an lay dying in his
poor lodgings in High Street, Oxford Street, and I find recorded in the
_National Reformer_ of March 4th, that on February 28th we had been to
see him, and that "he is very feeble and is, apparently, sinking fast;
but he is as brave and bright, facing his last enemy, as he has ever been
facing his former ones". He died on March 4th, and was buried in Brompton
Cemetery on the 10th of the same month.

A grave question now lay before us for decision. The Knowlton pamphlet
had been surrendered; was that surrender to stand as the last word of the
Freethought party on a book which had been sold by the most prominent men
in its ranks for forty years? To our minds such surrender, left
unchallenged, would be a stain on all who submitted to it, and we decided
that faulty as the book was in many respects it had yet become the symbol
of a great principle, of the right to circulate physiological knowledge
among the poor in pamphlets published at a price they could afford to
pay. Deliberately counting the risk, recognising that by our action we
should subject ourselves to the vilest slander, knowing that Christian
malice would misrepresent and ignorance would echo the misrepresentation
--we yet resolved that the sacrifice must be made, and made by us in
virtue of our position in the Freethought Party. If the leaders flinched
how could the followers be expected to fight? The greatest sacrifice had
to be made by Mr. Bradlaugh. How would an indictment for publishing an
obscene book affect his candidature for Northampton? What a new weapon
for his foes, what a new difficulty for his friends! I may say here that
our worst forebodings were realised by the event; we have been assailed
as "vendors of obscene literature", as "writers of obscene books", as
"living by the circulation of filthy books". And it is because such
accusations have been widely made that I here place on permanent record
the facts of the case, for thus, at least, some honest opponents will
learn the truth and will cease to circulate the slanders they may have
repeated in ignorance.

On February 27th our determination to republish the Knowlton pamphlet was
announced by Mr. Bradlaugh in an address delivered by him at the Hall of
Science on "The Right of Publication". Extracts from a brief report,
published in the _National Reformer_ of March 11th, will show the drift
of his statement:

"Mr. Bradlaugh was most warmly welcomed to the platform, and reite