And here let me point a moral about hard work. Hard work kills no one.
I find a note in the _National Reformer_ in 1880 from the pen of Mr.
Bradlaugh: "It is, we fear, useless to add that, in the judgment of her best friends, Mrs. Besant has worked far too hard during the last two years." This is 1893, and the thirteen years" interval has been full of incessant work, and I am working harder than ever now, and in splendid health. Looking over the _National Reformer_ for all these years, it seems to me that it did really fine educational work; Mr.
Bradlaugh"s strenuous utterances on political and theological matters; Dr. Aveling"s luminous and beautiful scientific teachings; and to my share fell much of the educative work on questions of political and national morality in our dealings with weaker nations. We put all our hearts into our work, and the influence exercised was distinctly in favour of pure living and high thinking.
In the spring of 1881 the Court of Appeal decided against Mr.
Bradlaugh"s right to affirm as Member of Parliament, and his seat was declared vacant, but he was at once returned again by the borough of Northampton, despite the virulence of slander directed against him, so that he rightly described the election as "the most bitter I have ever fought." His work in the House had won him golden opinions in the country, and he was already recognised as a power there; so Tory fear was added to bigoted hatred, and the efforts to keep him out of the House were increased.
He was introduced to the House as a new member to take his seat by Mr.
Labouchere and Mr. Burt, but Sir Stafford Northcote intervened, and after a lengthy debate, which included a speech from Mr. Bradlaugh at the Bar, a majority of thirty-three refused to allow him to take the oath. After a prolonged scene, during which Mr. Bradlaugh declined to withdraw and the House hesitated to use force, the House adjourned, and finally the Government promised to bring in an Affirmation Bill, and Mr. Bradlaugh promised, with the consent of his const.i.tuents, to await the decision of the House on this Bill. Meantime, a League for the Defence of Const.i.tutional Rights was formed, and the agitation in the country grew: wherever Mr. Bradlaugh went to speak vast crowds awaited him, and he travelled from one end of the country to the other, the people answering his appeal for justice with no uncertain voice. On July 2nd, in consequence of Tory obstruction, Mr. Gladstone wrote to Mr. Bradlaugh that the Government were going to drop the Affirmation Bill, and Mr. Bradlaugh thereupon determined to present himself once more in the House, and fixed on August 3rd as the date of such action, so that the Irish Land Bill might get through the House ere any delay in business was caused by him. The House was then closely guarded with police; the great gates were closed, reserves of police were packed in the law courts, and all through July this state of siege continued. On August 2nd there was a large meeting in Trafalgar Square, at which delegates were present from all parts of England, and from as far north as Edinburgh, and on Wednesday, August 3rd, Mr. Bradlaugh went down to the House. His last words to me were: "The people know you better than they know any one, save myself; whatever happens, mind, whatever happens, let them do no violence; I trust to you to keep them quiet." He went to the House entrance with Dr. Aveling, and into the House alone. His daughters and I went together, and with some hundreds of others carrying pet.i.tions--ten only with each pet.i.tion, and the ten rigidly counted and allowed to pa.s.s through the gate, sufficiently opened to let one through at a time--reached Westminster Hall, where we waited on the steps leading to the pa.s.sage of the lobby.
An inspector ordered us off. I gently intimated that we were within our rights. Dramatic order: "Four officers this way." Up they marched and looked at us, and we looked at them. "I think you had better consult Inspector Denning before you use violence," I remarked placidly. They thought they had, and in a few moments up came the inspector, and seeing that we were standing in a place where we had a right to be, and were doing no harm, he rebuked his over-zealous subordinates, and they retired and left us in peace. A man of much tact and discretion was Inspector Denning. Indeed, all through this, the House of Commons police behaved admirably well. Even in the attack they were ordered to make on Mr. Bradlaugh, the police used as little violence as they could. It was Mr. Erskine, the Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms, and his ushers, who showed the brutality; as Dr.
Aveling wrote at the time: "The police disliked their work, and, as brave men, had a sympathy for a brave man. Their orders they obeyed rigidly. This done, they were kindness itself." Gradually the crowd of pet.i.tioners grew and grew; angry murmurs were heard, for no news came from the House, and they loved "Charlie," and were mostly north country men, st.u.r.dy and independent. They thought they had a right to go into the lobby, and suddenly, with the impulse that will sway a crowd to a single action there was a roar, "Pet.i.tion, pet.i.tion, justice, justice," and they surged up the steps, charging at the policemen who held the door. Flashed into my mind my chief"s charge, his words, "I trust to you to keep them quiet," and as the police sprang forward to meet the crowd I threw myself between them, with all the advantage of the position of the top of the steps that I had chosen, so that every man in the charging crowd saw me, and as they checked themselves in surprise I bade them stop for his sake, and keep for him the peace which he had bade us should not be broken. I heard afterwards that as I sprang forward the police laughed--they must have thought me a fool to face the rush of the charging men; but I knew his friends would never trample me down, and as the crowd stopped the laugh died out, and they drew back and left me my own way.
