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who had listened with marked attention and evident interest
to the conflicting statements, would give some opinion; but as the
oracle remained silent, I was obliged to be content with his pleasant
personal words of promise to seek me out for another meeting before my
departure for England."

On the same night Mr Bradlaugh lectured to a brilliant and crowded
audience in the Music Hall, and the next day the Vice-President of the
United States came to congratulate him on his "continued successes," at
the same time presenting him with the first volume of his invaluable
work upon "The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America." At Salem,
where my father lectured shortly afterwards, he was the guest of Dr
Loring, President of the Massachusetts Senate. Then at the special
request of the Rev. A. A. Miner, D.D.--who had heard him speak in
Boston--he addressed the students and officers of Tuft's College, and
found in them a rarely appreciative and enthusiastic audience. On the
journey back to Boston Dr Miner told him that he liked his students
to hear every man he thought a true man, whatever might be his views.
"Some denounce me as a bigot," he added, "and others regard me as a
heretic. I wish that when my young men leave me they may be carefully
trained to hear all opinions and to form their own."

Everywhere my father found good friends, both amongst the poor and
amongst the well-to-do; many old remembered faces, too, he met--poor
men who had left the Old World to tempt, and sometimes to win, better
fortune in the New. When he visited Niagara, the man who drove his
buggy turned out to be a Northampton man and a devoted admirer.

But all the kindness and all the friendliness shown him in America did
not weaken his fondness for his mother country and his determination
to serve it. He loved his own land, and the men and women there who
trusted him and worked with him. In the middle of January he wrote
home: "My heart now yearns for Europe; and when I have covered another
twenty thousand miles or so ... I shall pack up the remnants of my
shirts and come home." Little did he think as he wrote those words
that within the brief space of a fortnight he would be on the sea,
going back to England as fast as the _Java_ could take him. But such
was to be the final misfortune attending his first American lecturing
tour. As he was journeying towards Washington to lecture, and to pay
his promised visit to Henry Wilson in that city, a telegram from
Austin Holyoake reached him, telling him that Gladstone had dissolved
Parliament. He stopped short in his journey, and turned back to New
York in order to take the first vessel bound for home.

On his return to England he found that his lectures in the United
States were represented as having been a dead failure; and that he
himself had been mostly laughed at and ridiculed, statements exactly
the reverse of truth. That his lectures brought him no money profit was
the consequence, not of his unpopularity, but of the terrible financial
panic that took place almost as soon as he arrived in the States.
Then just as he was beginning to recoup the losses owing to this, he
was summoned back by the dissolution of Parliament; and this final
catastrophe brought him home with pockets almost as light as when he
started; and worse than all, with a tremendous burden of liabilities
incurred through broken engagements.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

TWO NORTHAMPTON ELECTIONS, 1874.

In the spring of 1873 there was much talk of a dissolution of
Parliament, and everywhere the constituencies were making ready for
the general election--the first under the Ballot Act. In reviewing
the candidatures Mr Bradlaugh said he hoped to see re-elected "Jacob
Bright, as representing the women's question; Sir Charles Dilke for
his outspoken Radicalism; George Dixon for his great services in the
education movement; Henry Fawcett for his advanced Radicalism, and
his knowledge of India; Charles Gilpin for his courage in striving
to abolish capital punishment; C. Wren Hoskyns for his views on the
land; Vernon Harcourt, despite his personal ambition, for his manly
advocacy of popular rights; Edward Miall for his disestablishment
advocacy; Anthony John Mundella and Duncan M'Laren for their useful
support to their betters; Dr Playfair for his brains; Samuel Plimsoll
for his shipping impeachment; Henry Richard for his services as a peace
advocate; Peter Rylands for his endeavours to revive Joseph Hume's
memory; Peter Alfred Taylor for his crusade against the game laws; and
William M'Cullagh Torrens for knowledge of India and general utility."
He did not agree with all these, but "they have work to do," he said,
"and they try to do it." He added: "I shall be rather glad to see
Samuel Morley again returned for Bristol. Personally, I do not know Mr
Morley, but I believe him to be a good honest reformer as far as he
goes, and after his own fashion." Amongst the new members he hoped to
see sitting in the House were Mr Burt[185] (mentioned first of all), Mr
Arch, Mr Odger, and Captain Maxse.

[Footnote 185: How prepared Mr Burt's mind was for the staunch and
unfailing support he subsequently gave Mr Bradlaugh during the long
Parliamentary fight may be gathered from an answer given at this
election. The cry of "heresy" had been raised against him at Blyth, and
at a public meeting he was asked to answer--Yes or no, did he believe
in the authenticity of the Bible? His answer was noteworthy, especially
when looked upon in the light of later events. "As," he said, "I am
not a candidate for a professorship of theology or the occupancy of
a pulpit, I decline to say whether I do or do not believe in the
authenticity of the Bible. It is entirely foreign to the business
before us. The contest in which we are engaged is a political, and not
a religious one. I maintain that the constituency has no right whatever
to institute an inquisition into the faith or creed of any candidate
who may solicit its suffrages. For this reason I refuse to answer all
and every question of a theological nature that may here or elsewhere
be put to me."]

The possibilities of a dissolution, which did not after all come until
February 1874, kept the candidates and committees busy all the year.
Mr Bradlaugh was, of course, active at Northampton, although the
Whigs, or Moderate Liberals as they were also called, asserted that
"under no possible circumstances could Mr Bradlaugh be accepted as
the candidate of the United Liberal party," and they declared he had
no chance whatever of getting elected. Again Mr Bradlaugh offered to
abide by a decision of the Liberal electors of the town or by a test
ballot, but his offers were treated with disdain. In April he received
a communication from the Tower Hamlets Radical Electoral Committee,
asking him to allow a requisition to be promoted in his favour as a
candidate for the borough at the next election, but he was not willing
to desert Northampton. The prolonged electioneering, of course, meant
an e

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