Part 6 (2/2)

”What is that?” sta on the brakes to stop the train,” I answered very slowly and distinctly, though a very passion of relief made it hard to say quietly theat me, and in a minute or two the train pulled up at a station--it had been stopped by signal My ione In a uard, and explained rapidly that I was a wo alone, and that a half-drunken e With the usual kindness of a railway official, he at once e into another compartment, into which he locked me, and he kept a friendly watch over me at every station at which we stopped until he landed ow a room had been taken for me at a te to be ”all on e city, that I wanted to sit down and cry This feeling, to which I was too proud to yield, was probably partly due to the extres are better now, but in those days te in cleanliness Abstinence fro place” do not seem necessary correlatives, yet I rarely went to a temperance hotel in which water was liberally used for other purposes than that of drinking Frooent north to Aberdeen, where I found a very stern and critical audience Not a sound broke the stillness as I walked up the hall; not a sound as I ascended the platfor to applaud a stranger at sight; he was going to see what she was like first In griranite like their own granite city, and I felt I would like to take off my head and throw it at them, if only to break that hard wall After about twenty minutes, a fortunate phrase drew a hiss from some child of the Covenanters I ranite vanished Never after that did I have to complain of the coldness of an Aberdeen audience

Back to London fro, weary journey it was, in a third-class carriage in the cold month of February; but the labour had in it a joy that outpaid all physical discoave a new happiness to life

On February 28th I stood for the first time on the platform of the Hall of Science, Old Street, St Luke's, London, and was received with that war which Secularists are always so ready to extend to any who sacrifice aught to join their ranks That hall is identified in le, with both victory and defeat, but whether in victory or in defeat I found there alelcoe ith Secularists stood by me have overpaid a thousandfold any poor services I was fortunate enough to render, while in their ranks, to the cause of Liberty, and wholly prevent any bitterness arising in my mind for any unfriendliness shown me by some, who have perhaps overstepped kindness and justice in their sorrorath at my renunciation of Materialis acted as a tonic My chest had always been a little delicate, and when I consulted a doctor on the possibility ofplatform work, he answered, ”It will either kill you or cure you” It entirely cured the lung weakness, and I grew strong and vigorous instead of being frail and delicate, as of old

It would be wearisohteen years of platform work, so I will only select here and there incidents illustrative of the whole And here let me say that the frequent attacks made on ht propaganda by the gains it offered, forrotesque contrast to the facts On one occasion I spent eight days in Northuave twelve lectures, and s on the whole Of course such a thing could not happen in later years, when I had made my name by sheer hard work, but I fancy that every Secularist lecturer could tell of si his way” The fact is that froh doards every one of us could have earned a competence with comparative ease in any other line of work, and could have earned it with public approval instead of a was done in Northumberland and Durham; the miners there are, as a rule, shrewd and hard-headed iven by thehill and at Bedlington I have slept in their cottages and have been welco at Seghill, after a lecture, when my host, himself a miner, invited about a dozen of his comrades to supper to meet me; the talk ran on politics, and I soon found that lish politics, had a far shrewder notion of politicalto, than most of the ordinary men met at dinner parties ”in society” They were of the ”uneducated”

class despised by ”gentlemen,” and had not then the franchise, but politically they were far better educated than their social superiors, and were far better fitted to discharge the duties of citizenshi+p Hoell, too, do I reive a lecture in an out-of-the-way spot, unapproached by railway Such was the jolting as we rattled over rough roads and stony places, that I felt as though all h I should collapse on the platfor half-filled with stones How kind they were to enial, cordial miners, how careful for my comfort, and how motherly were the women! Ah! if opponents of nant, there was coood men and wohed the hatred, andheart

