Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant will be in attendance from that
hour, and will sell personally the first hundred copies.

FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.

In addition to this we ourselves delivered copies on March 23rd to Mr.
Martin, the Chief Clerk of the magistrates at Guildhall, to the officer
in charge at the City Police Office in Old Jewry, and to the Solicitor
for the City of London. With each pamphlet we handed in a notice that we
should attend personally to sell the book on March 24th, at Stonecutter
Street, from 4 to 5 p.m. These precautions were taken in order to force
the authorities to prosecute us, and not any of our subordinates, if they
prosecuted at all. The account of the first sale will interest many:

"On Saturday we went down to Stonecutter Street, accompanied by the
Misses Bradlaugh and Mr. and Mrs. Touzeau Parris; we arrived at No. 28 at
three minutes to four, and found a crowd awaiting us. We promptly filled
the window with copies of the pamphlet, as a kind of general notice of
the sale within, and then opened the door. The shop was filled
immediately, and in twenty minutes over 500 copies were sold. No one sold
save Mr. Bradlaugh and myself, but Miss Bradlaugh sorted dozens with a
skill that seemed to stamp her as intended by nature for the business,
while her sister supplied change with a rapidity worthy of a bank clerk.
Several detectives favored us with a visit, and one amused us by coming
in and buying two copies from Mr. Bradlaugh, and then retiring
gracefully; after an interval of perhaps a quarter of an hour he
reappeared, and purchased one from me. Two policemen outside made
themselves useful; one patrolled the street calmly, and the other very
kindly aided Norrish, Mr. Eamsey's co-worker, in his efforts to keep the
stream flowing quietly, without too much pressure. Mr. Bradlaugh's voice
was heard warningly from time to time, bidding customers not to crowd,
and everything went well and smoothly, save that I occasionally got into
fearful muddles in the intricacies of 'trade price'; I disgusted one
customer, who muttered roughly 'Ritchie', and who, when I gave him two
copies, and put his shilling in the till, growled: 'I shan't take them'.
I was fairly puzzled, till Mr. Bradlaugh enlightened me as to the
difficulty, 'Ritchie' to me being unknown; it appeared that 'Ritchie',
muttered by the buyer, meant that the copies were wanted by a bookseller
of tha