Sullenly the men drew back, mastering themselves with effort, reining in their wrath, still for his sake. Ah! had I known what was going on inside, would I have kept his trust unbroken! and, as many a man said to me afterwards in northern towns, "Oh! if you had let us go we would have carried him into the House up to the Speaker"s chair." We heard a crash inside, and listened, and there was sound of breaking gla.s.s and splintering wood, and in a few minutes a messenger came to me: "He is in Palace Yard." And we went thither and saw him standing, still and white, face set like marble, coat torn, motionless, as though carved in stone, facing the members" door. Now we know the whole shameful story: how as that one man stood alone, on his way to claim his right, alone so that he could do no violence, fourteen men, said the Central News, police and ushers, flung themselves upon him, pushed and pulled him down the stairs, smashing in their violence the gla.s.s and wood of the pa.s.sage door; how he struck no blow, but used only his great strength in pa.s.sive resistance--" Of all I have ever seen, I never saw one man struggle with ten like that," said one of the chiefs, angrily disdainful of the wrong he was forced to do--till they flung him out into Palace Yard. An eye-witness thus reported the scene in the Press: "The strong, broad, heavy, powerful frame of Mr. Bradlaugh was hard to move, with its every nerve and muscle strained to resist the coercion.
Bending and straining against the overpowering numbers, he held every inch with surprising tenacity, and only surrendered it after almost superhuman exertions to retain it. The sight--little of it as was seen from the outside--soon became sickening. The overborne man appeared almost at his last gasp. The face, in spite of the warmth of the struggle, had an ominous pallor. The limbs barely sustained him....
The Trafalgar Square phrase that this man might be broken but not bent occurred to minds apprehensive at the present appearance of him."
They flung him out, and swift, short words were there interchanged. "I nearly did wrong at the door," he said afterwards, "I was very angry.
I said to Inspector Denning, "I shall come again with force enough to overcome it," He said, "When?" I said, "Within a minute if I raise my hand."" He stood in Palace Yard, and there outside the gate was a vast sea of heads, the men who had journeyed from all parts of England for love of him, and in defence of the great right he represented of a const.i.tuency to send to Parliament the man of its choice. Ah! he was never greater than in that moment of outrage and of triumphant wrong; with all the pa.s.sion of a proud man surging within him, insulted by physical violence, injured by the cruel wrenching of all his muscles--so that for weeks his arms had to be swathed in bandages--he was never greater than when he conquered his own wrath, crushed down his own longing for battle, stirred to flame by the bodily struggle, and the bodily injury, and with thousands waiting within sound of his voice, longing to leap to his side, he gave the word to tell them to meet him that evening away from the scene of conflict, and meanwhile to disperse quietly, "no riot, no disorder." But how he suffered mentally no words of mine may tell, and none can understand how it wrung his heart who does not know how he reverenced the great Parliament of England, how he honoured law, how he believed in justice being done; it was the breaking down of his national ideals, of his pride in his country, of his belief that faith would be kept with a foe by English gentlemen, who with all their faults, he thought, held honour and chivalry dear. "No man will sleep in gaol for me to-night," he said to me that day; "no woman can blame me for her husband killed or wounded, but--" A wave of agony swept over his face, and from that fatal day Charles Bradlaugh was never the same man.
Some hold their ideals lightly, but his heart-strings were twined round his; some care little for their country--he was an Englishman, law-abiding, liberty-loving, to his heart"s core, of the type of the seventeenth-century patriot, holding England"s honour dear. It was the treachery that broke his heart; he had gone alone, believing in the honour of his foes, ready to submit to expulsion, to imprisonment, and it was the latter that he expected; but he never dreamed that, going alone amongst his foes, they would use brutal and cowardly violence, and shame every Parliamentary tradition by personal outrage on a duly-elected member, outrage more worthy of a slum pot-house than of the great Commons House, the House of Hampden and of Vane, the House that had guarded its own from Royal violence, and had maintained its privileges in the teeth of kings.
These stormy scenes brought about a promise of Government aid; Mr.
Bradlaugh failed to get any legal redress, as, indeed, he expected to fail, on the ground that the officials of the House were covered by the House"s order, but the Government promised to support his claim to his seat during the next session, and thus prevented the campaign against them on which we had resolved. I had solely on my own responsibility organised a great band of people pledged to refrain from the use of all excisable articles after a certain date, and to withdraw all their moneys in the Savings Bank, thus seriously crippling the financial resources of the Government. The response from the workers to my appeal to "Stop the supplies" was great and touching. One man wrote that as he never drank nor smoked he would leave off tea; others that though tobacco was their one luxury, they would forego it; and so on. Somewhat reluctantly, I asked the people to lay aside this formidable weapon, as "we have no right to embarra.s.s the Government financially save when they refuse to do the first duty of a Government to maintain law. They have now promised to do justice, and we must wait." Meanwhile the injuries inflicted on Mr. Bradlaugh, rupturing the sheaths of some of the muscles of the arm, laid him prostrate, and various small fights went on during the temporary truce in the great struggle. I turned up in the House two or three times, haled thither, though not in person, by the people who kept Mr.
