran
champion of the freedom as the press. At the age of seventy, after
a long life _sans peur et sans reproche_, this fine old reformer was
dragged by the paid Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice
(or the Vice Society as Cobbett always called it) into a criminal court
to answer a charge of obscenity. The objectionable matter was contained
in an extremely mild, not to say mawkish, essay on the population
question by Robert Dale Owen, a man of literary eminence in the United
States, and once an ambassador of the great Republic. Like ourselves,
Mr. Truelove was tried twice before a verdict of guilty could be
obtained. His sentence was four months' imprisonment like a common
felon. Mr. Truelove was indisposed to reveal the secrets of his
prison-house out of a tender regard for my feelings, but seeing that I
preferred to know the worst, he told me all about the felon's cell,
the plank bed, the oakum picking, the wretched diet, and the horribly
monotonous life. My chief feeling on hearing this sad tale was one
of indignation at the thought that a man of honest convictions and
blameless life should be subjected to such privations and indignities.
It did not weaken my resolution; it only deepened my hatred of the
system which sanctioned such iniquities.
From America, however, came a piece of bitter-sweet news. Mr. D. M.
Bennett, editor of the New York _Truthseeker_, had just died. His
end was hastened by the heart-disease he contracted while undergoing
imprisonment for an "offence" similar to that of Mr. Truelove. Yet
almost at the moment of Mr. Bennett's death, another jury had found
another publisher of the very same work Not Guilty. I learned from the
New York papers that the acquittal was partly due to the impartiality
of the judge, partly to the progress the public mind had made on the
population question, and partly to the fact that the accused publisher
conducted his own defence. Here was a gleam of hope. I also might
meet with an impartial judge, I also might find a jury reflecting an
enlightened public opinion, and I also was resolved to defend myself.
Alas! I did not know that I was to meet with the most bigoted judge
on the bench, and to plead to a jury exactly calculated to effect his
vindictive purpose.
On Thursday, December 7, 1882, we published our second Christmas Number
of the Freethinker. I will deal with its contents presently, when I have
narrated how it led to our second prosecution. Let it here suffice
to say that it was undoubtedly a very "warm" publication, and well
calculated to arouse the slumbering Blasphemy Laws. Some Freethinkers
even were astonished at its audacity. A few belonging to an
old-fashioned school, and a few more who were assiduously courting
"respectability," resented our action; although, as the vast majority
of our party were of an opposite opinion, they refrained from expressing
their reprobation too loudly. In reply to their murmurs I wrote an
article in my paper on "Superstitious Freethinkers." It appeared in the
number for December 31, and thus appropriately closed a year of combat.
A few passages are, perhaps, worth insertion here.
"It has been said of Robert Burns that, although his head and
heart rejected Calvinism, he never quite got it out of his blood.
There is much truth in this metaphor. Burns was, in religious
matters, one of a very large class. Many men rid their intellects
of a superstition, without being able to resist its power over
their feelings. Even so profound a sceptic as Renan has admitted
that his life is guided by a faith he no longer possesses. And
we are all familiar with instances of the same thing..."
"Reverting to avowed Freethinkers, it is evident that some of
them who have lost belief in God are afraid to speak too loud
lest he should overhear them. 'How old are you, Monsieur
Fontenelle?' asked a pretty young French lady. 'Hush, not so
loud, dear Madame!' replied the witty nonagenarian, pointing
upwards. What Fontenelle did as a piece of graceful wit, some
Freethinkers do without any wit at all. They object to laughing
at the gods, whether Christian, Brahmanic or Mohammedan; and
perhaps they would extend the same friendly consideration to
Mumbo Jumbo. Strange that people should be so tender about
ghosts! Especially when they don't even believe them to be
real ghosts. To the Atheist all gods are fancies, mere
delusions (not _illusions_), like the philosopher's stone,
witchcraft, astrology, holy water and miracles. I am as much
entitled to ridicule the gods of Christianity as any other
Freethinker is entitled to ridicule the miracles at Lourdes;
and when 'taste' is dragged into the question, I simply reply
that there is as much ill taste in the one case as in the other.
All that this 'taste' can mean is that no devout delusion should
be ridiculed, which is itself one of the greatest pieces of
absurdity ever perpetrated. It would shield every form of
'spiritual' lunacy in the world.
"These squeamish Freethinkers don't object to ridicule in
politics, literature or social life. They rather approve _Punch_
and the other comic journals, even when these satirise living
persons who feel the sting. Why, then, do they object to ridicule
in religion? Simply because they still _feel_ that there is
something sacred about it. Now I insist that on the Atheist's
principles there can be no such sacredness, and I decline to
recognise it. I take the full consequences and claim the full
liberty of my belief.
"Christians may, of course, urge that their _feelings_ on such
a subject as religion _are sacred_, and a few superstitious
Freethinkers may concede this monstrous position. I do not.
The feelings of a Christian about Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
are no more sacred than my feelings on any other subject.
I have no quarrel with persons, and I recognise how many are
hurt by satire. But the world is not to be regulated by their
feelings, and much as I respect them, I have a greater respect
for truth. Every mental weapon is valid against mental error.
And as ridicule has been found the most potent weapon of religious
enfranchisement, we are bound to use it against the wretched
superstitions which cumber the path of progress. Intellectually,
it is as absurd to give quarter as it is absurd to expect it.
"My answer to the Freethinkers who would coquet with Christianity,
and gain a fictitious respectability by courting compliments
from Christian teachers, is that they are playing with fire.
Let them ponder the lessons of history, and remember Clifford's
bitter word about the evil superstition which destroyed one
civilisation and nearly succeeded in destroying another.
Fortunately, however, the logic of things is against them.
Broad currents of thought go on their way without being deflected
by backwashes, or eddies or spurts into blind passages.
Freethought will sweep on with its main volume, and dash against
every impediment with all its effective force."
Well, I exercised "the full liberty of my belief," and I had to take
its "full consequences." Yet, looking back over my year's torture in a
Christian gaol, my conscience approves that dangerous policy, and I do
not experience a single regret.
In the same number of the _Freethinker_ I referred at some length to
Tyler's prosecution, which was dragging along its slow course in a
way that must have been very provoking to Mr. Bradlaugh's enemies. By
dexterous manoeuvring and skilful pleading, that litigious man, as
the Tories call him, had managed to get two counts struck out of our
Indictment. The result of this to Mr. Ramsey and myself was _nil_, but
it brought great relief to Mr. Bradlaugh, and made his acquittal almost
a matter of certainty.
Meanwhile our Christmas Number was selling rapidly. In a few weeks
it had reached a far larger circulation than had been enjoyed by any
Freethought publication before. Naturally the bigots were enraged,
both by its character and its success. Many religious journals, and
especially the _Rock_, clamored for legal protection against such
"blasphemy." Irate Christians called at our shop in Stonecutter Street,
purchased copies of the obnoxious paper, and, flourishing them in the
faces of Mr. Ramsey and Mr. Kemp, declared that we should "hear more of
this;" to which pious salutation they usually replied by offering their
minatory visitors "a dozen or perhaps a quire at trade price." Similar
busybodies called at Mr. Cattell's shop in Fleet Street, and plied him
with cajoleries when menaces were futile. One of them, indeed, attempted
bribery. He offered Mr. Cattell half a sovereign to remove our Christmas
Number from his window. What a wonderful bigot! That detestable
fraternity has nearly always persecuted heresy at other people's
expense, but this man was willing to tax himself for that laudable
object. Surely he is phenomenal enough to deserve a memorial in
Westminster Abbey, or at least an effigy at Madame Tussaud's.
Presently our shop was visited by another class of men--plain-clothes
detectives. They came in couples, and it was easy to understand their
business. We were, therefore, not surprised when, on January 29, 1883,
we were severally served with the following summons:--
"To GEORGE WILLIAM FOOTE, of No. 9 South Crescent, Bedford Square,
Middlesex; WILLIAM JAMES RAMSEY, of No. 28 Stonecutter Street,
in the City of London, and No. 20 Brownlow Street, Dalston,
Middlesex; and HENRY ARTHUR KEMP, of No. 28 Stonecutter Street,
aforesaid, and No. 15 Harp Alley, Farringdon Street, London, E.C.
_Whereas_ you have this day been charged before the undersigned,
the Lord Mayor of the City of London, being one of her Majesty's
Justices of the Peace in and for the said City and the Liberties
thereof, by JAMES MACDONALD, of No. 7 Burton Road, Brixton,
in the county of Surrey, for that you did in the said City
of London, on the 16th day December, in the year of Our Lord,
1882, and on divers other days, print and publish, and cause
and procure to be printed and published, a certain blasphemous
and impious libel in the Christmas Number for 1882 of a certain
newspaper called the _Freethinker_, against the peace of our
Lady the Queen, her crown and Dignity. These are therefore
to command you, in her Majesty's name, to be and appear before
me on Friday, the second day of February, 1883, at eleven of
the clock in the forenoon, at the Mansion House Justice Room,
in the said City, or before such other Justice or Justices of
the Peace for the same City as may then be there, to answer
to the said charge, and to be further dealt with according to
law. Herein fail not. Given under my hand and seal, this
29th day of January, in the year of Our Lord, 1883, at the
Mansion House Justice-Room aforesaid.
"HENRY E. KNIGHT,
"Lord Mayor, London."
The James Macdonald of this summons, who played the part of a common
informer, turned out to be a police officer. In the ordinary way of
business he went to the Lord Mayor, complained of our blasphemy and his
own lacerated feelings, and applied for a summons against us as a first
step towards punishing us for our sins. What a _reductio ad absurdum_
of the Blasphemy Laws! Instead of ordinary Christians protesting against
our outrages, and demanding our restraint in the interest of the peace,
a callous policeman has to do the work, without a scintilla of feeling
about the matter, just as he might proceed against any ordinary criminal
for theft or assault. The real mover in this business was Sir Thomas
Nelson, the City Solicitor, representing the richest and corruptest
Corporation in the world.
The Corporation of the City of London might be described in the language
which Jesus applied to the Town Council of Jerusalem eighteen centuries
ago--"They devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers."
What could be more hypocritical than such a body posing as the champions
of religion, and especially of the religion of Christ! If the Prophet of
Nazareth were alive again to-day, who would expect to find him at a Lord
Mayor's banquet? Would he frequent the Stock Exchange, be at home in
the Guild-hall and the Mansion House, or select his disciples from the
worshippers in the myriad temples of Mammon? Would he not rather hate
and denounce these modern Pharisees as cordially as they would certainly
hate and denounce him?
