be
punished, but one of them boldly declared in court: "As to the book,
it is written in plain language for plain people, and I think that
many more persons ought to know what the contents of the book are."
The jury was discharged, in consequence of this one man's courage, but
Mr. Truelove's persecutors--the Vice Society--were determined not to
let their victim free. They proceeded to trial a second time, and
wisely endeavoured to secure a special jury, feeling that as
prudential restraint would raise wages by limiting the supply of
labour, they would be more likely to obtain a verdict from a jury of
"gentlemen" than from one composed of workers. This attempt was
circumvented by Mr. Truelove's legal advisers, who let a _procedendo_
go which sent back the trial to the Old Bailey. The second trial was
held on May 16th at the Central Criminal Court before Baron Pollock
and a common jury, Professor Hunter and Mr. J.M. Davidson appearing
for the defence. The jury convicted, and the brave old man,
sixty-eight years of age, was condemned to four months' imprisonment
and L50 fine for selling a pamphlet which had been sold unchallenged,
during a period of forty-five years, by James Watson, George Jacob
Holyoake, Austin Holyoake, and Charles Watts. Mr. Grain, the counsel
employed by the Vice Society, most unfairly used against Mr. Truelove
my "Law of Population," a pamphlet which contained, Baron Pollock
said, "the head and front of the offence in the other [the Knowlton]
case." I find an indignant protest against this odious unfairness in
the _National Reformer_ for May 19th: "My 'Law of Population' was used
against Mr. Truelove as an aggravation of his offence, passing over
the utter meanness--worthy only of Collette--of using against a
prisoner a book whose author has never been attacked for writing
it--does Mr. Collette, or do the authorities, imagine that the
severity shown to Mr. Truelove will in any fashion deter me from
continuing the Malthusian propaganda? Let me here assure them, one and
all, that it will do nothing of the kind; I shall continue to sell the
'Law of Population' and to advocate scientific checks to population,
just as though Mr. Collette and his Vice Society were all dead and
buried. In commonest justice they are bound to prosecute me, and if
they get, and keep, a verdict against me, and succeed in sending me to
prison, they will only make people more anxious to read my book, and
make me more personally p