Lecturing in June, 1875, at Leicester, I caht sore trouble and cost me more pain than I care to tell An irate Christian opponent, in the discussion that followed the lecture, declared that I was responsible for a book entitled, ”The Elements of Social Science,” which was, he averred, ”The Bible of Secularists” I had never heard of the book, but as he stated that it was in favour of the abolition of reed with it, I pro about the book, I knew a great deal about Mr Bradlaugh, and I knew that on the e question he was conservative rather than revolutionary He detested ”Free Love” doctrines, and had thrown hiitation led so heroically for many years by Mrs Josephine Butler On my return to London after the lecture I naturally made inquiry as to the volume and its contents, and I found that it had been written by a Doctor of Medicine some years before, and sent to the _National Reformer_ for review, as to other journals, in ordinary course of business It consisted of three parts--the first advocated, frohly known as ”Free Love”; the second was entirely medical; the third consisted of a clear and able exposition of the law of population as laid down by the Rev Mr Malthus, and--following the lines of John Stuart Mill--insisted that it was the duty of married persons to voluntarily limit their fah, in reviewing the book, said that it ritten ”with honest and pure intent and purpose,” and reco men the exposition of the law of population His enemies took hold of this recommendation, declared that he shared the author's views on the ie tie, and, despite his reiterated contradictions, they used extracts againstmore meanly vile it would be difficult to conceive, but such were the weapons used against him all his life, and used often by men whose own lives contrastedin his oritings to serve their purpose, they used this book to da at first-hand of his views What his enee--which, as I have said, was conservative--but his Radicalisned him socially, and the idea that a e and the home,” is a most convenient poniard, and the one in of his worst difficulties, to be intensified, ere long, by his defence of Malthusianism On me also fell the same lash, and I found myself held up to hatred as upholder of views that I abhorred

I may add that far warh was given by other writers, ere never attacked in the sae Jacob Holyoake, I find warmer praise of it than in the _National Refore appears:--

”In some respects all books of this class are evils: but it would be weakness and criminal prudery--a prudery as criminal as vice itself--not to say that such a book as the one in question is not only a far lesser evil than the one that it combats, but in one sense a book which it is a e to publish”

The _Exa the sah rather heterogeneous book This is, we believe, the only book that has fully, honestly, and in a scientific spirit recognised all the elements in the problem--How are mankind to triumph over poverty, with its train of attendant evils?--and fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical solution”

The _British Journal of hoh quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain fro that this work is unquestionably the most reh we differ _toto coelo_ froion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather to a dissolution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the benevolence and philanthropy of hisless than the whole field of political econoly, but out of all these Charles Bradlaugh alone has been selected for reproach, and has had the peculiar views of the anonymous author fathered on himself

Soh In Darwen, Lancashi+re, in June, 1875, stone-throas regarded as a fair argument addressed to the Atheist lecturer At Swansea, in March, 1876, the fear of violence was so great that a guarantee against dae to the hall was exacted by the proprietor, and no local friend had the courage to take the chair for me In September, 1876, at Hoyland, thanks to the exertions of Mr Hebblethwaite, a Primitive Methodist, and two Protestant missionaries, I found the hall packed with a crowd that yelled at our, stood on fors e of a lull in the noise, I began to speak, and the tu the hall it broke out afresh, and I walked slowly through a crowd that yelled and swore and struck at me, but somehow those nearest always shrank back and let , but only one kick reached me, and the attempts to overturn the cab were foiled by the driver, who put his horse at a gallop Later in the saether, having been invited there by Mr and Mrs Wolstenhol to an acco with Mrs El the platform, received a rather heavy blow on the back of the head from a stone thrown by some one in the room We had a mile and a half to walk from the hall to the house, and were acco hymns at the tops of their voices, with interludes of curses and foul words On the following evening I lectured, and our stone-throwing admirers escorted us to the hall; in the middle of the lecture a man shouted, ”Put her out!” and a well-knorestler of the neighbourhood, named Burbery, who had co, stood up as at a signal in front of the platforh, as in the chair, told hi, inforo out ”Putan attitude Mr Bradlaugh left the platforrappled with him and tried to throw hith of his opponent, and when the ”throas complete Mr Burbery was underneath Amid much exciteently used on the way as a battering-raainst his friends who rushed to the rescue, and at the door was handed over to the police The chairman then resumed his normal duties, with a brief ”Go on” tothe lecture in peace But outside the hall there was plenty of stone-throwing, and Mrs Elmy received a cut on the teradually lessened, and my experience of it was a mere trifle compared to that which h's early experiences involved , and Mrs Harriet Lao natural ability, haddays