If the City Fathers meant to protect the honor of God, they were both
absurd and blasphemous. There is something ineffably ludicrous in the
spectacle of a host of fat aldermen rushing out from their shops
and offices to steady the tottering throne of Omnipotence. And what
presumption on the part of these pigmies to undertake a defence of
deity! Surely Omnipotence is as _able_ to punish as Omniscience knows
_when_ to punish. The theologians who, as Matthew Arnold says, talk
familiarly of God, as though he were a man living in the next street,
are modest in comparison with his self-elected body-guard.
Would it not be better for these presumptuous mortals to mind their own
business? It will be time enough for them to supervise their neighbors
when they have reformed themselves. With all their pretensions to
superior piety and virtue, they are notoriously the greatest ring of
public thieves in the world, and they are at present lavishly expending
trust-monies in a desperate endeavor to justify their turpitude and
prolong their plunder.
According to our summons, Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Kemp, and I appeared at the
Mansion House on Friday, February 2, 1883. The Justice Room was thronged
long before the Lord Mayor took his seat on the Bench, and all the
approaches were crowded by anxious sympathisers. All the evidence was of
a purely formal character. It was a foregone conclusion that we should
be committed for trial. We all three pleaded not guilty and reserved
our defence. Before leaving the Court, however, notwithstanding his
lordship's interruption, I protested against the revival of an old law
which had fallen into desuetude, which had not been enforced in the City
of London for over fifty years, and which was altogether alien to the
spirit of the age. My remarks were greeted with loud applause by the
public in Court. Of course his lordship frowned, and the ushers shouted
"Silence!" But the mischief was done. It was obvious that we had
many friends, that we were not going to be tried in a hole-and-corner
fashion.
Our case excited much interest in London. Most of the newspapers
contained a good report of the proceedings at the Mansion House; and
even the Tory _Evening News_, which affirmed that we were three vulgar
blasphemers undeserving of notice, had as the leading line on its
placard "Prosecution of the _Freethinker_: Result!"
The _Freethinker_ for February 11 contained an article from my pen on
the "Infidel Hunt," and a very admirable article by Mr. Wheeler on "The
Fight of Forty Years Ago," narrating the trials of Southwell, Holyoake,
Paterson, and other brave heretics. Mr. Ramsey did not then quite
approve my attitude of defiance, although he has changed his mind since.
He thought it more prudent to bend a little before the storm, instead
of daring its utmost violence. He was also anxious to please those with
whom he had worked before his partial alliance with me, and who were not
prepared to sanction his continued connexion with the _Freethinker_ if
he wished to remain with them. For these reasons he retired from our
partnership, and I was at once registered as the sole proprietor of the
paper. This step naturally added to the danger of my situation, and
it was freely used against me at the trial. But I had no alternative,
unless the _Freethinker_ was to go down, and that I had resolved
to prevent at any cost. At the same time I engaged to take over Mr.
Ramsey's business at Stonecutter Street, and to recoup him for his heavy
investment; and I am bound to admit that he behaved generously in
all these arrangements. On February 11 the following editorial notice
appeared in my paper:
"With this number of the _Freethinker_ I assume a new position.
The full responsibility for everything in connexion with the
paper henceforth rests with me. I am editor, proprietor,
printer and publisher. My imprint will be put on every
publication issued from 28 Stonecutter Street, and all the
business done there will be transacted through me or my
representatives. This exposes me to fresh perils, but it
simplifies matters. Those who attack the _Freethinker_
after this week will have to attack me singly. I never meant
to give in, and never will so long as my strength serves for
the fight. Whoever else yields, I will submit to nothing but
physical compulsion. If the _Freethinker_ should ever cease
to appear, the Freethought party will know that the fault
is not mine. Certain parts of the mechanical process of
production are dependent on the firmness of others. One
man cannot do everything. But I pledge myself to keep
this Freethought flag flying at every hazard, and if I am
temporarily disabled I pledge myself to unfurl it again,
and if need be again, and again. _De l'audace, et encore
de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace._"
Mr. Wheeler stood loyally by me in this emergency. His efforts for
our common object were untiring, and never was his pen wielded more
brilliantly. Perhaps, indeed he overstrained his energies, and thus led
to the complete breakdown of his health soon after my imprisonment.
A few days later Sir Thomas Nelson, the City Solicitor, served a summons
on Mr. H. C. Cattell of 84 Fleet Street, who had so annoyed the bigots
by exposing the Christmas Number of the _Freethinker_ in his window.
Detectives also visited other newsagents and threatened them with
prosecution if they persisted in selling my paper. It was evident that
the City authorities were bent on utterly suppressing it. They tried
their utmost and they failed.
CHAPTER VI. PREPARING FOR TRIAL.
There were many reasons why I did not wish to be tried at the Old
Bailey. First, it is an ordinary criminal court, with all the vulgar
characteristics of such places: swarms of loud policemen, crowds of
chattering witnesses, prison-warders bent on recognising old offenders,
ushers who look soured by long familiarity with crime, clerks who gabble
over indictments with the voice and manner of a town-crier, barristers
in and out of work, some caressing a brief and some awaiting one; and
a large sprinkling of idle persons, curious after a fresh sensation
and eager to gratify a morbid appetite for the horrible. How could the
greatest orator hope to overcome the difficulties presented by such
surroundings? The most magnificent speech would be shorn of its
splendor, the most powerful robbed of more than half its due effect.
In the next place, I should have to appear in the dock, and address the
jury from a position which seems to require an apology in itself. And,
further, that jury would be a common one, consisting almost entirely of
small tradesmen, the very worst class to try such an indictment.
For these and other reasons I resolved to obtain, if possible, a
_certiorari_ to remove our Indictment to the Court of Queen's Bench; and
as the first Indictment had been so removed, I did not anticipate any
serious difficulty. On Monday, February 19, after travelling by the
night train from Plymouth, where I had delivered three lectures the day
before, I applied before Justices Manisty and Matthew, who granted me
a rule _nisi_. But on the Saturday Sir Hardinge Giffard moved that the
rule should be taken out of its order in the Crown Paper, and argued on
the following Tuesday. Seeing that the Court was determined to assist
him, I acquiesced in the motion rather than waste my time in futile
obstruction. On Tuesday, February 27, Sir Hardinge Giffard duly
appeared, supported by two junior counsel, Mr. Poland and Mr. F. Lewis.
The judges, as on the previous Saturday, were Baron Huddleston and Mr.
Justice North. The former displayed the intensest bigotry and prejudice,
and the latter all that flippant insolence which he subsequently
displayed at my trial, and which appears to be an inseparable part of
his character. When, for instance, I ventured to correct Sir Hardinge
Giffard on a mere matter of fact, as is quite customary in such cases;
when I sought to point out that the Indictment already removed included
Mr. Ramsey and myself, and not Mr. Bradlaugh only; Justice North stopped
me with "Not a word, sir, not a word."
Sir Hardinge Giffard made a very short speech, knowing that such judges
did not require much persuasion. He moved that the rule _nisi_ should be
discharged; put in a copy of the Christmas Number of the _Freethinker_,
which he described as a gross and intentional outrage on the religious
feelings of the public; alleged, as was perfectly true, that it was
still being sold; and urged that the case was one that should be sent
for trial at once.
My reply was longer. After claiming the indulgence of the Court for
having to appear in person, owing to my purse being shorter than the
London Corporation's, I laid before their lordships my reasons for
asking them to make the rule absolute. I argued that, as a press
offence, our case was eminently one for a special jury; that the law
of blasphemy, which had not been interpreted for a generation, was
very indefinite, and a common jury might be easily misled; that as
contradictory statements of the common law existed, it was highly
advisable to have an authoritative judgment in a superior Court; that
grave questions as to the relations of the statute and the common
law might also arise; that it was manifestly unfair, while a sweeping
Indictment for blasphemy was removed to a higher Court, that I should be
compelled to plead in a lower Court on a similar charge; and that it was
unjust to try our case at the Old Bailey when the City Corporation was
prosecuting us.
To none of these reasons, however, did their lordships vouchsafe a reply
or extend a consideration. Baron Huddleston simply held the Christmas
Number of the _Freethinker_ up in Court, and declared that no sane man
could deny that it was a blasphemous libel--a contumelious reproach on
our Blessed Savior. But that was not the point at issue. Whether the
prosecuted publication was a blasphemous libel or not, was a question
for the jury at the proper time and in the proper place. All Baron
Huddleston was concerned with was whether a fairer trial might be
obtained in a higher Court than in a lower one, and before a special
jury than before a common one. That question he never touched, and the
one he did touch he was bound by legal and moral rules not to deal with
at all.
Justice North briefly concurred with his learned brother, and refrained
from adding anything because he would probably have to try the case at
the Old Bailey himself. What a pity he did not reflect on the injustice
of publicly branding as blasphemous the very men he was going to try for
blasphemy within forty-eight hours!
The next morning, February 29, Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Kemp and I duly appeared
at the Old Bailey. Before the regular business commenced, I asked his
lordship (it was indeed Justice North) to postpone our trial until the
next sessions, on the ground that, as my application for a _certiorari_
was only decided the day before, there had been no time to prepare an
adequate defence. His lordship refused to grant us an hour for that
absurd purpose. Directly I sat down Mr. Poland arose, and begged
that our trial might be deferred until the morrow, as his leader, Sir
Hardinge Giffard, was obliged to attend elsewhere. This request was
granted with a gracious smile and a bland, "Of course, Mr. Poland." What
a spectacle! An English judge refusing a fellow-citizen a single hour
for the defence of his liberty and perhaps his life, and granting a
delay of twenty-four hours to enable a brother lawyer to earn his fee!
I spent the rest of that day in preparations for the morrow--writing out
directions for Mr. Wheeler in case I should be sent to prison, arranging
books and documents, and leaving messages with various friends; and
I sat far into the night putting together finally the notes for my
defence. I was quite cool and collected; I neglected nothing I had time
for, and I was dead asleep five minutes after I laid my head on the
pillow. Only for a moment was I even perturbed. It was when I was giving
Mr. Wheeler his last instructions. Pointing to my book-shelves, I said:
"Now, Joe, remember that if Mrs. Foote has any need, or if there should
ever be a hitch with the paper, you are to sell my books--all of them
if necessary." A great sob shook my friend from head to foot. The bitter
truth seemed to strike him with startling force. Imprisonment, and all
it involved, was no longer a dim possibility: it was a grim reality that
might have to be faced to-morrow. "Tut, tut, Joe!" I said, grasping
his arm and laughing. But the laugh was half a failure, and there was a
suspicious moisture in my eyes, which I turned my face away to conceal.
