authorities exposed us, but it was not the danger of failure, with the
prison as penalty, that gave us pause. It was the horrible
misconceptions that we saw might arise; the odious imputations on
honour and purity that would follow. Could we, the teachers of a lofty
morality, venture to face a prosecution for publishing what would be
technically described as an obscene book, and risk the ruin of our
future, dependent as that was on our fair fame? To Mr. Bradlaugh it
meant, as he felt, the almost certain destruction of his Parliamentary
position, the forging by his own hands of a weapon that in the hands
of his foes would be well-nigh fatal. To me it meant the loss of the
pure reputation I prized, the good name I had guarded--scandal the
most terrible a woman could face. But I had seen the misery of the
poor, of my sister-women with children crying for bread; the wages of
the workmen were often sufficient for four, but eight or ten they
could not maintain. Should I set my own safety, my own good name,
against the helping of these? Did it matter that my reputation should
be ruined, if its ruin helped to bring remedy to this otherwise
hopeless wretchedness of thousands? What was worth all my talk about
self-sacrifice and self-surrender, if, brought to the test, I failed?
So, with heart aching but steady, I came to my resolution; and though
I know now that I was wrong intellectually, and blundered in the
remedy, I was right morally in the will to sacrifice all to help the
poor, and I can rejoice that I faced a storm of obloquy fiercer and
harder to bear than any other which can ever touch me again. I learned
a lesson of stern indifference to all judgments from without that were
not endorsed by condemnation from within. The long suffering that
followed was a splendid school for the teaching of endurance.

The day before the pamphlet was put on sale we ourselves delivered
copies to the Chief Clerk of the Magistrates at Guildhall, to the
officer in charge at the City Police Office in Old Jewry, and to the
Solicitor for the City of London. With each pamphlet was a notice that
we would attend and sell the book from 4 to 5 p.m. on the following
day, Saturday, March 24th. This we accordingly did, and in order to
save trouble we offered to attend daily at the shop from 10 to 11 a.m.
to facilitate our arrest, should the authorities determine to
prosecute. The offer was readily accepted, and after some little
delay--during which a