The Life & Work of Charles Bradlaugh. J. M. Robertson
slip did not pass unnoticed, and on the following day, with the view of gaining a slight extension of the time to plead, he applied to Mr. Baron Bramwell to order the withdrawal of the information. Baron Bramwell made the order applied for, and the solicitor to the Inland Revenue amended his document the same day.
From this "information," with its customary confusion of legal jargon retailed to clients at so much per folio, we may extricate three essential points, which I will put plainly in as many lines, viz., that Mr. Bradlaugh was being proceeded against for (1) publishing the National Reformer; for (2) being the proprietor of it; and for (3) selling the paper so published and owned "at a less price than sixpence, to wit, at the price of twopence."
These last words were pregnant with meaning, for, as my father wrote at the time, "If the price was sixpence I should not be prosecutable; it is only cheap blasphemy and sedition which is liable to be suppressed." The rich might read the covert blasphemies of an affectedly pious and unaffectedly sixpenny weekly journal, or dally over expensive and erudite treatises which were openly heretical; but ignorance and religion were necessary to the masses to keep them in proper subjection, and woe betide those rash men who ventured to throw open to these the door of the Chamber of Knowledge! Has not this been the law of England, and is it not in fact the sentiment of certain Englishmen even to-day?
As the particulars conveyed in this formidable "information" differed somewhat from those furnished in the earlier subpoena ad respondum, Mr. Bradlaugh applied to the Courts to compel further and better particulars concerning the penalties for which judgment was prayed. This application was heard on the 30th May, in the Court of Exchequer, before Mr. Justice Montague Smith, and was opposed by counsel (of whom there was quite an array) on behalf of the Crown. After a "lengthy and rather sharp passage of arms" the Judge decided in favour of the application, and ordered the solicitor to the Inland Revenue to "deliver to the defendant a further and better account in writing of the particulars of the statutes referred to in the 3rd and 6th counts."[41] This victory over the law officers of the Crown was of trifling consequence, except as giving a little additional time for pleading, and as showing his opponents that they had to deal with a man ready to see and ready to use every advantage given him. This second victory, small perhaps as bearing on the final issues, was of vast moral importance, for it forced the Crown to state that they relied on the obnoxious statute of George III. for the enforcement of the 3rd and 6th counts. The assistant-solicitor, Stephen Dowell, Esq., made this admission in the briefest possible language, abandoning the "to wits" and other ornamental phraseology of the original wordy information. On the 1st June Mr. Bradlaugh entered four pleas in his defence; but it was now the turn of the law officers of the Crown to interpose, and they objected that a defendant might only plead one plea, and referred their opponent to the 21 James I., cap. iv. sec. 4, as bearing on the case. The letter conveying this objection was put into my father's hands at Euston Station just as he was leaving by the 2.45 train for Northampton, the suffrages of which town he was then seeking to win for the first time. That very day was the last for giving notice for the next sittings, and half-past three was the latest time available on that day. Mr. Bradlaugh felt himself in a position of considerable embarrassment. There was no time for consideration; he doubted the accuracy of the Government, but he was not acquainted with the wording of the statute of James; his train was on the point of leaving for Northampton, and some decision must be come to immediately. He dispatched a clerk to Somerset House with authority to modify his plea according to the terms of the solicitor's letter, but reserving his right to inquire into the matter, and take such course upon it as the law permitted.