During the day I had a last interview with Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant
at 63 Fleet Street. Mr. Bradlaugh told me he could find no flaw in
our Indictment, and his air was that of a man who sees no hope, but is
reluctant to say so. Mrs. Besant was full of quiet sympathy, proffering
this and that kindness, and showing how much her heart was greater than
her opportunity of assistance.
In the evening I attended the monthly Council meeting of the National
Secular Society. Mr. Ramsey was also present. We both expressed our
belief that we should not meet our fellow-councillors again for some
time, and solemnly wished them good-bye, with a hope that, if we were
sent to prison, they would seize the opportunity, and initiate an
agitation against the Blasphemy Laws. I then drove home, and finished
the notes for my defence.
Early the next morning I was at 28 Stonecutter Street. Being
apprehensive of a fine as well as imprisonment, I made hasty
arrangements for removing the whole of the printing plant to some empty
rooms in a private house. Mr. A. Hilditch was the friend on whom I
relied in this emergency; and I am indebted to him for aid in many other
difficulties arising from my prosecution. My foreman printer, Mr. A.
Watkin, superintended the removal. By the evening not a particle of
our plant remained at the office. Mr. Watkin stuck loyally to his
duty during my long absence, and on my return I found how much the
_Freethinker_ owed to his unassuming devotion.
One ordeal was left. I had to say good-bye to my wife. It was a dreadful
moment. Reticence is wisdom in such cases. I will not inflict sentiment
on the reader, and I was never given to wearing my heart upon my sleeve.
Let it suffice that I fought down even the last weakness. When I stepped
into the Old Bailey dock I was calm and collected. All my energies were
strung for one task--the defence of my own liberty and of the rights of
Freethought.
That very morning the _Freethinker_ appeared with its usual
illustration. It was the last number I edited for twelve months. My
final article was entitled, "No Surrender," and I venture to quote it
in full, as exhibiting my attitude towards the prosecution within the
shadow of the prison walls:--
"The City Corporation is lavishly spending other people's money
in its attempt to put down the _Freethinker_. Sir Thomas Nelson
is keeping the pot boiling. He employs Sir Hardinge Giffard
and a tail of juniors in Court, and half the detectives of
London outside. These surreptitious gentleman, who ought to
be engaged in detecting crime, are busily occupied in purchasing
the _Freethinker_, waylaying newsvendors' messengers, intimidating
shopkeepers, and serving notices on the defendants. What money,
unscrupulously obtained and unscrupulously expended, can do is
being done. But there is one thing it cannot do. It cannot
damp our courage or alienate the sympathy of our friends.
"There is evidently a widespread conspiracy against us. We
have to stand on trial at the Old Bailey in company with rogues,
thieves, burglars, murderers, and other products of Christian
civilisation. The company is not very agreeable, but then Jesus
himself was crucified between two thieves. No doubt the Jews
thought him the worst of the three, just as pious Christians
will think us worse than the vilest criminal at the Old Bailey;
but posterity has reversed the judgment on him, and it will as
certainly reverse the judgment on us.
"If a jury should give a verdict against us, which we trust
it will not, the prosecutors will probably strike again at
some other Freethought publication. The appetite for persecution
grows by what it feeds on, and demands sacrifice after sacrifice
until it is checked by the aroused spirit of humanity. After
a sleep of twenty-five years the great beast has roused itself,
and it may do considerable damage before it is driven back into
its lair. We may witness a repetition of the scenes of fifty
and sixty years ago, when scores of brave men and women faced
fine and imprisonment for Freethought, tired out the very malice
of their persecutors; and made the Blasphemy Laws a dead letter
for a whole generation. May our victory be as great as theirs,
even if our sufferings be less.
"But will they be less? Who knows? They may even be greater.
Christian charity has grown so cold-blooded in its vindictiveness
since the 'pioneer days' that blasphemers are treated like
beasts rather than men. There is a certain callous refinement
in the punishment awarded to heretics to-day. Richard Carlile,
and other heroes of the struggle for a free press, were mostly
treated as first-class misdemeanants; they saw their friends
when they liked, had whatever fare they could paid for, were
allowed the free use of books and writing materials, and could
even edit their papers from gaol. All that is changed now.
A 'blasphemer' who is sent to prison now gets a month of
Cross's plank-bed, is obliged to subsist on the miserable
prison fare, is dressed in the prison garb, is compelled to
submit to every kind of physical indignity, is shut out from
all communication with his relatives or friends except for one
visit during the second three months, is denied the use of pen
and ink, and debarred from all reading except the blessed Book.
England and Russia are the only countries in Europe that make
no distinction between press offenders and ordinary criminals.
The brutal treatment which was meted out to Mr. Truelove in
his seventieth year, when his grey hairs should have been his
protection, is what the outspoken sceptic must be prepared to
face. After eighteen centuries of Christianity, and an interminable
procession of Christian 'evidences,' such is the reply of
orthodoxy to the challenge of its critics.
"These things, however, cannot terrorise us. We are prepared
to stand by our principles at all hazard. Our motto is
No Surrender. What we might concede to criticism we will never
yield to menace. The _Freethinker_, we repeat again, will go
on whatever be the result of the present trial. The flag will
not fall because one standard-bearer is stricken down; it will
be kept flying proudly and bravely as of old--shot-torn and
blood-stained perhaps, but flying, flying, flying!"
Let me now pause to say a few words about our Indictment. It was framed
on the model of the one I have already described charging us with being
wicked and profane persons, instigated by the Devil to publish certain
blasphemous libels in the Christmas Number of the _Freethinker_, to the
danger of the Queen's Crown and dignity and the public peace, and to the
great displeasure of Almighty God. The various "blasphemies" were set
forth in full, and my readers shall know what they were.
Mr. Wheeler's comic "Trial for Blasphemy" was one of the pieces.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were accused of blasphemy in the Court of
Common Sense. They were charged with publishing all the absurdities in
the four gospels, and in especial with stating that a certain young Jew
was God Almighty himself. After the citation and examination of
many witnesses, Mr. Smart, Q.C., urged upon the jury that there was
absolutely no evidence against the prisoners. It was perfectly clear
that they were not the authors of the libels; their names had been used
without their knowledge or sanction; and he confidently appealed to
the jury for a verdict of Not Guilty. "After a brief consultation,"
concluded this clever skit, "the jury, who had carefully examined the
documents, were of opinion that there was nothing to prove that the
prisoners wrote the libels complained of. A verdict of acquittal was
accordingly entered, and the prisoners were discharged."
Now, every person acquainted with Biblical criticism knows that Mr.
Wheeler simply put the conclusions of nearly all reputable scholars in a
bright, satirical way; and a century hence people will be astonished to
learn that such a piece of defensible irony, every line of which might
be justified by tons of learning, was included in an indictment for
blasphemy, and considered heinous enough to merit severe punishment.
There were a few lines of verse picked out of long poems, and violently
forced from their context; and also a few facetious "Answers to
Correspondents," mangled in the same way. Certainly any publication
could be condemned on this plan. The Bible itself might be proved an
obscene book.
Then came eighteen illustrations, entitled "A New Life of Christ." All
the chief miracles of his career were satirised, but not a single human
incident was made the subject of ridicule. Now, if _miracles_ are
not objects of satire, I should like to know what are. If they never
happened, why should they enjoy more respect and protection than other
delusions? Why should one man be allowed to deny miracles, and
another man imprisoned for laughing at them? Must we regard long-faced
scepticism as permissible heresy, and broad-faced scepticism as
punishable blasphemy? And if so, why not set up a similar distinction
between long and broad faces in every other department of thought? Why
not let _Punch_ and _Fun_ be suppressed, political cartoons be Anathema,
and social satire a felony?
Another illustration was called "A Back View." It represented Moses
enjoying a panoramic view of Jahveh's "back parts." Judge North did
his dirty worst to misrepresent this picture, and perhaps it was he
who induced the Home Secretary to believe that our publication was
"obscene." In reality the obscenity is in the Bible. The writer of
Exodus contemplated sheer nudity, but the _Freethinker_ dressed Jahveh
in accordance with the more decent customs of the age of reason. I would
cite on this point the judgment of Mr. Moncure D. Conway, the famous
minister of South Place Chapel. He expressed himself as follows in a
discourse on Blasphemous Libel immediately after our imprisonment, since
published in "Lessons for the Day":--
"The prosecutor described the libels as 'indecent,' an ambiguous
word which might convey to the public an impression that there
was something obscene about the pictures or language, which
is not the fact. The coarsest picture is a sidewise view of
a giant's form, in laborer's garb, the upper and lower part
veiled by a cloud. Only when one knows that the figure is
meant for Jahveh could any shock be felt. The worst sense
of the word 'indecent' was accentuated by the prosecutor's
saying that the libels were too bad for him to describe.
In this way they were withheld from the public intelligence
while exaggerated to its imagination. The fact under this is
that some bigots wished to punish some Atheists, but could only
single them out beside eminent men equally guilty, and forestall
public sympathy by pretending they had committed a libel partly
obscene. This is not English."
Frederick the Great, being a king, was a privileged blasphemer. In some
unquotable verses written after the battle of Rossbach, where he routed
the French and drove them off the field pell-mell, he sings, as Carlyle
says, "with a wild burst of spiritual enthusiasm, the charms of the
rearward part of certain men; and what a royal ecstatic felicity there
is in indisputable survey of the same." "He rises," adds Carlyle, "to
the heights of Anti-Biblical profanity, quoting Moses on the Hill of
Vision." To Soubise and Company the poet of Potsdam sings--
"Je vous ai vu comme Moise
Dans des ronces en certain lieu
Eut l'honneur de voir Dieu."
Frederick's verse is halting enough, but it has "a certain heartiness
and epic greatness of cynicism"; and so his biographer continues
justifying this royal outburst of racy profanity with Rabelaisian
gusto. I dare not follow him; but I am anxious to know why Carlyle's
"Frederick" circulates with impunity and even applause, while the
_Freethinker_ is condemned and denounced. Judge North may be ignorant
of Carlyle's masterpiece, but I can hardly presume the same ignorance
in Sir William Harcourt. He probably sinned against a greater light. Few
worse outrages on public decency have been committed than his
describing my publication as not only blasphemous, but obscene. And the
circumstances in which this slander was perpetrated served to heighten
its criminality.
CHAPTER VII. AT THE OLD BAILEY.
"George William Foote, William James Ramsey, and Henry Arthur Kemp,"
cried the Clerk of the Court at the Old Bailey. It was Thursday morning,
March 1, 1883, and as we stepped into the dock the clock registered five
minutes past ten. We were provided with chairs, and there were pens and
ink on the narrow ledge before us. It was not large enough, however, to
hold all my books, some of which had to be deposited on the floor,
and fished up as I required them. Behind us stood two or three Newgate
warders, who took quite a benevolent interest in our case. Over their
heads was a gallery crammed with sympathisers, and many more were seated
in the body of the court. Mr. Wheeler occupied a seat just below me, in
readiness to convey any messages or hand me anything I might require.