Bradlaugh out, and a speech of mine became the subject of a question by Mr. Ritchie, while Sir Henry Tyler waged war on the science cla.s.ses. Another joy was added to life by the use of my name--which by all these struggles had gained a marketable value--as author of pamphlets I had never seen, and this forgery of my name by unscrupulous people in the colonies caused me a good deal of annoyance. In the strengthening of the const.i.tutional agitation in the country, the holding of an International Congress of Freethinkers in London, the studying and teaching of science, the delivering of courses of scientific lectures in the Hall of Science, a sharp correspondence with the Bishop of Manchester, who had libelled Secularists, and which led to a fiery pamphlet, "G.o.d"s Views on Marriage," as retort--in all these matters the autumn months sped rapidly away. One incident of that autumn I record with regret. I was misled by very partial knowledge of the nature of the experiments performed, and by my fear that if scientific men were forbidden to experiment on animals with drugs they would perforce experiment with them on the poor in hospitals, to write two articles, republished as a pamphlet, against Sir Eardley Wilmot"s Bill for the "Total Suppression of Vivisection." I limited my approval to highly skilled men engaged in original investigations, and took the representations made of the character of the experiments without sufficient care to verify them.
Hence the publication of the one thing I ever wrote for which I feel deep regret and shame, as against the whole trend and efforts of my life. I am thankful to say that Dr. Anna Kingsford answered my articles, and I readily inserted her replies in the paper in which mine had appeared--our _National Reformer_--and she touched that question of the moral sense to which my nature at once responded.
Ultimately, I looked carefully into the subject, found that vivisection abroad was very different from vivisection in England, saw that it was in very truth the fiendishly cruel thing that its opponents alleged, and destroyed my partial defence of even its less brutal form.
1882 saw no cessation of the struggles in which Mr. Bradlaugh and those who stood by him were involved. On February 7th he was heard for the third time at the Bar of the House of Commons, and closed his speech with an offer that, accepted, would have closed the contest. "I am ready to stand aside, say for four or five weeks, without coming to that table, if the House within that time, or within such time as its great needs might demand, would discuss whether an Affirmation Bill should pa.s.s or not. I want to obey the law, and I tell you how I might meet the House still further, if the House will pardon me for seeming to advise it. Hon. members have said that would be a Bradlaugh Relief Bill. Bradlaugh is more proud than you are. Let the Bill pa.s.s without applying to elections that have taken place previously, and I will undertake not to claim my seat, and when the Bill has pa.s.sed I will apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. I have no fear. If I am not fit for my const.i.tuents, they shall dismiss me, but you never shall. The grave alone shall make me yield." But the House would do nothing. He had asked for 100,000 signatures in favour of his const.i.tutional right, and on February 8th, 9th, and 10th 1,008 pet.i.tions, bearing 241,970 signatures, were presented; the House treated them with contemptuous indifference. The House refused to declare his seat vacant, and also refused to allow him to fill it, thus half-disfranchising Northampton, while closing every avenue to legal redress. Mr. Labouchere--who did all a loyal colleague could do to a.s.sist his brother member--brought in an Affirmation Bill; it was blocked. Mr. Gladstone, appealed to support the law declared by his own Attorney-General, refused to do anything. An _impa.s.se_ was created, and all the enemies of freedom rejoiced. Out of this position of what the _Globe_ called "quiet omnipotence" the House was shaken by an audacious defiance, for on February 21st the member it was trying to hold at arm"s length took the oath in its startled face, went to his seat, and--waited events.
The House then expelled him--and, indeed, it could scarcely do anything else after such defiance--and Mr. Labouchere moved for a new writ, declaring that Northampton was ready, its "candidate was Charles Bradlaugh, expelled this House." Northampton, ever steadfast, returned him for the third time--the vote in his favour showing an increase of 359 over the second bye-election--and the triumph was received in all the great towns of England with wild enthusiasm. By the small majority of fifteen in a House of 599 members--and this due to the vacillation of the Government--he was again refused the right to take his seat.
But now the whole Liberal Press took up his quarrel; the oath question became a test question for every candidate for Parliament, and the Government was warned that it was alienating its best friends. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ voiced the general feeling. "What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure the Government in the country? Of one thing we may be sure, that if they shirk the Bill they will do no good to themselves at the elections. n.o.body doubts that it will be made a test question, and any Liberal who declines to vote for such a Bill will certainly lose the support of the Northampton sort of Radicalism in every const.i.tuency. The Liberal Press throughout the country is absolutely unanimous. The political Non-conformists are for it. The local clubs are for it. All that is wanted is that the Government should pick up a little more moral courage, and recognise that even in practice honesty is the best policy." The Government did not think so, and they paid the penalty, for one of the causes that led to their defeat at the polls was the disgust felt at their vacillation and cowardice in regard to the rights of const.i.tuencies. Not untruly did I write, in May, 1882, that Charles Bradlaugh was a man "who by the infliction of a great wrong had become the incarnation of a great principle"; for the agitation in the country grew and grew, until, returned again to Parliament at the General Election, he took the oath and his seat, brought in and carried an Oaths Bill, not only giving Members of Parliament the right to affirm, but making Freethinkers competent as jurymen, and relieving witnesses from the insult hitherto put upon those who objected to swearing; he thus ended an unprecedented struggle by a complete victory, weaving his name for ever into the const.i.tutional history of his country.