In Septeain sailed for America, still to earn money there to pay his debts Unhappily he was struck down by typhoid fever, and all his hopes of freeing hih despaired of, but the adh Said the _Balti and severe illness has disappointed the hopes and retarded the object for which he caentleness and patience itself in his sickness in this strange land, and has endeared hiratitude and appreciation of the slightest attention”

His fortitude in face of death was alsothere as he did far from home and from all he loved best Never a quiver of fear touched him as he walked down into the valley of the shadow of death; the Rev Mr Frothingha testih's noble serenity, at once fearless and unpretending, and, hi witness to the Atheist's calth He came back to us at the end of Septe month he bore the traces of his wrestle with death

One part ofhis absence was the delivery and subsequent publication of six lectures on the French Revolution That stormy time had for me an intense fascination I brooded over it, dreaed to tell the story froe amount of the current literature of the time, as well as Louis Blanc's monumental work and the histories of Michelet, Lah had a splendid collection of books on the subject, and ere we left England he brought me two cabs-full of volumes, aristocratic, ecclesiastical, deently, and lived in them, till the French Revolution became to me as a drama in which I had myself taken part, and the actors were to ain, as in so h for the influence which led me to read fully all sides of a question, and to read most carefully those from which I differed most, ere I considered myself competent to write or to speak thereon From 1875 onwards I held office as one of the vice-presidents of the National Secular Society--a society founded on a broad basis of liberty, with the inspiring h was president, and I held office under hined his post in February, 1890, nine months after I had joined the Theosophical Society The NSS, under his judicious and far-sighted leadershi+p, becaically and politically, ee numbers of men and wo a nucleus of earnest workers, able to gather round theer numbers of others, and thus to powerfully affect public opinion Once a year the societyfriendshi+p between s, so that all over the country spread a net-work of comradeshi+p between the staunch followers of ”our Charlie” These were the ain, supported hile, came up to London to swell the dee party--”the largest personal following of any public man since Mr Gladstone,” it was once said by an ey, but passionately supported him in politics; miners, cutlers, weavers, spinners, shoe, sturdy, self-reliant men who loved him to the last

CHAPTER IX

THE KNOWLTON PAMPHLET

The year 1877 dawned, and in its early days began a struggle which, ending in victory all along the line, brought with it pain and anguish that I scarcely care to recall An American physician, Dr Charles Knowlton, convinced of the truth of the teaching of the Rev Mr

Malthus, and seeing that that teaching had either no practical value or tended to the great increase of prostitution, unless ht to limit their families within their means of livelihood--wrote a pamphlet on the voluntary limitation of the family It was published somewhere in the Thirties--about 1835, I think--and was sold unchallenged in England as well as in America for some forty years Philosophers of the Benthas, and the bearing of population on poverty was an axioical treatise, advocating conjugal prudence and parental responsibility; it argued in favour of early e, with a view to the purity of social life; but as early enerally i either to pauperis, education, and fair start in life for the children, Dr Knowlton advocated the restriction of the number of the family within the means of subsistence, and stated the methods by which this restriction could be carried out The book was never challenged till a disreputable Bristol bookseller put some copies on sale to which he added some improper pictures, and he was prosecuted and convicted The publisher of the _National Reforh's and my books and pa other literature he bought, and he was prosecuted and, to our great dis from his hands, and after careful deliberation we decided to publish the incriht of discussion on the population question, when, with the advice to liiven as to how that advice could be followed We took a little shop, printed the pamphlet, and sent notice to the police that ould commence the sale at a certain day and hour, and ourselves sell the paered by our action We resigned our offices in the National Secular Society that we ht not injure the society, but the executive first, and then the Annual Conference, refused to accept the resignations Our position as regarded the paht to us for publication, we stated, we should not have published it, for it was not a treatise of high merit; but, prosecuted as immoral because it advised the liht of publication In a preface to the republished edition, rote:--