Between us and the judge were several rows of seats, all occupied by
gentlemen in wigs, eager to follow such an unusual case as ours. Sir
Hardinge Giffard lounged back with a well-practised air of superiority
to the legal small-fry around him, and near him sat Mr. Poland and Mr.
Lewis, who were also retained by the prosecution. Justice North was
huddled in a raised chair on the bench, and owing perhaps to the
unfortunate structure of the article, it seemed as though he was being
shot out every time he leaned forward. His countenance was by no
means assuring to the "prisoners." He smiled knowingly to Sir Hardinge
Giffard, and treated us with an insolent stare. Watching him closely
through my eye-glass, I read my fate so far as he could decide it. His
air was that of a man intent on peremptorily settling a troublesome
piece of business; his strongest characteristic seemed infallibility,
and his chief expression omniscience. I saw at once that we should soon
fall foul of each other, as in fact we did in less than ten minutes. My
comportment was unusual in the Old Bailey dock; I did not look timid or
supplicating or depressed; I simply bore myself as though I were doing
my accustomed work. That was my first offence. Then I dared to defend
myself, which was a greater offence still; for his lordship had not only
made up his mind that I was guilty, but resolved to play the part of
prosecuting counsel. We were bound to clash, and, if I am not mistaken,
we exchanged glances of defiance almost as soon as we faced each other.
His look said "I will convict you," and mine answered "We shall see."
Sir Hardinge Giffard's speech in opening the case for the prosecution
was brief, but remarkably astute. He troubled himself very little about
the law of Blasphemy, although the jury had probably never heard of
it before. He simply appealed to their prejudices. He spoke with bated
breath of our ridiculing "the most awful mysteries of the Christian
faith." He described our letterpress as an "outrage on the feelings of
a Christian community," which he would not shock public decency
by reading; and our woodcuts as "the grossest and most disgusting
caricatures." And then, to catch any juryman who might not be a
Christian, though perhaps a Theist, he declared that our blasphemous
libels would "grieve the conscience of any sincere worshipper of the
great God above us." This appeal was made with uplifted forefinger,
pointing to where that being might be supposed to reside, which I
inferred was near the ceiling. Sir Hardinge Giffard finally resumed
his seat with a look of subdued horror on his wintry face. He tried
to appear exhausted by his dreadful task, so profound was the emotion
excited even in his callous mind by our appalling wickedness. It was
well acted, and must, I fancy, have been well rehearsed. Yes, Sir
Hardinge Giffard is decidedly clever. It is not accident that has made
him legal scavenger for all the bigots in England.
Mr. Poland and Mr. Lewis then adduced the evidence against us. I need
not describe their performance. It occupied almost two hours, and it was
nearly one o'clock when I rose to address the jury. That would have been
a convenient time for lunch, but his lordship told me I had better go
on till the usual hour. As I had only been speaking about thirty
minutes when we did adjourn for lunch, I infer that his lordship was
not unwilling to spoil my defence. How different was the action of Lord
Coleridge when he presided at our third trial in the Court of Queen's
Bench! The case for the prosecution closed at one o'clock, exactly as it
did on our first trial at the Old Bailey. But the Lord Chief Justice
of England, with the instinct of a gentleman and the consideration of a
just judge, did not need to be reminded that an adjournment in half an
hour would make an awkward break in our defence. Without any motion on
our part, he said: "If you would rather take your luncheon first, before
addressing the jury, do so by all means." Mr. Ramsey, who preceded me
then, had just risen to read his address. After a double experience of
Judge North, and two months' imprisonment like a common thief under his
sentence, he was fairly staggered by Lord Coleridge's kindly proposal,
and I confess I fully shared his emotion.
Sir Hardinge Giffard had grossly misled the jury on one point. He told
them that even in "our great Indian dominions, where Christianity was by
no means the creed of the majority of the population, it had been found
necessary to protect the freedom of conscience and the right of every
man to hold his own faith, by making criminal offenders of those who,
for outrage and insult, thought it necessary to issue contumelious or
scornful publications concerning any religious sect." In reply to this
absolute falsehood, I pointed out that the Indian law did not affect
publications at all, but simply punished people for openly desecrating
sacred places or railing at any sect in the public thoroughfare, on the
ground that such conduct tended to a breach of the peace; and that under
the very same law members of the Salvation Army had been arrested and
imprisoned because they persisted in walking in procession through the
streets. Under the Indian law, no prosecution of the _Freethinker_ could
have been initiated; and, in support of this statement, I proceeded
to quote from a letter by Professor W. A. Hunter, in the _Daily News_.
Judge North doubtless knew that I could cite no higher authority, and
seeing how badly his friend Sir Hardinge was faring, he prudently came
to his assistance. Interrupting me very uncivilly, he inquired what
Professor Hunter's letter had to do with the subject, and remarked that
the jury had nothing to do with the law of India. "Then, my lord," I
retorted, "I will discontinue my remarks on this point, only expressing
my regret that the learned counsel should have thought it necessary to
occupy the time of the court with it." Whereat there was much laughter,
and his lordship's face was covered with an angry flush.
Later in my address I had a long altercation with his lordship. I
wanted to show the jury that such heresy as I had published in the
_Freethinker_ abounded in high-class publications, but Justice North
endeavoured (vainly enough) to prevent me. The verbatim report of what
occurred is so rich that I give it here instead of a summary version:
"Now, gentlemen, I told you before that one of the reasons,
in my opinion, why the present prosecution was commenced,
was that the alleged blasphemous libels were published in a
cheap paper, and I asked you to bear in mind that there was
plenty of heresy in expensive books, published at 10s., 12s.,
and even as much as L1 and more. I think I have a right to
ask that you should have some proof of this statement. I think
I can show you that similar views are expressed by the leading
writers of to-day--not, perhaps, in precisely the same language--
for it is not to be expected that the paper which is addressed
to the many will be conducted on just the same level, either
intellectually or aesthetically speaking, as a publication,
in the form of an expensive book, which is only intended for
men of education, intelligence and leisure; but such views are
put before the public by the most prominent writers of the day.
You will, of course, expect to find differences in the mode of
expression, and as a matter of course, differences of taste; but
I submit that differences of taste affect the question very little
unless, as I have said, they actually lead to breaches of the
peace. But in a case like this there ought to be no distinction
on grounds of taste. Surely the man who says a thing in one
way is not to be punished, while the man who says the same
thing in another way is to go scot free. You cannot make a
distinction between men on grounds of taste. I can imagine
that if there were a parliament of aesthetic gentlemen, and
Mr. Oscar Wilde were made Prime Minister, some such arrangement
as that would find weight before the jury; but, in the present
state of enlightened opinion, I do not think that any such
arrangement would be accepted by you. Now, gentleman, I shall
call your attention first of all to a book which is published
by no less a firm than the old and well-established house of
Longmans. The author of the book----
Mr. Justice North: What is the name of the book?
Mr. Foote: The book is the 'Autobiography of John Stuart Mill.'
Mr. Justice North: What are you going to refer to it for?
Mr. Foote: I am going to refer to one page of it, my lord.
Mr. Justice North: What for?
Mr. Foote: To show that identical views to those expressed in the
cheap paper before the court are expressed in expensive volumes.
Mr. Justice North: I shall not hear anything of that sort. I am
not trying the question, nor are the jury, whether the views
expressed by other persons are sound or right. The question is
whether you are guilty of a blasphemous libel. I shall direct
them that it will be for them to say whether the facts are proved
in this case.
Mr. Foote: I will call your attention, my lord, to the remarks
of Lord Justice Cockburn in a similar case.
Mr. Justice North: I will hear anything relevant to the subject.
My reason for asking you was to find out whether you were going
to quote a law book.
Mr. Foote: I will quote a verbatim report.
Mr. Justice North: I can hear that.
Mr. Foote: It is the case against Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant.
Mr. Justice North: By whom is your report published?
Mr. Foote: It is a verbatim report published by the Freethought
Publishing Company--the shorthand notes of the full proceedings,
with the cross-examination and the judgment of the court.
Mr. Justice North: There is no evidence of that. Did you hear it?
Mr. Foote: I did not personally hear it, but my co-defendants did.
Mr. Justice North: I will hear you state anything you suggest as
being said by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn.
Mr. Foote: Mrs. Besant was about to read a passage from
'Tristram Shandy'----
Mr. Justice North: You have not proved the publication.
Mr. Foote: Quite so, my lord; but although this is not formal
evidence, and only the report of a case, I thought your lordship
would not object to hear it.
[Mr. Foote here handed in a copy of the report to the judge,
and pointed out that the Lord Chief Justice had said he could
not prevent Mrs. Besant from committing a passage to memory,
or from reading books as if reciting from memory].
Mr. Justice North: I will allow you to go on, either quoting
from memory or reading from the book; but I cannot go into
the question of whether this is right or not.
Mr. Foote: I am not proposing that. I am only going to show
that opinions like those expressed here extensively prevail.
Mr. Justice North: That is not the question at all. If they
extensively prevail, so much the worse. What somebody else
has said, whoever that person may be, cannot affect the question
in this case.
Mr. Foote: But, my lord, might it not affect the question of
whether a jury might not themselves, by an adverse verdict, be
far more contributing to a breach of the peace than the publication
on which they are asked to adjudicate?
Mr. Justice North: I think not, and it shall not do so if I
can help it. It is a mere waste of time to attempt to justify
anything that has been said in the alleged libel by showing
that someone else has said the same thing.
Mr. Foote: In all trials the same process has been allowed.
Mr. Justice North: It will not be allowed on this occasion.
Mr. Foote: If your lordship will pardon me for calling attention
to the famous case of the King against William Hone, I would
point out that there Hone read extracts to the jury.
Mr. Justice North: Very possibly it might have been relevant
in that case.
Mr. Foote: But, my lord, it was precisely a similar case--it was
a case of blasphemous libel. Lord Ellenborough sat on the bench.
Mr. Justice North: Possibly.
Mr. Foote: And Lord Ellenborough allowed Mr. Hone to read what
he considered justificatory of his own publication. The same
thing occurred in the case of the Queen against Bradlaugh and Besant.
Mr. Justice North: We have nothing to do to-day with the
question whether any author has taken the views which are
taken in these libels, whoever the author was.
Mr. Foote: Does your lordship mean that I am to go on reading or not?
