penalties, have now, for ever, come to naught. Yet
but for the many poor folk who have stood by me with their help and
sympathy, I should have long since been ruined. The days and weeks
spent in the Law Courts, the harassing work connected with each stage
of litigation, the watching daily when each hearing was imminent, the
absolute hindrance of all provincial lecturing--it is hardly possible
for any one to judge the terrible mental and pecuniary strain of all
this long-drawn-out struggle." Aye! it killed him at last, twenty
years before his time, sapping his splendid vitality, undermining his
iron constitution.

The blasphemy trial of Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Foote, and Mr. Ramsey now
came on, but this time in the Queen's Bench, before the Lord Chief
Justice Coleridge. I had the honour of sitting between Mr. Bradlaugh
and Mr. Foote, charged with the duty of having ready for the former
all his references, and with a duplicate brief to mark off point after
point as he dealt with it. Messrs. Foote and Ramsey were brought up in
custody, but were brave and bright with courage unbroken. Mr.
Bradlaugh applied to have his case taken separately, as he denied
responsibility for the paper, and the judge granted the application;
it was clearly proved that he and I--the "Freethought Publishing
Company"--had never had anything to do with the production of the
paper; that until November, 1881, we published it, and then refused to
publish it any longer; that the reason for the refusal was the
addition of comic Bible illustrations as a feature of the paper. I was
called as witness and began with a difficulty; claiming to affirm, I
was asked by the judge if the oath would not be binding on my
conscience; I answered that any promise was binding on me whatever the
form, and after some little argument the judge found a way out of the
insulting form by asking whether the "invocation of the Deity added
anything to it of a binding nature--added any sanction?" "None, my
Lord," was the prompt reply, and I was allowed to affirm. Sir Hardinge
Giffard subjected me to a very stringent cross-examination, doing his
best to entangle me, but the perfect frankness of my answers broke all
his weapons of finesse and inuendo.

Some of the incidents of the trial were curious; Sir Hardinge
Giffard's opening speech was very able and very unscrupulous. All
facts in Mr. Bradlaugh's favour were distorted or hidden; anything
that could be used against him was tricke