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d."

In the years 1859 and 1860, despite the fact that in the former year
he lay for many weeks very seriously ill, discussions, as he himself
says, grew on him "thick and fast." "At Sheffield I debated with a
Reverend Dr Mensor, who styled himself a Jewish Rabbi. He was then in
the process of gaining admission to the Church of England, and had
been put forward to show my want of scholarship. We both scrawled
Hebrew characters for four nights on a black board, to the delight
and mystification of the audience, who gave me credit for erudition
because I chalked the square letter characters with tolerable rapidity
and clearness. At Glasgow I debated with a Mr Court, representing the
Glasgow Protestant Association, a glib-tongued missionary, who has
since gone to the bad; at Paisley with a Mr Smart, a very gentlemanly
antagonist; and at Halifax with the Rev. T. D. Matthias, a Welsh
Baptist minister, unquestionably very sincere."

I have not been able to get a report of the debate with Dr Mensor, and
indeed I do not think one was ever printed. The discussion with the
Rev. T. D. Matthias was for many years on sale with other Freethought
publications, and has doubtless been read by many. The subject of the
debate was "The Credibility and Morality of the Four Gospels," and
it was continued for five successive nights--October 31st, November
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 1859. It grew, as we have already seen, out of
lectures delivered in Halifax by Mr Bradlaugh, and was with one or two
exceptions conducted with such calmness, courtesy, and good feeling,
that at the conclusion each gentleman expressed his appreciation of
the other. The Court debate was not held until 1860, and was a four
nights' debate, terminating on March 20. The use of the City Hall was
refused on the ground "that such meetings tend to riot and disorder,"
and the discussions were therefore held in the Trades' Hall, which
on each evening was crowded to the door. The chair was taken by the
late Alexander Campbell, whom Mr Bradlaugh speaks of as "a generous,
kindly-hearted old Socialist missionary, who, at a time when others
were hostile, spoke encouragingly to me, and afterwards worked with
me for a long time on the _National Reformer_." Mr Campbell edited
the _Glasgow Sentinel_, and in the issue of March 17, 1860, there is
an allusion to the debate then being carried on between "Iconoclast"
and Mr Court, of "The Protestant Layman's Association." Says the
_Sentinel_, "Few Scottish clergymen are fit for the platform. The
pulpit, indeed, unfits for logical debate, but the Protestant
community ought to feel well pleased that in Mr Court ... they have
a skillful and redoubtable champion of Christianity." The _Glasgow
Daily Bulletin_, giving a few words to the final night, says that "the
speaking during the evening was excellent and occasionally excited, but
the conduct of the audience was orderly in the extreme. Mr Bradlaugh
was animated and forcible, and exhibited many of the traits of a
great speaker. Mr Court's university career is evidently polishing and
improving him." The audience passed a resolution of censure upon the
authorities who refused the City Hall, regarding it as involving a
slander upon the community of Glasgow. A friend, after much searching,
came across and sent to me a fragment of the published debate; but as
it contains only one complete speech from each disputant and parts
of two others, one cannot say much about it. Mr Court seems to have
been unusually smart, and the _Daily Bulletin's_ reference to his
"university career" accounts for the numerous literary quotations which
adorned his speech.

The _Paisley Journal_ gives a short notice of the debate with Mr John
Smart of the Neilson Institute, which was held for two successive
nights in the Paisley Exchange Rooms in March 1860. Speaking of the
first night's audience, it says it "was the largest we ever saw in the
Exchange Rooms, the whole area, gallery, and passages being crowded;"
on the second night the audience was estimated at between 1100 and
1200. The discussion for the first night was upon the four Gospels; and
the editor remarks: "Of course, there will be differences of opinion
as to which of the debaters had the best of the argument; but those
who could clear their minds of partisanship will perhaps be of opinion
that Mr Bradlaugh's speeches displayed boldness and vigour, with great
information on the subjects at issue; that Mr Smart showed himself as
an accomplished scholar, with a mass of knowledge ever ready to bring
up in illustration of his views; and that each had a foeman worthy of
his steel." The subject for the second night was a consideration of
the teachings of Christ. The _Journal_ thought that "both speakers
brought their best arguments and greatest powers of intellect into the
subject." Mr Bradlaugh enforced his objections "in powerful voice and
vigorous language, and with telling effect. In his own quiet scholarly
way--closely, tersely, and clearly, Mr Smart took up most of the
objections and discussed them _seriatim_." It will be seen that the
_Paisley Journal_, at least, tried to clear its mind of "partisanship,"
and to hold the scales evenly.

CHAPTER X.

HARD TIMES.

The question will probably have presented itself to many minds, If Mr
Bradlaugh was giving up so much time to public work, to lecturing,
reform meetings, debating, etc., how was he living the while? what
was his home life, and in what way was he earning his bread? It will
be remembered that, after leaving the army in 1853, he was before the
year was out in the employ of Mr Rogers, solicitor, of 70 Fenchurch
Street, first as "errand boy" at 10s. a week, and then as clerk at a
slowly increasing salary. After a few months at Warner Place, he and my
mother went to live in a little four-roomed house at No. 4 West Street,
Cambridge Heath, where my sister Alice was born. In the previous
January my father had had a very troublesome piece of litigation to
conduct for his firm at Manchester. Often and often has he told us the
story of it, and he used to work us up into a state of excitement by
his graphic account of his capture of two men at night from a common
lodging house in one of the low parts of Manchester; of his interview
at the Albion Hotel with Mr Holland, a surgeon implicated in the case,
who, when my father rose to ring the bell for some lemonade, mistaking
the intent, rose in alarm, and cried, "For God's sake, don't!" These
and other episodes in the case remained clearly enough in my memory,
but when I wished to retell the story in a connected form, I found
myself altogether at a loss. First of all, I could not remember that my
father ever mentioned the date of these legal adventures, and without
the date I could do little in the way of searching for press reports.
However, I found a clue to this in the following letter, which was
amongst those papers of my mother's which, as I have said, I looked
through quite recently for the first time:--

 "North Camp,

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