s
caused considerable sensation at the time, and the pamphlet had, and
still has, a very wide circulation. It is needless to add that the Sunday
Freethought lectures were carried on despite the legal toils of the week,
and, as said above, the large audiences attracted by the prosecution gave
a splendid field for the inculcation of Freethought views. The National
Secular Society consequently increased largely in membership, and a
general impulse towards Freethought was manifest throughout the land.

The year 1878, so far as lecturing work was concerned, was largely taken
up with a crusade against the Beaconsfield Government and in favor of
peace. Lord Beaconsfield's hired roughs broke up several peace meetings
during the winter, and on February 24th Mr. Bradlaugh and Mr. Auberon
Herbert, at the request of a meeting of working-class delegates, held in
Hyde Park a "Demonstration in favor of Peace". The war party attacked the
meeting and some sharp fighting took place, but a resolution "That this
meeting declares in favor of peace" was carried despite them. A second
meeting was called by the Working Men's Committee for March 10th, and a
large force of medical students, roughs, militia-men, and "gentlemen",
armed with loaded bludgeons, heavy pieces of iron, sticks with metal
twisted round them, and various sharp-cutting weapons, went to Hyde Park
to make a riot. The meeting was held and the resolution carried, but
after it had dissolved there was some furious fighting. We learned
afterwards that a large money reward had been offered to a band of roughs
if they would disable Mr. Bradlaugh, and a violent organised attack was
made on him. The stewards of the meeting carried short policemen's
truncheons to defend themselves, and a number of these gathered round
their chief and saved his life. He and his friends had to fight their way
out of the park; a man, armed with some sharp instrument, struck at Mr.
Bradlaugh from behind, and cut one side of his hat from top to brim; his
truncheon was dinted with the jagged iron used as weapon; and his left
arm, with which he guarded his head, was one mass of bruises from wrist
to elbow. Lord Beaconsfield's friends very nearly succeeded in their
attempt at murder, after all, for a dangerous attack of erysipelas set
in, in the injured arm, and confined Mr. Bradlaugh to his room for
sixteen days.

The provinces were far more strongly against war than was the capital,
and in them we held many