In the House of Lords, Lord Redesdale brought in a Bill disqualifying Atheists from sitting in Parliament, but in face of the feeling aroused in the country, the Lords, with many pathetic expressions of regret, declined to pa.s.s it. But, meanwhile, Sir Henry Tyler in the Commons was calling out for prosecutions for blasphemy to be brought against Mr. Bradlaugh and his friends, while he carried on his crusade against Mr. Bradlaugh"s daughters, Dr. Aveling, and myself, as science teachers. I summed up the position in the spring of 1882 in the following somewhat strong language: "This short-lived "Parliamentary Declaration Bill" is but one of the many clouds which presage a storm of prosecution. The reiterated attempts in the House of Commons to force the Government into prosecuting heretics for blasphemy; the petty and vicious attacks on the science cla.s.ses at the Hall; the odious and wicked efforts of Mr. Newdegate to drive Mr. Bradlaugh into the Bankruptcy Court; all these are but signs that the heterogeneous army of pious and bigoted Christians are gathering together their forces for a furious attack on those who have silenced them in argument, but whom they hope to conquer by main force, by sheer brutality. Let them come. Free-thinkers were never so strong, never so united, never so well organised as they are to-day. Strong in the goodness of our cause, in our faith in the ultimate triumph of Truth, in our willingness to give up all save fidelity to the sacred cause of liberty of human thought and human speech, we await gravely and fearlessly the successors of the men who burned Bruno, who imprisoned Galileo, who tortured Vanini--the men who have in their hands the blood-red cross of Jesus of Nazareth, and in their hearts the love of G.o.d and the hate of man."
CHAPTER XII.
STILL FIGHTING.
All this hot fighting on the religious field did not render me blind to the misery of the Irish land so dear to my heart, writhing in the cruel grip of Mr. Forster"s Coercion Act. An article "Coercion in Ireland and its Results," exposing the wrongs done under the Act, was reprinted as a pamphlet and had a wide circulation.
I pleaded against eviction--7,020 persons had been evicted during the quarter ending in March--for the trial of those imprisoned on suspicion, for indemnity for those who before the Land Act had striven against wrongs the Land Act had been carried to prevent, and I urged that "no chance is given for the healing measures to cure the sore of Irish disaffection until not only are the prisoners in Ireland set at liberty, but until the brave, unfortunate Michael Davitt stands once more a free man on Irish soil." At last the Government reconsidered its policy and resolved on juster dealings; it sent Lord Frederick Cavendish over to Ireland, carrying with him the release of the "suspects," and scarcely had he landed ere the knife of a.s.sa.s.sination struck him--a foul and cowardly murder of an innocent messenger of peace. I was at Blackburn, to lecture on "The Irish Question," and as I was walking towards the platform, my heart full of joy for the dawning hope of peace, a telegram announcing the a.s.sa.s.sination was placed in my hands. Never shall I forget the shock, the incredulous horror, the wave of despair. "It is not only two men they have killed," I wrote, a day or two later; "they have stabbed the new-born hope of friendship between two countries, and have reopened the gulf of hatred that was just beginning to close." Alas! the crime succeeded in its object, and hurried the Government into new wrong. Hastily a new Coercion Bill was brought in, and rushed through its stages in Parliament, and, facing the storm of public excitement, I pleaded still, "Force no remedy," despite the hardship of the task. "There is excessive difficulty in dealing with the Irish difficulty at the present moment. Tories are howling for revenge on a whole nation as answer to the crime committed by a few; Whigs are swelling the outcry; many Radicals are swept away by the current, and feeling that "something must be done," they endorse the Government action, forgetting to ask whether the "something" proposed is the wisest thing. A few stand firm, but they are very few--too few to prevent the new Coercion Bill from pa.s.sing into law. But few though we be who lift up the voice of protest against the wrong which we are powerless to prevent, we may yet do much to make the new Act of brief duration, by so rousing public opinion as to bring about its early repeal. When the measure is understood by the public half the battle will be won; it is accepted at the moment from faith in the Government; it will be rejected when its true character is grasped. The murders which have given birth to this repressive measure came with a shock upon the country, which was the more terrible from the sudden change from gladness and hope to darkness and despair. The new policy was welcomed so joyfully; the messenger of the new policy was slain ere yet the pen was dry which had signed the orders of mercy and of liberty. Small wonder that cry of horror should be followed by measures of vengeance; but the murders were the work of a few criminals, while the measure of vengeance strikes the whole of the Irish people. I plead against the panic which confounds political agitation and political redressal of wrong with crime and its punishment; the Government measure gags every mouth in Ireland, and puts, as we shall see, all political effort at the mercy of the Lord-Lieutenant, the magistracy, and the police." I then sketched the misery of the peasants in the grip of absentee landlords, the turning out on the roadside to die of the mother with new-born babe at her breast, the loss of "all thought of the sanct.i.ty of human life when the lives of the dearest are reckoned as less worth than the shillings of overdue rack-rental." I a.n.a.lysed the new Act: "When this Act pa.s.ses, trial by jury, right of public meeting, liberty of press, sanct.i.ty of house, will one and all be held at the will of the Lord-Lieutenant, the irresponsible autocrat of Ireland, while liberty of person will lie at the mercy of every constable. Such is England"s way of governing Ireland in the year 1882. And this is supposed to be a Bill for the "repression of crime."" Bluntly, I put the bald truth: "The plain fact is that the murderers have succeeded.