Mr. Justice North: Go on with your address to the jury, sir;
that's what I wish you to do. But you cannot do what you were
about to do--refer to the book you mentioned for any such purpose
as you indicated.
Mr. Foote: I hope your lordship does not misunderstand me. I am
simply defending myself against a very grave charge under an old law.
Mr. Justice North: Go on, go on, Foote. I know that. Go on with
your address.
Mr. Foote: Your lordship, these questions are part of my address.
Gentlemen (turning to the jury), no less a person than a brother
of one of our most distinguished judges has said----
Mr. Justice North: Now, again, I cannot have you quoting books
not in evidence, for the sake of putting before the jury the
matters they state. The passage you referred to is one in which
the Lord Chief Justice pointed out that that could not be done.
Mr. Foote: But the action, my lord, of the Lord Chief Justice
did not put a stop to the reading. He said he would allow
Mrs. Besant to quote any passage as a part of her address.
Mr. Justice North: Go on.
Mr. Foote: No less a person than the brother of one of our most
learned----
Mr. Justice North: Now did I not tell you that you could not do that?
Mr. Foote: Will your lordship give me a most distinct ruling in
this case?
Mr. Justice North: I am ruling that you cannot do what you are
trying to do now.
Mr. Foote: I am sorry, my lord, I cannot understand.
Mr. Justice North: I am sorry for it. I have tried to make
myself clear.
Mr. Foote: Does your lordship mean that I am not to read from
anything to show justification of the libel?
Mr. Justice North: There is no justification in the case. The
question the jury have to decide is whether you, and the persons
present with you, are guilty of a libel or not. For that purpose
they will have to consider whether the matters in question are
a libel. If so, they will have also to consider whether you
and the other defendants are guilty of having published it.
If they think it a libel, and that you have published it, they
will have answered the only two questions they will have to
put to themselves.
Mr. Foote: My lord, in an ordinary libel case justification can
be shown.
Mr. Justice North: Go on.
Mr. Foote: I do not wish to occupy the time of the court
unnecessarily, but really I think your lordship ought to
remember the grave position in which I stand, and not stand
in the way of anything which I consider to be of vital importance
to my defence.
Mr. Justice North: I have pointed out to you what I consider
to be the question the jury have got to decide. I hope you
will not go outside the lines I have pointed out to you; but,
with these remarks, I am very reluctant to interfere with any
prisoner saying anything which he considers necessary, and I
will not stop you. I hope you will not abuse the concession
I consider I am making to you.
Mr. Foote: I should be very sorry, my lord. I am only stating
what I consider necessary."
This is a very fair specimen of his lordship's manners. Unfortunately,
it is also a fair specimen of his lordship's law. When I read similar
extracts in the Court of Queen's Bench, Lord Coleridge never interrupted
me once; nay, he told the jury that I had very properly brought those
passages before their notice, that I had a perfect right to do so, and
that it was a legitimate part of my defence. Since then I have conversed
with many gentlemen who were present, some of them belonging to the
legal profession, and I have heard but one opinion expressed as to Judge
North's conduct. They all agree that it was utterly undignified, and a
scandal to the bench. Perhaps it had something to do with his lordship's
removal, a few weeks afterwards, to the Chancery Court, where his
eccentricities, as the _Daily News_ remarked at the time, will no longer
endanger the liberty and lives of his fellow-subjects.
When I cited Fox's Libel Act and asked that my copy, purchased from the
Queen's printers, might be handed to the jury for their guidance, his
lordship sharply ordered the officer not to pass it to them. "I shall
tell them," he said, "what points they have to decide," as though I
had no right to press my own view. He would never have dared to treat
a defending counsel in that way, and he ought to have known that a
defendant in person has all the rights of a counsel, the latter having
absolutely no standing in court except so far as he represents a first
party in a suit. "May they not have a copy of the Act, my lord?" I
inquired. "No," replied his lordship, "they will take the law from the
directions I give them; not from reading Acts of Parliament." This is
directly counter to the spirit and letter of Fox's Act; and I suspect
that Judge North would have expressed himself more guardedly in a higher
court. If juries have nothing to do with Acts of Parliament, why are
statutes enacted? Judge North would be ashamed and afraid to speak in
that way before his superior brother judges at the Law Courts; but at
the Old Bailey he was absolute master of the situation, and he abused
his power. He knew there was no court of criminal appeal, and no danger
of his being checked by either of the fat aldermen on the bench. They
were in fact our prosecutors, and they appeared to enjoy their paltry
triumph.
As I have said, I began my address to the jury at one o'clock, and at
half-past we adjourned for lunch. Mr. Wheeler ran across the road and
ordered some refreshment for us, and pending its arrival we descended
the dock-stairs and entered a subterranean passage, which was lit by a
single gas-jet. On each side there was a little den with an iron gate.
One of these was filled with prisoners awaiting trial or sentence, who
gazed through the bars at us with mingled glee and astonishment. They
were chatting merrily, and I imagine from their free and easy manner
that most of them were old gaol-birds. Perhaps there were some forlorn,
miserable creatures cowering in the darkness behind, with throbbing
brows and hearts like lead, on whose ears the light laughter of their
callous companions grated even more harshly than it did on ours.
The left-hand den was empty, and into it we were ushered by the aged
janitor, who regarded us with looks of mute reproach. He was
evidently subdued to what he worked in. His world consisted of two
classes--criminals and police; and without any further ceremony of trial
and sentence, the very fact of our descending into his Inferno was clear
evidence that we belonged to the former class.
As the den was only illuminated by a few straggling gleams from the
gas-jet outside, we were unable to discriminate any object until our
eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. While we were in this state of
semi-blindness, something stirred. I wondered whether it was a dog or a
rat. The doubt was soon resolved. A human form reared itself up from the
bench against the wall, where it had been lying, not asleep indeed, but
half unconscious; and to our great surprise, it turned out to be Mr.
Cattell, who had surrendered to his bail at the same time as we did, and
had been shivering there ever since ten o'clock. After we left him he
continued shivering for three or four hours longer in that black-hole
of the Old Bailey, which struck a chill into our very bones even in the
brief period of our tenancy, and which could hardly be warmed by any
conflagration short of the last. It appeared damp as well as cold, and
a sinister effluvium came from a place of necessity at the back. Six
or seven hours' incarceration in such a place might injure a strong
constitution and seriously damage a weak one. Surely it is scandalous
that unconvicted prisoners, some of whom are eventually acquitted,
should suffer this unnecessary hardship and incur this unnecessary risk.
Presently our lunch arrived. The platefuls of meat and vegetables had
a savory smell, our appetites were keen, and our stomachs empty. But
a difficulty arose. There were forks, but no knives; those lethal
instruments being forbidden lest prisoners should attempt to cut their
throats. I subsequently had the use of a tin knife in Newgate, but even
that, which used to be common in prisons, is now proscribed. The only
carving instruments allowed the guests in her Majesty's hotels is a
wooden spoon, although the tin knife still lingers in the Houses of
Detention. Among other elaborate precautions against suicide, I found
that the prisoners awaiting trial were furnished with quill pens. Steel
pens had been banished after the desperate exploit of one poor wretch,
who had stabbed away at his windpipe with one, and inflicted such grave
injuries that the officials had great difficulty in saying his life.
But _revenons a nos moutons_, or rather our forks. We disposed of the
vegetables somehow, and as for the meat, we were obliged to split and
gnaw it after the fashion of our primitive ancestors. We drank out of
the mouth of the claret bottle, passing it round till it was emptied. It
was probably a good honest bottle, but in the circumstances it seemed a
despicable fraud. We tried hard for another supply, but we failed. Being
anxious to prevent a display of inebriety in the dock, or desirous
to repress rather than stimulate our audacity, the venerable janitor
interposed the most effectual obstacles, and we were constrained to
reason down the remnant of our thirst, which, if I may infer from my own
case, was almost as insensible to argument as the judge himself.
Feeling very cold, we essayed a little exercise. The dimensions of
our den, which were three steps each way, did not allow much play for
individuality. Erratic pedestrianism was clearly dangerous, so we
rushed round in Indian file, like braves on the warpath; and, by way of
relieving the tedium, we speculated on the number of laps in a mile.
Our proceedings seemed to strike the wild beasts in the opposite den as
unaccountable imbecility. They grinned at us through the bars with as
much delight as children might evince in the Zoological Gardens at
a performance of insane monkeys. But their amusement was suddenly
arrested. St. Peter appeared at the gate, flourishing his keys. It was
two o'clock.
What a strange sensation it was, mounting those dock stairs! More loudly
than my experiences below, it said--"You are a prisoner." The court was
densely crowded, and as I emerged into it, the sea of faces, suddenly
caught _en masse_, seemed cold and alien. The feeling was only
momentary, but I fancy it resembled the weird thrill that must have
swept through the ancient captive as he entered the Roman arena from his
dark lair, and confronted the vague host of indifferent faces that were
to watch his fight for life.
I resumed my address to the jury at two o'clock, and concluded it at
four. A considerable portion of that time was spent in altercations with
the judge, of which I have already given some striking specimens. Let me
now give another. It excited great laughter in court, and I confess the
situation was so comic that I could scarcely preserve my own gravity.
After quoting a number of "blasphemous" passages from the writings of
Professor Clifford, Lord Amberley, Matthew Arnold, the author of "The
Evolution of Christianity," Swinburne, Byron and Shelley, I proceeded
thus: "Now, gentlemen, I have given you a few illustrations of permitted
blasphemy in expensive books, and I will now trouble you with a few
instances of permitted blasphemy in cheap publications, which are
unmolested because they call themselves Christian, and because those
who conduct them are patronised by ecclesiastical dignitaries." Here
I produced a copy of the _War Cry_, in which I had marked a piece of
idiotic "blasphemy." Judge North scented mischief, and gestured to the
officer behind me. But that functionary was too deeply interested in the
case to make much haste, and, not wishing to be frustrated, I read
as rapidly as I could. Before he could arrest me I had finished the
extract. My auditors were all convulsed with laughter, except the judge,
who was convulsed with rage. As soon as he could articulate he addressed
me as follows:
Mr. Justice North: Now, Foote, I am going to put a stop to this.
I will not allow any more of these illustrations of what you
call permitted blasphemy in cheap publications. I decline to
have any more of them put before me.
Mr. Foote: My Lord, I will use them for another purpose, if
you will allow me.
Mr. Justice North: You will not use them here at all, sir.
Mr. Foote: May they not be used, my lord to show that an
equally free use of religious symbols, and religious language,
prevails widely in all classes of literature and society?
Mr. Justice North: No they may not. I decline to hear them
read. They are not in evidence, and I refuse to allow you to
quote from such documents as part of your speech.
