Mr.
Bradlaugh argued the case, I only making a brief speech, and on February
12th the Court, composed of Lords Justices Bramwell, Brett, and Cotton,
gave judgment in our favor and quashed the indictment. Thus we triumphed
all along the line; the jury acquitted us of all evil motive, and left us
morally unstained; the Court of Appeal quashed the indictment, and set us
legally free. None the less have the ignorant, the malicious, and the
brutal, used this trial and sentence against us as a proof of moral
obliquity, and have branded us as "vendors of obscene books" on this sole
ground.

With the decision of the Court of Appeal our pledge not to sell the
Knowlton pamphlet came to an end, and we at once recommenced the sale.
The determination we came to was announced in the _National Reformer_ of
March 3rd, and I reprint here the statement I wrote at the time in Mr.
Bradlaugh's name as well as my own.

"THE PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN.

"The first pitched battle of the new campaign for the Liberty of the
Press has, as all our readers know, ended in the entire defeat of the
attacking army, and in the recapture of the position originally lost.
There is no conviction--of ours--registered against the Knowlton
Pamphlet, the whole of the proceedings having been swept away; and the
prosecutors are left with a large sum out of pocket, and no one any the
worse for all their efforts. The banker's account of the unknown
prosecutor shows a long and melancholy catalogue of expenses, and there
is no glory and no success to balance them on the other side of the
ledger. On the contrary, our prosecutors have advertised the attacked
pamphlet, and circulated it by thousands and by hundreds of thousands;
they have caused it to be reprinted in Holland and in America, and have
spread it over India, Australia, New Zealand, and the whole continent of
Europe; they have caused the Population Question to be discussed, both at
home and abroad, in the press and in the public meeting; they have
crammed the largest halls in England and Scotland to listen to the
preaching of Malthusianism; they have induced the publication of a modern
pamphlet on the question which is selling by thousands; they have
enormously increased the popularity of the defendants, and made new
friends for them in every class of society; in the end, Knowlton is being
circulated as vigorously as ever, and since the case was decided more
copies have been sold than would have been disposed o