They saw in the new policy the reconciliation of England and Ireland; they knew that friendship would follow justice, and that the two countries, for the first time in history, would clasp hands. To prevent this they dug a new gulf, which they hoped the English nation would not span; they sent a river of blood across the road of friendship, and they flung two corpses to bar the newly-opened gate of reconciliation and peace. They have succeeded."
Into this whirl of political and social strife came the first whisper to me of the Theosophical Society, in the shape of a statement of its principles, which conveyed, I remarked, "no very definite idea of the requirements for membership, beyond a dreamy, emotional, scholarly interest in the religio-philosophic fancies of the past." Also a report of an address by Colonel Olcott, which led me to suppose that the society held to "some strange theory of "apparitions" of the dead, and to some existence outside the physical and apart from it." These came to me from some Hindu Freethinkers, who asked my opinion as to Secularists joining the Theosophical Society, and Theosophists being admitted to the National Secular Society. I replied, judging from these reports, that "while Secularists would have no right to refuse to enrol Theosophists, if they desired it, among their members, there is a radical difference between the mysticism of Theosophy and the scientific materialism of Secularism. The exclusive devotion to this world implied in the profession of Secularism leaves no room for other-worldism; and consistent members of our body cannot join a society which professes belief therein."[27]
H.P. Blavatsky penned a brief article in the _Theosophist_ for August, 1882, in which she commented on my paragraph, remarking, in her generous way, that it must have been written "while labouring under entirely misconceived notions about the real nature of our society. For one so highly intellectual and keen as that renowned writer to dogmatise and issue autocratic ukases, after she has herself suffered so cruelly and undeservedly at the hands of blind bigotry and social prejudice in her lifelong struggle for _freedom of thought_ seems, to say the least, absurdly inconsistent." After quoting my paragraph she went on: "Until proofs to the contrary, we prefer to believe that the above lines were dictated to Mrs. Besant by some crafty misrepresentations from Madras, inspired by a mean personal revenge rather than a desire to remain consistent with the principles of "the scientific materialism of Secularism." We beg to a.s.sure the Radical editors of the _National Reformer_ that they were both very strangely misled by false reports about the Radical editors of the _Theosophist_. The term "supernaturalists" can no more apply to the latter than to Mrs. A. Besant and Mr. C. Bradlaugh."
H.P. Blavatsky, when she commented, as she occasionally did, on the struggles going on in England, took of them a singularly large-hearted and generous view. She referred with much admiration to Mr.
Bradlaugh"s work and to his Parliamentary struggle, and spoke warmly of the services he had rendered to liberty. Again, in pointing out that spiritualistic trance orations by no means transcended speeches that made no such claim, I find her first mention of myself: "Another lady orator, of deservedly great fame, both for eloquence and learning--the good Mrs. Annie Besant--without believing in controlling spirits, or for that matter in her own spirit, yet speaks and writes such sensible and wise things, that we might almost say that one of her speeches or chapters contains more matter to benefit humanity than would equip a modern trance-speaker for an entire oratorical career."[28] I have sometimes wondered of late years whether, had I met her then or seen any of her writings, I should have become her pupil. I fear not; I was still too much dazzled by the triumphs of Western Science, too self-a.s.sertive, too fond of combat, too much at the mercy of my own emotions, too sensitive to praise and blame. I needed to sound yet more deeply the depths of human misery, to hear yet more loudly the moaning of "the great Orphan," Humanity, to feel yet more keenly the lack of wider knowledge and of clearer light if I were to give effective help to man, ere I could bow my pride to crave admittance as pupil to the School of Occultism, ere I could put aside my prejudices and study the Science of the Soul.
The long-continued attempts of Sir Henry Tyler and his friends to stimulate persecutions for blasphemy at length took practical shape, and in July, 1882, Mr. Foote, the editor, Mr. Ramsey, the publisher, and Mr. Whittle, the printer of the _Freethinker_, were summoned for blasphemy by Sir Henry Tyler himself. An attempt was made to involve Mr. Bradlaugh in the proceedings, and the solicitors promised to drop the case against the editor and printer if Mr. Bradlaugh would himself sell them some copies of the paper. But however ready Mr. Bradlaugh had always shown himself to shield his subordinates by taking his sins on his own shoulders, he saw no reason why he should a.s.sume responsibility for a paper over which he had no control, and which was, he thought, by its caricatures, lowering the tone of Freethought advocacy and giving an unnecessary handle to its foes. He therefore answered that he would sell the solicitors any works published by himself or with his authority, and sent them a catalogue of the whole of such works. The object of this effort of Sir Henry Tyler"s was obvious enough, and Mr. Bradlaugh commented: "The above letters make it pretty clear that Sir Henry W. Tyler having failed in his endeavour to get the science cla.s.ses stopped at the Hall of Science, having also failed in his attempt to induce Sir W. Vernon Harcourt to prosecute myself and Mrs. Besant as editors and publishers of this journal, desires to make me personally and criminally responsible for the contents of a journal I neither edit nor publish, over which I have not a shadow of control, and in which I have not the smallest interest. Why does Sir H.W. Tyler so ardently desire to prosecute, me for blasphemy? Is it because two convictions will under the 9th and 10th Will. III. cap. 32, render me "for ever" incapable of sitting in Parliament?" The _Whitehall Review_ frankly put this forward as an object to be gained, and Mr. Bradlaugh was summoned to the Mansion House on a charge of publishing blasphemous libels in the _Freethinker_; meanwhile Sir Henry Tyler put a notice on the Order Book to deprive "the daughters of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh" of the grant they had earned as science teachers, and got an order which proved to be invalid, but which was acted on, to inspect Mr. Bradlaugh"s and my own private banking accounts, I being no party to the case. Looking back, I marvel at the incredible meannesses to which Sir Henry Tyler and others stooped in defence of "religion"--Heaven save the mark! Let me add that his motion in the House of Commons was a complete failure, and it was emphasised by the publication at the same time of the successful work, both as teachers and as students, of the "daughters of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh," and of my being the only student in all England who had succeeded in taking honours in botany.