Mr. Foote: Well, gentlemen, I will now ask your attention
very briefly to another branch of the subject.
The fact is, I was perfectly satisfied. I had purposely kept the _War
Cry_ till the last. It naturally ended my list of citations, and his
lordship's victory was entirely specious.
Those who may wish to read my address in its entirety will find it in
"The Three Trials for Blasphemy." For those, however, who are not so
curious or so painstaking, I give here the peroration only, to show
what sentiments I appealed to in the breasts of the jury, and how far my
defence was from boastfulness or servility:
"Gentlemen,--I told you at the outset that you, are the last
Court of Appeal on all questions affecting the liberty of the
press and the right of free speech and Freethought. When I say
Freethought, I do not refer to specific doctrines that may pass
under that name: I refer to the great right of Freethought, that
Freethought which is neither so low as a cottage nor so lofty
as a pyramid, but is like the soaring azure vault of heaven,
which over-arches both with equal case. I ask you to affirm
the liberty of the press, to show by your verdict that you
are prepared to give to others the same freedom that you claim
for yourselves. I ask you not to be misled by the statements
that have been thrown out by the prosecution, nor by the authority
and influence of the mighty and rich Corporation which commenced
this action, has found the money for it, and whose very solicitor
was bound over to prosecute. I ask you not to be influenced
by these considerations, but rather to remember that this present
attack is made upon us probably because we are connected with
those who have been struck at again and again by some of the
very persons who are engaged in this prosecution; to remember
that England is growing day by day in its humanity and love
of freedom; and that, as blasphemy has been an offence less
and less proceeded against during the past century, so there
will probably be fewer and fewer proceedings against it in the next.
Indeed, there may never be another prosecution for blasphemy,
and I am sure you would not like to have it weigh on your minds
that you were the instruments of the last act of persecution--
that you were the last jury who sent to be caged like wild
beasts men against whose honesty there has been no charge.
I am quite sure you will not allow yourselves to be made the
agents of sending such men to herd with the lowest criminals,
and to be subjected to all the indignities such punishment involves.
I am sure you will send me, as well as my co-defendants, back
to our homes and friends, who do not think the worse of us
for the position in which we stand: that you will send us,
back to them unstained, giving a verdict of Not Guilty for me
and my co-defendants, instead of a verdict of Guilty for the
prosecution; and thus, as English juries have again and again
done before, vindicate the glorious principle of the freedom
of the press, against all the religious and political factions
that may seek to impugn it for their own ends."
The court officials could not stifle the burst of applause that greeted
my peroration. I had flung all my books and papers aside and faced the
jury. I spoke in passionate accents. My expression and gestures were
doubtless full of that dramatic power which comes of earnest sincerity.
I felt every sentiment I uttered, and I believe I made the jury feel it
too, for they were visibly impressed, and their emotion was obviously
shared by the crowd of listeners who represented the greater jury of
public opinion.
Mr. Ramsey followed me with a speech which he read from manuscript. It
occupied half an hour in delivery. It was terse and vigorous, and it
really covered most of the ground in debate. I listened to it with
pleasure as an admirable summary of our position. But it lost much of
its force in being read instead of spoken extemporaneously, and its very
virtues as a paper were its defects as an address. The points wanted
elaboration. Before they had fairly mastered one argument, the jury were
hurried on to another. Mr. Ramsey is by no means incapable of making
a forcible speech, and I think he should have trusted to his power
of improvisation. There was no need for a long effort. He might have
concentrated himself on a few salient points of our defence, and pressed
them on the jury with all his might. His own sentiments, naturally
expressed, in homely language, would have had a greater effect than any
literary composition. After an experience of three trials, I would give
this advice to every man who has to defend himself before a jury on
a charge of blasphemy or sedition--"Write out on a sheet of paper the
heads of your defence. Number them in the order you think they should
be treated, so that your address may have a logical continuity. Fill in
your sub-divisions, similarly numbered, under the chief heads, beginning
the lines half-way across the page, so as to catch the eye readily.
Think every clause out carefully. Fix every illustration in your mind
until it becomes almost a fact of memory. Don't write out fine passages
and try to remember them verbally. Write nothing; it will only
confuse you, unless you have long practised that method. When you
have systematised your thoughts, and think your written arrangement is
complete, ponder it clause by clause with the paper at hand for constant
reference. No matter if your thoughts seem to wander, and the subject
appears to grow vague; your mind is dwelling on it, and ideas will
fructify in your mind unconsciously as seeds sprout in the dark. When
the hour of trial arrives, arm yourself with the familiar paper, trust
to your own courage, and speak out. You will have thoughts, and nature
will find you words."
Justice North's summing-up was simply a clever and unscrupulous bit
of special pleading. Sir Hardinge Giffard had left the court, and his
friend on the bench conducted his case for him. He told the jury that I
had wasted their time, and indulged in a number of other insults, which
might be pardonable in a legal hack bent on earning his client's fee,
but were scarcely consistent with the dignity and impartiality of a
judge. His tone was even worse than his words. He had no sympathy
with us in our desperate effort to defend our liberty against such
overwhelming odds, nor did we solicit any; but we had a right to expect
him to refrain from constant expressions of antipathy. That, however,
was not the whole of his offence against the rules of justice. He
recurred to the bad old example of Lord Ellenborough in devoting most of
his time to answering my arguments. Lord Coleridge remarked in the Court
of Queen's Bench that such a task was not for the judge, but for the
counsel on the other side of the case. I wish his lordship had read a
lesson to Justice North on that subject before he presided at our trial.
There is only one passage of his summing-up that I wish to criticise
fully. It contains his statement of the Law of Blasphemy. But as he made
a very different statement four days later on at our second trial, I
prefer to wait until, by placing these discrepant utterances together, I
can give the reader a fair idea of Justice North's authority as a legal
oracle.
The jury retired at five o'clock. Justice North kept his seat, probably
fancying they would soon agree to a verdict of Guilty. But as the
minutes went by, and the result seemed after all dubious, he resorted
to a paltry trick. Notwithstanding the late hour, he had Mr. Cattell
brought into the dock for trial. By procuring a verdict against _him_
our jury might be influenced. According to theory, of course, the jury
hold no communication with the world while in deliberation; but it is
well known that officers of the court have access to them, and tidings
of Mr. Cattell's fate could be easily conveyed.
We stepped down the stairs, out of sight but not out of hearing, and
made way for Mr. Cattell to take our place in the dock. He was very pale
with cold and apprehension, and too timid to take a seat, he stood with
his hands resting on the top ledge. The evidence against him was very
brief. Instead of defending himself he had employed counsel. That
gentleman admitted the "horrible character of the publication, so
eloquently denounced by the learned judge." He said that his client
could not for a moment think of defending it; in fact, he had only sold
it in ignorance, and he would never repeat the offence. On the ground of
that ignorance and that promise, it was hoped that the jury would return
a verdict of Not Guilty. Mr. Cattell declares that he never instructed
his counsel to say anything of the kind; but all I know is that it
_was_ said, and that while our cheeks were tingling with shame and
indignation, he heard it all without a word of protest.
Judge North acted openly as counsel for the prosecution in this trial.
There was not the slightest disguise. He took the case completely
into his own hands, examined and cross-examined. His summing-up was a
disgusting exhibition. Naturally enough the jury returned a verdict of
Guilty without leaving the box; but sentence was deferred until our jury
had also agreed.
By this time, I felt convinced they would _not_ agree, and every minute
strengthened my belief. While they deliberated we were all conducted
to the subterranean den, where we kept each other in good spirits. St.
Peter brought us some water to drink in a dirty tin can. We tasted it,
found that a little of it was more than enough, and declined to hazard
a further experiment on our health. At last, after two hours and ten
minutes' waiting, we were summoned back to the dock. There was profound
silence in court, and as the jury filed into their seats a painful sense
of expectation pervaded the assembly. His lordship said that he had
called them into court to see whether he could assist them in any way,
and especially by explaining the law to them again. The foreman, in a
very quiet, composed manner, replied that they all understood the law,
but there was no chance of their agreeing. His lordship invited them to
try a further consultation, to which the foreman replied that it would
be useless. "Then," said his lordship, "I am very sorry to say I must
discharge you, and have the case tried again." Then, turning to the
Clerk of Arraigns, he added, "I will attend here on Monday and try the
case again with a different jury." This was against the ordinary rule of
the court, and the sessions had to be prolonged into the next week
for our sakes; but his lordship could not deny himself the luxury of
sentencing us. He had set his heart on sending us to gaol, and would not
be baulked.
We naturally expected to be liberated till Monday, and I formally
applied for a renewal of our bail. But his lordship refused my
application in the most peremptory and insulting manner. I pointed out
that I should require a proper opportunity to prepare another defence
for the second trial, to which his lordship replied, "You will have the
same opportunity then that you have now." He then hurriedly left the
bench, and we were in custody of the Governor of Newgate. Several
friends rushed forward to shake hands with us over the dock rail, and
there were loud cries of "Bravo, jury!" Presently we descended to the
Inferno again, from which we were conducted by a long subterranean
passage to Newgate prison.
Judge North's action was simply vindictive. Even if we were guilty
our offence was only a misdemeanor. We had been out on bail from the
beginning of the prosecution, we had duly surrendered to trial, after
the jury's disagreement we really stood in a better position than
before, and there was not the slightest reason to suppose that we might
abscond. On the other hand, it was clear that we were fighting against
long odds. The rich City Corporation was prosecuting us regardless
of expense, and their case was conducted by three of the most skilful
lawyers in London. Reason, justice and humanity, alike demanded that we
should enjoy freedom and comfort while marshalling our resources for a
fresh battle. Judge North, however, thought otherwise; in his opinion we
required a different kind of "opportunity." He locked us up in a prison
cell, excluded us from light and air, deprived us of all communication
with each other, and debarred us from all intercourse with the outside
world except during fifteen minutes each day through an iron grating.
Such malignity is an unpardonable crime in a judge. There may have been
some bad criminals in Newgate when I entered it, but I would rather have
embraced the worst of them than have touched the hand of Judge North.
CHAPTER VIII. NEWGATE.
The subterranean passage through which Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Kemp, Mr.
Cattell, and I were conducted from the Old Bailey dock to Newgate
prison, was long and tortuous, and two or three massive doors were
unlocked and relocked for our transit before we emerged into the
courtyard. In the darkness the lofty walls looked grimly frowning, and
I imagined what feelings must possess the ordinary criminal who passes
under their black shadow to his first night's taste of imprisonment.
Another massive door was opened in the wall of Newgate, and we were
ushered into what at first sight appeared a large hall. It was really
the interior of the prison. Glancing up, I saw dimly-lighted corridors,
running round tier on tier of cell-doors, and connected by light,
graceful staircases; a clear view of every door being commanded from the
office at the west end of the ground-floor.
