sufficient to invalidate it. It was admitted on the other side that
the child was admirably cared for, and there was no attempt at
attacking my personal character. The judge stated that I had taken the
greatest possible care of the child, but decided that the mere fact of
my refusing to give the child religious instruction was sufficient
ground for depriving me of her custody. Secular education he regarded
as "not only reprehensible, but detestable, and likely to work utter
ruin to the child, and I certainly should upon this ground alone
decide that this child ought not to remain another day under the care
of her mother."

Sir George Jessel denounced also my Malthusian views in a fashion at
once so brutal and so untruthful as to facts, that some years later
another judge, the senior puisne judge of the Supreme Court of New
South Wales, declared in a judgment delivered in his own court that
there was "no language used by Lord Cockburn which justified the
Master of the Rolls in assuming that Lord Cockburn regarded the book
as obscene," and that "little weight is to be attached to his opinion
on a point not submitted for his decision"; he went on to administer a
sharp rebuke for the way in which Sir George Jessel travelled outside
the case, and remarked that "abuse, however, of an unpopular opinion,
whether indulged in by judges or other people, is not argument, nor
can the vituperation of opponents in opinion prove them to be
immoral." However, Sir George Jessel was all-powerful in his own
court, and he deprived me of my child, refusing to stay the order even
until the hearing of my appeal against his decision. A messenger from
the father came to my house, and the little child was carried away by
main force, shrieking and struggling, still weak from the fever, and
nearly frantic with fear and passionate resistance. No access to her
was given me, and I gave notice that if access were denied me, I would
sue for a restitution of conjugal rights, merely that I might see my
children. But the strain had been too great, and I nearly went mad,
spending hours pacing up and down the empty rooms, striving to weary
myself to exhaustion that I might forget. The loneliness and silence
of the house, of which my darling had always been the sunshine and the
music, weighed on me like an evil dream; I listened for the patter of
the dancing feet, and merry, thrilling laughter that rang through the
garden, the sweet music of the childish voic