I must pause a moment to chronicle, in September, 1882, the death of Dr. Pusey, whom I had sought in the whirl of my early religious struggles. I wrote an article on him in the _National Reformer_, and ended by laying a tribute on his grave: "A strong man and a good man.
Utterly out of harmony with the spirit of his own time, looking with sternly-rebuking eyes on all the eager research, the joyous love of nature, the earnest inquiry into a world doomed to be burnt up at the coming of its Judge. An ascetic, pure in life, stern in faith, harsh to unbelievers because sincere in his own cruel creed, generous and tender to all who accepted his doctrines and submitted to his Church.
He never stooped to slander those with whom he disagreed. His hatred of heresy led him not to blacken the character of heretics, nor to descend to the vulgar abuse used by pettier priests. And therefore I, who honour courage and sincerity wherever I find them; I, who do homage to steadfastness wherever I find it; I, Atheist, lay my small tribute of respect on the bier of this n.o.blest of the Anglo-Catholics, Edward Bouverie Pusey."
As a practical answer to the numberless attacks made on us, and as a result of the enormous increase of circulation given to our theological and political writings by these hara.s.sing persecutions, we moved our publishing business to 63, Fleet Street, at the end of September, 1882, a shop facing that at which Richard Carlile had carried on his publishing business for a great time, and so seemed still redolent with memories of his gallant struggles. Two of the first things sold here were a pamphlet of mine, a strong protest against our shameful Egyptian policy, and a critical volume on "Genesis" which Mr. Bradlaugh found time to write in the intervals of his busy life. Here I worked daily, save when out of London, until Mr.
Bradlaugh"s death in 1891, a.s.sisted in the conduct of the business by Mr. Bradlaugh"s elder daughter--a woman of strong character with many n.o.ble qualities, who died rather suddenly in December, 1888, and in the work on the _National Reformer_, first by Dr. Aveling, and then by Mr. John Robertson, its present editor. Here, too, from 1884 onwards, worked with me Thornton Smith, one of Mr. Bradlaugh"s most devoted disciples, who became one of the leading speakers of the National Secular Society; like her well-loved chief, she was ever a good friend and a good fighter, and to me the most loyal and loving of colleagues, one of the few--the very few--Freethinkers who were large-hearted and generous enough not to turn against me when I became a Theosophist. A second of these--alas! I could count them on my fingers--was the John Robertson above mentioned, a man of rare ability and wide culture, somewhat too scholarly for popular propagandism of the most generally effective order, but a man who is a strength to any movement, always on the side of n.o.ble living and high thinking, loyal-natured as the true Scot should be, incapable of meanness or treachery, and the most genial and generous of friends.
Among the new literary ventures that followed on our taking the large publishing premises in Fleet Street was a sixpenny magazine, edited by myself, and ent.i.tled _Our Corner_; its first number was dated January, 1883, and for six years it appeared regularly, and served me as a useful mouthpiece in my Socialist and Labour propagandist work. Among its contributors were Moncure D. Conway, Professor Ludwig Buchner, Yves Guyot, Professor Ernst Haeckel, G. Bernard Shaw, Constance Naden, Dr. Aveling, J.H. Levy, J.L. Joynes, Mrs. Edgren, John Robertson, and many another, Charles Bradlaugh and I writing regularly each month.
1883 broke stormily, fights on every hand, and a huge const.i.tutional agitation going on in the country, which forced the Government into bringing in an Affirmation Bill; resolutions from Liberal a.s.sociations all over the land; preparations to oppose the re-election of disloyal members; no less than a thousand delegates sent up to London by clubs, Trade Unions, a.s.sociations of every sort; a meeting that packed Trafalgar Square; an uneasy crowd in Westminster Hall; a request from Inspector Denning that Mr. Bradlaugh would go out to them--they feared for his safety inside; a word from him, "The Government have pledged themselves to bring in an Affirmation Bill at once;" roar after roar of cheering; a veritable people"s victory on that 15th of February, 1883. It was the answer of the country to the appeal for justice, the rebuke of the electors to the House that had defied them.
Scarcely was this over when a second prosecution for blasphemy against Messrs. Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp began, and was hurried on in the Central Criminal Court, before Mr. Justice North, a bigot of the sternest type. The trial ended in a disagreement of the jury, Mr.
Foote defending himself in a splendid speech. The judge acted very harshly throughout, interrupted Mr. Foote continuously, and even refused bail to the defendants during the interval between the first and second trial; they were, therefore, confined in Newgate from Thursday to Monday, and we were only allowed to see them through iron bars and lattice, as they exercised in the prison yard between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. Brought up to trial again on Monday, they were convicted, and Mr. Foote was sentenced to a year"s imprisonment, Mr.