We were invited one by one into a side office, where we inscribed our
names in a big book. A dapper little officer, who treated me with a
queer mixture of authority and respectfulness, wrote out my description
as though he were filling in a passport. I was very much amused, and
finding he was not too precise in his observations, I corrected and
supplemented them in a good-humored manner.
After completing this task he requested me to deliver up the contents
of my pockets. Having passed nearly all my money to Mr. Wheeler, I
had little to deposit. Some prisoners, however, are less careful. The
officer told me that he occasionally received as much as ten or twelve
pounds from one visitor, although the majority were almost penniless. My
small change was carefully counted by us both, and when it was stowed in
my purse, I put my signature under the amount in the register.
Then followed my other belongings. I had stupidly brought a bunch of
keys, which the officer eyed very suspiciously. Keys in a prison!
The official mind might well be alarmed. Next came some letters and
telegrams I had received while in Court, and a lead pencil, which I took
from my breast-pocket.
"Anything more in that pocket?" said the officer, catching hold of the
coat-lappet, and attempting to insert his hand.
"I beg pardon," I replied, disengaging his hand and stepping back; "I
can do that myself. See!" I said, turning my pocket inside out.
He was satisfied, but slightly annoyed. The man was simply doing his
duty, and I daresay he showed me far more courtesy than other prisoners
were treated with. Yet the process of searching is unspeakably
revolting, and I shrank from it instinctively; taking care, however, by
my rapid gestures to render it unnecessary.
Prisoners are regularly searched in Holloway Gaol, as well as in other
penal establishments; and being under the ordinary prison regulations,
like other "convicted criminals," I was of course subjected to the
indignity. I must in candor admit that the officers made it as little
offensive as possible in my case; yet the touch of a man's hand about
one's person is so repulsive, that I always had great difficulty in
suppressing my indignation. If an officer owes a prisoner a grudge, he
is able (especially if the man is a little more refined than the general
run of his associates) to render the searching an almost intolerable
infliction. Sometimes the prisoners are stripped to their drawers or
shirts, without any particular reason; and the process can even be
carried farther, until they are in a state of complete nudity. On one
occasion this experiment was attempted on me, but I declined to submit
to it, and the brace of officers (they always search in pairs, to
prevent collusion) shrank from employing force.
All the requisite formalities being transacted, I was supplied with
a pair of sheets and a duster; and carrying these on my arm, I was
conducted upstairs to my apartment. Before leaving, however, I shook
hands with my companions, although it was in direct defiance of the
"rules and regulations."
My cell was Number One. It was considered the place of honor. I was
informed that it was once tenanted by the elder of two famous brother
forgers, who spent three weeks there preparing his defence and writing
an extraordinary number of letters. This information was communicated
to me with an air of solemnity as though so eminent a criminal had
left behind him the flavor of his greatness, and had in some measure
consecrated the spot.
The gas was lit, and the officer withdrew, banging the door as he went.
He seemed to love the sound, and I subsequently discovered that this was
a characteristic of his tribe. Only two men in Holloway Gaol ever shut
my door gently. They were the gallant Governor and a clerical _locum
tenens_ who officiated during the chaplain's frequent absence in
search of recreation or health. Colonel Milman closed the door like
a gentleman. Mr. Stubbs closed it like an undertaker. He was the most
nervous man I ever met. But I must not anticipate. More of him anon.
Prison cells, I had always known, are rather narrow apartments, but the
realisation was nevertheless a rough one. My domicile, which included
kitchen, bedroom, sitting-room and water-closet, was about ten feet
long, six feet wide, and nine feet high. At the end opposite the door
there was a window, containing perhaps three square feet of thick opaque
glass. Attached to the wall on the left side was a flap-table, about two
feet by one, and under it a low stool. In the right corner, behind the
door, were a couple of narrow semi-circular shelves, containing a wooden
salt-cellar full of ancient salt, protected from the air and dust by a
brown paper lid, through which a piece of knotted string was passed to
serve as a knob. The walls were whitewashed, and hanging against them
were a pair of printed cards, which on examination I found to be the
dietary scale and the rules and regulations. The floor was black and
shiny. It was probably concreted, and I discovered the next day that it
was blackleaded and polished. Finally I detected an iron ring in each
wall, facing each other, about two feet from the ground. "What are these
for?" I thought. "They would be convenient for hanging if they were
three feet higher. Perhaps they are placed there to tantalise desperate
unfortunates who might be disposed to terminate their misery and wish
the world an eternal 'Good Night!'"
As I paced up and down my cell, full of the thought, "I am in prison,
then," my curiosity was excited by a large urn-looking object in the
right corner under the window, just below a water-tap and copper basin.
I had noticed it before, but I fancied it was some antique relic of
Old Newgate. Examining it closely, I found it had a hinged lid, and on
lifting this my nose was assailed by a powerful smell, which struck
me as about the most ancient I had ever encountered. This earthenware
fixture was in reality a water-closet, and I imagined it must have
communicated direct with the main drainage. A more unwholesome and
disgusting companion in one's room is difficult to conceive. I believe
these filthy monstrosities still exist in Newgate, although they
are abolished in other prisons. Yet it puzzles one to understand
why prisoners awaiting trial should be poisoned by such a diabolical
invention any more than prisoners who have been convicted and sentenced.
Just as I finished inspecting this monument of official ingenuity,
I heard a heavy footstep along the corridor, and presently a key was
inserted in my lock. It "grated harsh thunder" as it turned. The door
was flung open abruptly, without any consideration whether I might be
standing near it, and an official entered, who turned out to be the
chief warder. He was a polite, handsome man of five-and-forty, with
a fine pair of dark eyes and a handsome black beard. During my brief
residence in Newgate he treated me with marked civility, and sometimes
engaged in a few minutes' conversation. In one of these brief interviews
he told me that he had officiated at fourteen executions, and devoutly
hoped he might never witness another, his feelings on every occasion
having been of the most horrible character. I also found that he was
fond of a book, although he had little leisure for reading or any other
recreation. He looked longingly at my well-printed copy of Byron;
but what impressed him most was my little collection of law books,
especially Folkard's fat "Law of Libel," which he regarded with the awe
and veneration of a bibliolater, suddenly confronting a gigantic mystery
of erudition.
This worthy officer came to tell me that my "friend with the big head"
had just called to see what he could do for us. "Big-head" was
Mr. Bradlaugh. The description was facetious but by no means
uncomplimentary. Our meals had been ordered in from "over the way," and
I might expect some refreshment shortly. While he was speaking it was
brought up. He then left me, and I devoured the coffee and toast with
great avidity. My appetite was far from appeased, but I had to content
myself with what was given me, for prison warders look as surprised as
Bumble himself at a request for "more."
When the slender meal was dispatched, the chief warder paid me another
visit to instruct me how to roost. Under his tuition I received my
first lesson in prison bed-making. A strip of thick canvas was stretched
across the cell and fastened at each end by leather straps running
through those mysterious rings. A coarse sheet was spread on this, then
a rough blanket, and finally a sieve-like counterpane; the whole
forming a very fair imitation of a ship's hammock. It had by no means an
uncomfortable appearance, and being extremely fagged, I thought I would
retire to rest. But directly I essayed to do so my troubles began. When
I tried to get on the bed it canted over and deposited me on the floor.
Slightly shaken, but nothing daunted, I made another attempt with a
similar result. The third time was lucky. I circumvented the obstinate
enemy by mounting the stool and slowly insinuating myself between the
sheets, until at length I was fairly ensconced, lying straight on my
back like a prone statue or a corpse. For a few moments I remained
perfectly still enjoying my triumph. Presently, however, I felt rather
cold at the feet, and on glancing down I saw that my lower extremities
were sticking out. I raised myself slightly in order to cover them, but
the movement was fatal; the bed canted and I was again at large. This
time I had serious thoughts of sleeping on the floor, but as it was hard
and cold I abandoned the idea. I laboriously regained my lost position,
taking due precautions for my feet. After a while I grew accustomed
to the oscillation, but I had to face another evil. The clothes kept
slipping off, and more than once I followed in trying to recover them.
At last, I found a firm position, where I lay still, clutching the
refractory sheets and blankets. But I soon experienced a fresh evil.
The canvas strip was very narrow, and as my shoulders were _not_, they
abutted on each side, courting the cold. Even this difficulty I finally
conquered by gymnastic subtleties. Warmth and comfort produced their
natural effect. My brain was busy for a few minutes. Thoughts of my wife
and the few I loved best made me womanish, but a recollection of
the malignant judge hardened me and I clenched my teeth. Then Nature
asserted her sway. Weary eyelids drooped over weary eyes, and through a
phantasmagoria of the trial I gradually sank into a feverish sleep.
I was aroused in the morning by the six o'clock bell. It was pitch dark
in my cell except for the faint glimmer of a distant lamp through the
thick window-panes. A few minutes later a little square flap in the
centre of my door was let down with a startling bang; a small hand-lamp
was thrust through the aperture, and a gruff voice cried "Now, then,
get up and light your gas: look sharp." I cannot say that I made any
indecent haste. My gas was lit very leisurely, and as I returned the
lamp I saw a scowling visage outside. The man was evidently exasperated
by my "passive resistance."
My ablutions were performed in a copper basin not much larger than a
porridge bowl; indeed, it was impossible to insert both hands at once.
There was, of course, no looking-glass, and as the three-inch comb
was densely clogged with old deposits, my toilet was completed under
considerable difficulties. I never combed my hair with my fingers
before, but on that occasion I was obliged to resort to those primitive
rakes.
When I was finally ready, the chief warder summoned me downstairs to be
weighed and measured. My height was five feet ten in my shoes, and my
weight twelve stone nine and a half in my clothes.
At eight o'clock breakfast came. It consisted of coffee, eggs and toast.
At half-past eight we were taken out to exercise. What a delight it was
to see each other's faces again! And how refreshing to breathe even the
atmosphere of a City courtyard after being locked up for so many hours
in a stifling cell.
The other prisoners were already outside, and we had to pass through
the court in which they were exercising to reach the one considerately
allotted for our special use. They presented a cheerless spectacle.
Silently and sadly, with drooping heads, they skirted the walls in
Indian file; a couple of officers standing in the centre to see that no
communication went on between them. Many eyes were lifted to gaze at us
as we passed. Some winked, and a few looked insolent contempt, but the
majority expressed nothing but curiosity.
