d of these--alas! I could count them on my fingers--was the John
Robertson above mentioned, a man of rare ability and wide culture,
somewhat too scholarly for popular propagandism of the most generally
effective order, but a man who is a strength to any movement, always
on the side of noble living and high thinking, loyal-natured as the
true Scot should be, incapable of meanness or treachery, and the most
genial and generous of friends.

Among the new literary ventures that followed on our taking the large
publishing premises in Fleet Street was a sixpenny magazine, edited by
myself, and entitled _Our Corner_; its first number was dated January,
1883, and for six years it appeared regularly, and served me as a
useful mouthpiece in my Socialist and Labour propagandist work. Among
its contributors were Moncure D. Conway, Professor Ludwig Buechner,
Yves Guyot, Professor Ernst Haeckel, G. Bernard Shaw, Constance Naden,
Dr. Aveling, J.H. Levy, J.L. Joynes, Mrs. Edgren, John Robertson,
and many another, Charles Bradlaugh and I writing regularly each
month.

1883 broke stormily, fights on every hand, and a huge constitutional
agitation going on in the country, which forced the Government into
bringing in an Affirmation Bill; resolutions from Liberal Associations
all over the land; preparations to oppose the re-election of disloyal
members; no less than a thousand delegates sent up to London by clubs,
Trade Unions, associations of every sort; a meeting that packed
Trafalgar Square; an uneasy crowd in Westminster Hall; a request from
Inspector Denning that Mr. Bradlaugh would go out to them--they feared
for his safety inside; a word from him, "The Government have pledged
themselves to bring in an Affirmation Bill at once;" roar after roar
of cheering; a veritable people's victory on that 15th of February,
1883. It was the answer of the country to the appeal for justice, the
rebuke of the electors to the House that had defied them.

Scarcely was this over when a second prosecution for blasphemy against
Messrs. Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp began, and was hurried on in the
Central Criminal Court, before Mr. Justice North, a bigot of the
sternest type. The trial ended in a disagreement of the jury, Mr.
Foote defending himself in a splendid speech. The judge acted very
harshly throughout, interrupted Mr. Foote continuously, and even
refused bail to the defendants during the interval between the first
and second trial; they were, theref