Ramsey to nine months, and Mr. Kemp to three months. Mr. Foote especially behaved with great dignity and courage in a most difficult position, and heard his cruel sentence without wincing, and with the calm words, "My Lord, I thank you; it is worthy your creed." A few of us at once stepped in, to preserve to Mr. Ramsey his shop, and to Mr.
Foote his literary property; Dr. Aveling undertook the editing of the _Freethinker_ and of Mr. Foote"s magazine _Progress_; the immediate necessities of their families were seen to; Mr. and Mrs. Forder took charge of the shop, and within a few days all was in working order.
Disapproving as many of us did of the policy of the paper, there was no time to think of that when a blasphemy prosecution had proved successful, and we all closed up in the support of men imprisoned for conscience" sake. I commenced a series of articles on "The Christian Creed; what it is blasphemy to deny," showing what Christians must believe under peril of prosecution. Everywhere a tremendous impulse was given to the Freethought movement, as men awakened to the knowledge that blasphemy laws were not obsolete.
From over the sea came a word of sympathy from the pen of H.P.
Blavatsky in the _Theosophist_. "We prefer Mr. Foote"s actual position to that of his severe judge. Aye, and were we in his guilty skin, we would feel more proud, even in the poor editor"s present position, than we would under the wig of Mr. Justice North."
In April, 1883, the long legal struggles of Mr. Bradlaugh against Mr.
Newdegate and his common informer, that had lasted from July 2, 1880, till April 9, 1883, ended in his complete victory by the judgment of the House of Lords in his favour. "Court after Court decided against me," he wrote; "and Whig and Tory journals alike mocked at me for my persistent resistance. Even some good friends thought that my fight was hopeless, and that the bigots held me fast in their toils. I have, however, at last shaken myself free of Mr. Newdegate and his common informer. The judgment of the House of Lords in my favour is final and conclusive, and the boasts of the Tories that I should be made bankrupt for the penalties, have now, for ever, come to naught. Yet but for the many poor folk who have stood by me with their help and sympathy, I should have long since been ruined. The days and weeks spent in the Law Courts, the hara.s.sing work connected with each stage of litigation, the watching daily when each hearing was imminent, the absolute hindrance of all provincial lecturing--it is hardly possible for any one to judge the terrible mental and pecuniary strain of all this long-drawn-out struggle." Aye! it killed him at last, twenty years before his time, sapping his splendid vitality, undermining his iron const.i.tution.
The blasphemy trial of Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Foote, and Mr. Ramsey now came on, but this time in the Queen"s Bench, before the Lord Chief Justice Coleridge. I had the honour of sitting between Mr. Bradlaugh and Mr. Foote, charged with the duty of having ready for the former all his references, and with a duplicate brief to mark off point after point as he dealt with it. Messrs. Foote and Ramsey were brought up in custody, but were brave and bright with courage unbroken. Mr.
Bradlaugh applied to have his case taken separately, as he denied responsibility for the paper, and the judge granted the application; it was clearly proved that he and I--the "Freethought Publishing Company"--had never had anything to do with the production of the paper; that until November, 1881, we published it, and then refused to publish it any longer; that the reason for the refusal was the addition of comic Bible ill.u.s.trations as a feature of the paper. I was called as witness and began with a difficulty; claiming to affirm, I was asked by the judge if the oath would not be binding on my conscience; I answered that any promise was binding on me whatever the form, and after some little argument the judge found a way out of the insulting form by asking whether the "invocation of the Deity added anything to it of a binding nature--added any sanction?" "None, my Lord," was the prompt reply, and I was allowed to affirm. Sir Hardinge Giffard subjected me to a very stringent cross-examination, doing his best to entangle me, but the perfect frankness of my answers broke all his weapons of finesse and inuendo.
Some of the incidents of the trial were curious; Sir Hardinge Giffard"s opening speech was very able and very unscrupulous. All facts in Mr. Bradlaugh"s favour were distorted or hidden; anything that could be used against him was tricked out in most seductive fashion. Among the many monstrous perversions of the truth made by this most pious counsel, was the statement that changes of publisher, and of registration of the _Freethinker_ were made in consequence of a question as to prosecuting it put in the House of Commons. The change of publisher was admittedly made in November; the registration was made for the first time in November, and could not be changed, as there was no previous one. The House of Commons was not sitting in November; the question alluded to was asked in the following February.
This one deliberate lie of the "defender of the faith" will do as well as quoting a score of others to show how wickedly and maliciously he endeavoured to secure an unjust verdict.
The speech over, a number of witnesses were called. Sir Hardinge did not call witnesses who knew the facts, such as Mr. Norrish, the shopman, or Mr. Whittle, the printer. These he carefully avoided, although he subpoenaed both, because he did not want the real facts to come out. But he put in two solicitor"s clerks, who had been hanging about the premises, and buying endless _National Reformers_ and _Freethinkers_, sheaves of them which were never used, but by which Sir Hardinge hoped to convey the impression of a ma.s.s of criminality.