Our courtyard was about thirty feet by twenty. It was stone-paved, with
a door leading to the Old Bailey at one end, and a row of high iron bars
at the other. The air was brisk, and the sky tolerably clear for the
place and season. Our pent-up energies required a vent, and we rushed
round like caged animals suddenly loosened. "Gently," cried our
good-natured custodian; but we paid little heed to his admonition;
our blood was up, and we raced each other until we were wearied of the
pastime.
Presently I heard my name called, and on advancing to the spot whence
the voice issued, I saw Mr. Bradlaugh's face through the iron bars.
After a few minutes' conversation he made way for Mrs. Besant. She was
quite unprepared for such an interview. Her idea was that she would be
able to shake hands; I, however, knew better, and for that reason I had
forbidden my wife to visit me, preferring her letters to her company in
such wretched circumstances. Mrs. Besant was particularly cordial. "We
are all proud," she said, "of the brave fight you made yesterday."
How the time slipped by! When she retired it seemed as though our
conversation had but just opened.
I was only entitled to receive two visitors, but by a generous
arithmetic Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant were counted as one. Mr.
Wheeler was therefore able to see me on business. We had much to
arrange, and the result was that I enjoyed scarcely more than half an
hour's exercise. Surely it is a grievous wrong that a prisoner awaiting
trial should be allowed such brief interviews with his friends,
especially when he is defending himself, and may require to consult
them. And is it not a still more grievous wrong that these interviews
should take place during the exercise hour? There is no reason why they
should not be kept separate; indeed there is no reason why the inmates
of Newgate should not be allowed to exercise twice a day. No work is
done in the prison, and marshalling the prisoners is not so laborious a
task that it cannot be performed more than once in twenty-four hours.
At the expiration of our miserable sixty minutes we were marched back to
our cells; but we were scarcely under lock and key again before we were
summoned to the Old Bailey, the officer telling us that he thought they
were going to grant us bail. We were conducted through the subterranean
passage to the Old Bailey dock-stairs. Standing out of sight, but not
out of hearing, we listened to Mr. Avory's application for bail on
behalf of Mr. Kemp. Judge North refused in cold, vindictive tones; he
had evidently let the sun go down on his wrath, and rise on it again.
Mr. Avory thereupon asked whether he made no difference between
convicted and unconvicted prisoners. "None in this case," was his
lordship's brutal and supercilious answer; and then we were hurried back
to our cells.
My apartment was execrably dark. It was situated in an angle of the
building; there was a wall on the right and another in front, so that
only a little light fell on the right wall of my cell near the window.
After severely trying my eyes for two or three hours, I was obliged to
make an application for gas, which, after some hesitation, was granted.
But I found the remedy almost worse than the evil. Sitting all day at
the little lap-table, with my head about ten inches from the gas-light,
made me feel sick and dizzy. Mr. Ramsey, as I afterwards discovered, was
made quite ill by a similar nuisance, and the chief warder was obliged
to release him for a brief walk in the open air. I applied the next
morning for a fresh cell, and was duly accommodated. My new apartment
was very much lighter, but the change was in other respects a
disadvantage. The closet was fouler, and as the lid was a remarkably bad
fit, it emitted a more obtrusive smell. The copper basin also was filled
with dirty water, which would not flow away, as the waste-pipe was
stopped up. To remedy these defects they brought the engineer, who
strenuously exercised his intellect on the subject for three days; but
as he exercised nothing on the waste-pipe, I insisted on having the
copper basin baled out, and secured a bucket for my ablutions.
During my first day in Newgate, the officers occasionally dropped in for
a minute's chat with such an unusual prisoner. I found them for the
most part "good fellows," and singularly free from the bigotry of their
"betters." The morning papers also helped to wile away the time. I was
pleased to see that the _Daily News_ rebuked the scandalous severity
of the judge, and that the reports of our trial were reasonably fair,
although very inadequate. The _Daily Chronicle_ was under an embargo,
and could not be obtained for love or money; the reason being, I
believe, that many years ago it commented severely on some prison
scandal, and provoked the high and mighty Commissioners into laying
their august proscription upon it. All the weekly papers, or at least
the Radical ones I inquired for, were under a similar embargo, for what
reason I could never discover. Perhaps the Commissioners, who enjoy a
reputation for piety, exclude Radical and heterodox journals lest they
should impair the Christianity and Toryism of the gaol-birds.
Many letters reached me and were answered, so that my time was well
occupied until twelve, when dinner was brought in from "over the way."
Being well-nigh ravenous, I dispatched it with great celerity, washing
it down with a little mild ale. Prisoners awaiting trial are allowed (if
they can pay for it) a pint of that beverage, or half a pint of wine.
After dinner I felt drowsy, and as there was no sofa or chair, and no
back to the little three-legged stool, I was obliged to dispense with a
nap. I walked up and down my splendid hall instead, longing desperately
for a mouthful of fresh air by way of dessert, or a few minutes' chat
with my friends, who I dare say were in exactly the same predicament.
Tea, which came at five, brightened me up, and as Mr. Wheeler had by
this time sent in all my books and papers, I settled down to three
hours' hard work. The worthy Governor, a tall sedate man, did not like
the titles of some of my books, and inquired whether I really wanted
them for my defence. I replied that I did. "Then," said he to the chief
warder, "they may all be brought up, but you must take care they don't
get about." At half-past eight, according to the rules, I retired to
my precarious and uncomfortable couch; a few minutes later my gas was
turned off, and I was left in almost total darkness to seek the sleep
which I soon found. Thus ended my first day in Newgate.
My second day in Newgate passed like the first. Prison life affords few
variations; the days roll by with drear monotony like wave after wave
over a spent swimmer's head. We enjoyed Judge North's "opportunity" to
prepare our fresh defence in the way I have already described. We were
locked up in our brick vaults twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four;
we walked for an hour after breakfast in the courtyard; and the fifteen
minutes allowed for the "interview with two visitors" was, as before,
religiously deducted from the sixty minutes allowed for "exercise."
Mr. Wheeler sent in more books and papers, and I devoted my whole time,
except that occupied in answering letters, to preparing another speech
for Monday.
Sunday was a miserably dull day. No visits are allowed in that sacred
interval, a regulation which presses with great severity on the poorer
prisoners, whose relatives and friends are freer to visit them on Sunday
than during the week.
The confinement was beginning to tell on me. My life had been
exceptionally active, physically and mentally, and this prison life was
as stagnant as the air of my cell. Thus "cabin'd cribbed, confined,"
I felt all my vital functions half arrested. Dejection I did not
experience; my spirits were light and fresh; but the body revolted
against its ill-treatment, and recorded its protest on the conscious
brain.
How grateful was the brief hour's exercise on the Sunday morning! The
muffled roar of the great city was hushed, and the silence served to
emphasise every visual phenomenon. Even the air of that city courtyard,
hemmed in by lofty walls, seemed a breath of Paradise. I threw back my
shoulders, expanding the chest through mouth and nostrils, and lifted my
face to the sky. A pale gleam of sunshine pierced through the canopy of
London smoke. It might have looked ghastly to a resident in the country,
unused to the light London calls day, but to one immured in a prison
cell it was an irradiation of glory. The mind expanded under the
lustre; imagination preened its wings, and sped beyond the haze into the
everlasting blue.
Gallant Lovelace, in durance vile, boasted his unfettered mind, and
sang--
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage."
True, but the model prison was not invented then, nor was the silent
system in vogue. Lovelace's apartment was, perhaps, not so scrupulously
clean as mine, but it commanded a finer prospect. He knew nothing of the
horror of opaque windows, and his iron bars did not exclude the air and
light.
At eleven o'clock my cell door was opened, and an officer asked me if I
would like to go to chapel. "Yes," I replied, for I was curious to see
what a religious service in Newgate was like, and any interruption of
the day's monotony was welcome.
Standing outside my cell door, I perceived Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Kemp, and Mr.
Cattell already outside theirs. The few other prisoners still remaining
in Newgate (they are transferred to other prisons as soon as possible
after sentence) were ranged in a similar manner. A file was then formed,
and we marched, accompanied by officers, through a passage on the
ground floor to the chapel, passing on our way the glass boxes in which
prisoners hold communication with their solicitors. An officer stands
outside during the interview: he can hear nothing, but he is able to
see every motion of the occupants; the object of this mechanism being to
guard against the passage of any interdicted articles.
The chapel was small, lighted by a large window on the left side
from the door, and warmed by a mountainous stove in the centre. A few
backless forms were provided on the floor for unconvicted prisoners.
We were accommodated with the front bench, and requested to sit two
or three feet apart from each other, the few other prisoners occupying
seats behind us being separated in the same way. The convicted prisoners
sit in a railed-off part of the chapel, and I believe there is a gallery
for the women. On our right, facing the window, was a pulpit, below
which was the clerk's desk, flanked on the right by the Governor's box
and on the left by a seat for the officers.
After waiting some time, we heard footsteps at the door. In strode the
tall Governor and the Chaplain, the one entering his box, and the other
going to the clerk's desk, where he read the service, which was rushed
through at the rate of sixty miles an hour. Mr. Duffeld started the
hymns, but his voice is not melodious, and he has little sense of tune.
The singing, indeed, would have broken down if it had not been for the
Francatelli of the establishment, who had exchanged his kitchen costume
for the official uniform, and sang with the fervor and emphasis of a
Methodist leader or a captain in the Salvation Army.
Mr. Duffeld mounted the pulpit to read his sermon. His text was Matthew
vii., 21: "Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father which is
in heaven." This text caused me a pleasant surprise. I had heard of Mr.
Duffeld as a member of, or a sympathiser with, the Guild of St. Matthew;
and I fancied that he meant to condemn our prosecution, not directly, so
as to offend his employers, but indirectly, so as to justify himself and
satisfy us. I was, however, greviously mistaken. Mr. Duffeld's sermon
was directed against the large order of "professing Christians," who
manage a pretty easy compromise between God and Mammon, between
Jesus Christ and the world and the flesh, if not the Devil. It had no
reference to us, and it was entirely inappropriate to the rest of the
congregation, who, I must say, from the casual glimpses I caught of
them, were glancing about aimless as monkeys, or staring listless like
melancholy monomaniacs.
When the benediction was pronounced, Mr. Duffeld marched swiftly away;
the tall Governor strode after him, and the prisoners filed in silence
through the doorway back to their cells. What a commentary it was on
"Our Father!" It was a ghastly mockery, a blasphemous farce, a satire on
Christianity infinitely more sardonic and mordant than anything I ever
wrote or published. Soon after returning to my cell I was glad of the
substantial dinner and drowsy ale to deaden the bitter edge of my scorn.
After tea I settled down to the final preparations for my defence. My
gas was left on for an extra hour to afford me the time I required. It
was half-pa
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