the work by
picking out bits of medical detail and making profuse apologies for
reading them, and shuddering and casting up his eyes with all the skill
of a finished actor. For a man accustomed to Old Bailey practice he was
really marvellously easily shocked; a simple physiological fact brought
him to the verge of tears, while the statement that people often had too
large families covered him with such modest confusion that he found it
hard to continue his address. It fell to my lot to open the defence, and
to put the general line of argument by which we justified the
publication; Mr. Bradlaugh dealt with the defence of the book as a
medical work--until the Lord Chief Justice suggested that there was no
"redundancy of details, or anything more than it is necessary for a
medical man to know"--and strongly urged that the knowledge given by the
pamphlet was absolutely necessary for the poor. We called as witnesses
for the defence Miss Alice Vickery--the first lady who passed the
examination of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and who has
since passed the examinations qualifying her to act as a physician--Dr.
Charles Drysdale, and Mr. H.G. Bohn. Dr. Drysdale bore witness to the
medical value of the pamphlet, stating that "considering it was written
forty years ago ... the writer must have been a profound student of
physiology, and far advanced in the medical science of his time". "I have
always considered it an excellent treatise, and I have found among my
professional brethren that they have had nothing to say against it." Mr.
Bohn bore witness that he had published books which "entirely covered
your book, and gave a great deal more." Mr. Bradlaugh and myself then
severally summed up our case, and the Solicitor-General made a speech for
the prosecution very much of the character of his first one, doing all he
could to inflame the minds of the jury against us. The Lord Chief
Justice, to quote a morning paper, "summed up strongly for an acquittal".
He said that "a more ill-advised and more injudicious proceeding in the
way of a prosecution was probably never brought into a Court of Justice".
He described us as "two enthusiasts, who have been actuated by the desire
to do good in a particular department of Society". He bade the jury be
careful "not to abridge the full and free right of public discussion, and
the expression of public and private opinion on matters which are
interesting to all, and materially affect th