He put in a gentleman from the British Museum, who produced two large books, presumed to be _National Reformers_ and _Freethinkers_; what they were brought for n.o.body understood, the counsel for the Crown as little as any one, and the judge, surveying them over his spectacles, treated them with supreme contempt, as utterly irrelevant. Then a man came to prove that Mr. Bradlaugh was rated for Stonecutter Street, a fact no one disputed. Two policemen came to say they had seen him go in. "You saw many people go in, I suppose?" queried the Lord Chief Justice. On the whole the most miserably weak and obviously malicious case that could be brought into a court of law.
One witness, however, must not be forgotten--Mr. Woodhams, bank manager. When he stated that Mr. Maloney, the junior counsel for the Crown, had inspected Mr. Bradlaugh"s banking account, a murmur of surprise and indignation ran round the court. "Oh! Oh!" was heard from the crowd of barristers behind. The judge looked down incredulously, and for a moment the examination was stopped by the general movement.
Unless Sir Hardinge Giffard is a splendid actor, he was not aware of the infamous proceeding, for he looked as startled as the rest of his legal brethren.
Another queer incident occurred, showing, perhaps more than aught else, Mr. Bradlaugh"s swift perception of the situation and adaptation to the environment. He wanted to read the Mansion House deposition of Norrish, to show why he was not called; the judge objected, and declined to allow it to be read. A pause while you might count five; then; "Well, I think I may say the learned counsel did not call Norrish because ..." and then the whole substance of the deposition was given in supposit.i.tious form. The judge looked down a minute, and then went off into silent laughter impossible to control at the adroit change of means and persistent gaining of end; barristers all round broke into ripples of laughter unrestrained; a broad smile pervaded the jury box; the only unmoved person was the defendant who proceeded in his grave statement as to what Norrish "might" have been asked. The nature of the defence was very clearly stated by Mr. Bradlaugh: "I shall ask you to find that this prosecution is one of the steps in a vindictive attempt to oppress and to crush a political opponent--that it was a struggle that commenced on my return to Parliament in 1880.
If the prosecutor had gone into the box I should have shown you that he was one of the first then in the House to use the suggestion of blasphemy against me there. Since then I have never had any peace until the Monday of this week. Writs for penalties have been served, and suits of all kinds have been taken against me. On Monday last the House of Lords cleared me from the whole of one set, and, gentlemen, I ask you to-day to clear me from another. Three times I have been re-elected by my const.i.tuents, and what Sir Henry Tyler asks you to do is to send me to them branded with the dishonour of a conviction, branded not with the conviction for publishing heresy, but branded with the conviction, dishonourable to me, of having lied in this matter. I have no desire to have a prison"s walls closed on me, but I would sooner ten times that, than that my const.i.tuents should think that for one moment I lied to escape the penalties. I am not indicted for anything I have ever written or caused to be written. As my Lord at the very first stage this morning pointed out, it is no question with me, Are the matters indicted blasphemous, or are they not blasphemous? Are they defensible, or are they not defensible? That is not my duty here. On this I make no comment. I have no duty here of even discussing the policy of the blasphemy laws, although I cannot help thinking that, if I were here making my defence against them, I might say that they were bad laws unfairly revived, doing more mischief to those who revive them than to those whom they are revived against. But it is not for anything I have said myself; it is not for anything I have written myself; it is not for anything I have published myself. It is an endeavour to make me technically liable for a publication with which I have nothing whatever to do, and I will ask you to defeat that here. Every time I have succeeded I have been met with some new thing. When I first fought it was hoped to defeat my election. When I was re-elected it was sought to make me bankrupt by enormous penalties, and when I escaped the suit for enormous penalties they hope now to destroy me by this. I have no question here about defending my heresy, not because I am not ready to defend it when it is challenged in the right way, and it there be anything in it that the law can challenge. I have never gone back from anything I have ever said; I have never gone back from anything I have ever written; I have never gone back from anything I have ever done; and I ask you not to allow this Sir Henry Whatley Tyler, who dares not come here to-day, to use you as the a.s.sa.s.sin uses the dagger, to stab a man from behind whom he never dares to face."
The summing up by Lord Coleridge was perfect in eloquence, in thought, in feeling. Nothing more touching could be imagined than the conflict between the real religious feeling, abhorrent of heresy, and the determination to be just, despite all prejudice. The earnest effort lest the prejudice he felt as a Christian should weigh also in the minds of the jury, and should cause them to pervert justice. The absolute pleading to them to do what was right and not to admit against the unbeliever what they would not admit in ordinary cases.
Then the protest against prosecution of opinions; the admission of the difficulties in the Hebrew Scriptures, and the pathetic fear lest by persecution "the sacred truths might be struck through the sides of those who are their enemies." For intellectual clearness and moral elevation this exquisite piece of eloquence, delivered in a voice of silvery beauty, would be hard to excel, and Lord Coleridge did this piece of service to the religion so dear to his heart, that he showed that a Christian judge could be just and righteous in dealing with a foe of his creed.
There was a time of terrible strain waiting for the verdict, and when at last it came, "Not Guilty," a sharp clap of applause hailed it, sternly and rightly reproved by the judge. It was echoed by the country, which almost unanimously condemned the prosecution as an iniquitous attempt on the part of Mr. Bradlaugh"s political enemies to put a stop to his political career. Thus the _Pall Mall Gazette_ wrote:--