On his return from Northampton, he went at once to Messrs Spottiswoode, the Queen's Printers, and there he learned that the statute of James was "not only out of print, but had not been asked for within the memory of the oldest employee in the Queen's Printing Office." On referring to the Statute Book, he arrived at the opinion that Mr. Melvill was once more in error, and therefore went himself to Somerset House, where, to his "great surprise," he found that the Government lawyers were no better informed than himself, and merely sheltered themselves under an opinion of the counsel to the Treasury that he had no right to plead more than one plea. Upon hearing this, Mr. Bradlaugh immediately wrote Mr. Melvill that unless he at once pointed out the authority under which his right of pleading was limited to "Not Guilty," he should apply to a judge at chambers to have his pleas reinstated. Mr. Melvill replied on the same day repeating his declaration, but without giving his authority. The next day (Friday, June 5th) Mr. Bradlaugh was served with a rule that the case should be tried by a special jury, and that the jury should be nominated on the Tuesday following. On Saturday the application to reinstate the pleas was heard before Mr. Justice Willes. After a great deal of discussion, the judge at length endorsed the summons with a declaration giving Mr. Bradlaugh liberty to raise upon the trial all the issues involved in his pleas.
The trial came on in the Court of Exchequer on Saturday, June 13th, before Mr. Baron Martin. The Court was filled with Mr. Bradlaugh's friends, to witness this great forensic contest between himself, on behalf of a free, unshackled press on the one hand, and on the other, Her Majesty's Attorney-General, Sir John Karslake, Kt., aided and assisted by the Solicitor-General and an inferior legal gentleman "in stuff," on behalf of the Government and the oppressive press laws of George and William. When the jury was called only ten gentlemen answered to their names; thereupon the Associate asked the Attorney-General, "Do you pray a tales?" The Attorney-General answered, "We do not pray a tales." The Associate then asked Mr. Bradlaugh the same question, to which he also replied in the negative. Upon this the jury was discharged, and the great press prosecution entered into by the moribund Tory Government of 1868 came to an abortive end.
"It is not in mortals—least of all, in mortals mean as these—to command success. I make no doubt that the man who has the courage to defy them will at least do more—deserve it." So wrote "Caractacus" before this nominal trial came on, and assuredly whatever measure of success there was in it was surely on my father's side. Mr. Bradlaugh did not "pray a tales," because by so doing he would have forfeited certain rights; but by not praying a tales, and by not asking for fines to be imposed upon the absent jurymen, the law officers of the Crown most clearly showed their eagerness to seize upon any excuse to abandon the proceedings upon which they had so rashly embarked. To do the Government justice, I think they had been rather driven into the matter by their bigoted followers. As far back as 1866 we find the English Church Union urging the prosecution of an "infidel newspaper, reputed to possess a considerable circulation." The matter had actually been brought before the Attorney-General, with a view to legal proceedings, and he, "whilst suggesting the necessity of mature consideration as to the desirability of procuring prominence for a comparatively obscure publication by means of a public prosecution, promised that the question should be very carefully considered." In 1867 the Saturday Review tried week by week to inflame the mind of the public against the National Reformer and Mr. Bradlaugh, and other Tory journals followed the example so worthily set them. Judging from all this, one can hardly be assuming too much in supposing the action of the Government was not altogether spontaneous.
At the meeting of members of Parliament and others interested in the matter to which I have already referred, Messrs Ayrton, M.P., Milner Gibson, M.P., J. S. Mill, M.P., R. Moore, C. D. Collet, E. Truelove, and A. Holyoake were present, and after some talk it was decided to raise the question the next evening (June 12) in the House on going into Supply. Accordingly, on the following evening Mr. Ayrton, in a speech of considerable length, called attention to the state of the law regarding registration and security in respect of certain publications, but the Attorney-General politely characterised his statements as "utterly at variance with the facts." Mr. Milner Gibson, in an able speech, demonstrated some of the absurdities of the press laws. John Stuart Mill asked for the repeal of the Act, and pending that the suspension of all prosecutions under it, and Mr. Crawford "pleaded in tones of eloquence and fire for a free and untaxed literature for the working classes."
It will probably occur to every one, as it occurred to me, that it would be interesting to know what were the comments of the press upon this debate, and the abortive trial held upon the following day. I have looked through several London journals of that particular date, but have failed to find any comments whatever; the press was apparently in profound ignorance concerning this important matter, which so vitally affected its interests.[42] I did, however, find something in my search; I found that