bject of the work."

Two copies of the book were at once handed up to the Bench, and on April
30th the Court granted the writ, the Lord Chief Justice saying: "We have
looked at the book which is the subject-matter of the indictment, and we
think it really raises a fair question as to whether it is a scientific
production for legitimate purposes, or whether it is what the indictment
alleged it to be, an obscene publication." Further, the Court accepted
Mr. Bradlaugh's recognisances for L400 for the costs of the prosecution.

Some, who have never read the Knowlton pamphlet, glibly denounce it as a
filthy and obscene publication. The Lord Chief Justice of England and Mr.
Justice Mellor, after reading it, decided to grant a writ which they had
determined not to grant if the book had merely a veneer of science and
was "calculated to arouse the passions". Christian bigotry has ever since
1877 striven to confound our action with the action of men who sell filth
for gain, but only the shameless can persist in so doing when their
falsehoods are plainly exposed, as they are exposed here.

The most touching letters from the poor came to us from all parts of the
kingdom. One woman, who described herself as "very poor", and who had had
thirteen children and was expecting another, wrote saying, "if you want
money we will manage to send you my husband's pay one week". An army
officer wrote thanking us, saying he had "a wife, seven children, and
three servants to keep on 11s. 8d. a day; 5d. per head per diem keeps
life in us. The rest for education and raiment." A physician wrote of his
hospital experience, saying that it taught him that "less dangerous
preventive checks to large families [than over-lactation] should be
taught to the lower classes". Many clergymen wrote of their experience
among the poor, and their joy that some attempt was being made to teach
them how to avoid over-large families, and letter after letter came to me
from poor curates' wives, thanking me for daring to publish information
of such vital importance. In many places the poor people taxed themselves
so much a week for the cost of the defence, because they could not afford
any large sum at once.

As soon as we were committed for trial, we resigned our posts on the
Executive of the National Secular Society, feeling that we had no right
to entangle the Society in a fight which it had not authorised us to
carry on. We stated that we did not desire to relinquish