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pages of matter either from his
own pen or from the pens of others for whom he was responsible. The
_Reasoner_, edited since 1842 by Mr Holyoake, came to an end in the
June of 1861; after that he was connected with the _Counsellor_, and
was proposing to bring out a new paper called the _Secular World_. This
latter title he liked so well that although he abandoned for the time
the bringing out of his new paper in favour of special contributions
to the _National Reformer_, he reserved to himself "a copyright in
that idea." It will be remembered that the Company agreed to pay
their editor £5 per week in full discharge of his duties. Of this Mr
Holyoake was to receive £2 per week, leaving £3 to my father to pay
other contributors, his sub-editor, and himself. An effort was made
to sell 10,000 copies of the first issue of the paper under the new
arrangement; about 8000 were sold, and the sale would have exceeded the
10,000, if the orders had not arrived too late to supply them.

In consequence of the diversity of opinion which had been expressed
in the columns of the _National Reformer_ at various times, a
correspondent wrote in February 1862 asking what were the political and
religious views really advocated by this journal; and from the answer
made to this gentleman by Mr Bradlaugh, we can judge to what extent he
went back upon the position of his earlier years, as it was for the
last few years of his life the fashion to assert. He says:--

"Editorially the _National Reformer_, as to religious questions, is,
and always has been, as far as we are concerned, the advocate of
Atheism; it teaches that all the religions of the world are based
upon error; that humanity is higher than theology; that knowledge is
far preferable to faith; that action is more effective than prayer;
and that the best worship men can offer is honest work, in order to
make one another wiser and happier than heretofore. In politics, we
are Radicals of a very extreme kind; we are advocates of manhood[37]
suffrage; we desire shorter Parliaments; laws which will be more equal
in their application to master and servant; protection from the present
state of the laws which make pheasants more valuable than peasants;
we desire the repeal of the laws against blasphemy, and the enactment
of some measure which will make all persons competent as witnesses
whatever may be their opinions on religion; we advocate the separation
of Church and State, and join with the financial reformers in their
efforts to reduce our enormous and extravagant national expenditure."

Those who have read the literature in connection with the Freethought
movement for the five or six years prior to 1862 will be in no way
unprepared to find that the journalistic union between Mr Holyoake and
Mr Bradlaugh was very shortlived. In March my father, feeling unable
to continue to work under existing arrangements, sent his resignation
into the _National Reformer_ Company; however, at the Special General
Meeting held on the 23rd, it was decided not to elect any editor "in
the place of Iconoclast." Mr Bradlaugh therefore continued to act as
editor, and Mr Holyoake ceased to be special contributor to the paper.
My father was anxious there should be no quarrel--there had been enough
of that with Mr Barker--and proposed to Mr Holyoake that he should
contribute two columns of original matter each week, for which he
should receive the same amount as he had received before for the three
pages. The _Secular World_ was re-announced, and it had my father's
best wishes. "We believe that its advent will benefit the Freethought
party," he writes. However, the matter was not to be so soon or so
easily settled. Mr Holyoake claimed from my father the sum of £81,
18s., urging that the agreement to act as special contributor was for
twelve months; although he had only filled the post for three months,
he yet claimed his salary for the remaining nine. The matter was
placed before legally appointed arbitrators--Mr W. J. Linton, chosen
by my father, and Mr J. G. Crawford by Mr Holyoake. These gentlemen
did not agree, Mr Linton being strongly in favour of Mr Bradlaugh, and
Mr Crawford as strongly, I presume, on the other side. They therefore
chose an umpire, Mr Shaen--who, by the way, had, I gather, previously
acted as solicitor to Mr Holyoake, and who many years later showed a
decided personal hostility towards Mr Bradlaugh. After many delays Mr
Shaen at length made his award in August 1863 in favour of Mr Holyoake,
and my father writing to a friend at the time says rather grimly: "The
only good stroke of luck lately is that I am ordered by Shaen to pay G.
J. H. £81, 18s. Linton will tell you the particulars."

[Footnote 37: "Manhood," Mr Bradlaugh explained later in answer to
a letter from Mrs Law, he used "not in a sexual sense, but rather
as asserting the right of every citizen to the franchise," with, of
course, limitations as to insanity, etc. My father put his position in
most unmistakable language in March 1884 in the _National Reformer_, in
answer to a suggestion made by a correspondent that if there had been
women-voters in Northampton he would not have been elected. "If the
women-electors," he said, "thought fit to reject Mr Bradlaugh, and they
made the majority, it would be their right. If Mr Bradlaugh were in
the House of Commons he would vote for woman suffrage, even if he were
sure he would in future be excluded by women's votes." And again in the
December of the following year he urged: "Even if it were unfortunately
true that every woman would always vote Tory, it would be the duty of
Radicals to try and obtain the suffrage for them."]

In May 1862 Messrs W. H. Smith & Son first officially refused to supply
their agents with the _National Reformer_. They then occupied the
chief railway station bookstalls in England, but were not quite the
monopolists they are to-day, and Mr Bradlaugh could for a little while
at least get his paper sold at all the stations, numbering some sixty
or seventy, on the North Eastern and Newcastle and Carlisle railways,
at which book agencies were held by a Mr Franklin. It is wonderful,
indeed, how this journal managed to live through more than thirty years
in spite of this powerful boycott, extending as it afterwards did to
every part of the kingdom. Mr Bradlaugh called upon his friends to use
every effort to keep up the sale. "We will do our part," he wrote, "and
we call upon our friends, east, west, north, and south, to do their
duty also." During the last year of his life Mr Bradlaugh was given
to understand that the boycott would be raised, and that Messrs W. H.
Smith & Son would be willing to take the _National Reformer_ on to the
railway bookstalls, but the first expenses would have been so great
that he was unwilling to enter into the further financial liabilities
which the new departure would have involved.

The _National Reformer_ was not only from its earliest years refused
by the most powerful booksellers in E

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