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with his Swedenborgian antagonist, the Rev. Woodville Woodman. The
debate was held in the theatre at Northampton, which was crowded,
numbers of people being unable to obtain admission on the first night.
He had arranged for a three nights' discussion six weeks later at
Keighley with the Rev. Mr Porteous of Glasgow. He was to lecture at
Liverpool on Sunday, October 29th, and the debate was down for the
following Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On the Saturday the express
train in which he was travelling to Liverpool ran into some luggage
vans between Woodhouse and Sheffield, and he was very severely shaken.
How severely he did not at once realise, and with his usual disregard
of himself he insisted upon fulfilling his engagement at Liverpool.
After the exertion of delivering three lectures he felt so much worse
that the journey to Keighley, followed by three nights' discussion,
seemed out of the question. He communicated with Mr Porteous and came
home; I have a distinct recollection of seeing my father come into
the house, looking terribly ill. The Rev. Mr Porteous refused to
postpone his engagement; in fact, he never answered Mr Bradlaugh's
letter, but insisted on proceeding in his absence. For the first two
nights he "debated" in solitary grandeur, but on the third night Mr
Bradlaugh was represented by Mr John Watts, who, "at Iconoclast's
request," went to Keighley to meet Mr Porteous on one night at least.
The committee of the Rev. Mr Porteous paid their champion out of the
proceeds, but "_he nevertheless afterwards claimed and received from
Iconoclast the further sum of £2 10s., not for expenses, but to make
up his 'fee.'_"[79] In June of the following year Mr Bradlaugh was
lecturing at Keighley, and when he arrived there he found the walls of
the town and neighbourhood placarded with a "Challenge to the Image
Breaker" from Mr Porteous. This "challenge" rather prematurely assumed
reluctance on Mr Bradlaugh's part; it was at once accepted, and the
debate fixed for two or three days later, the 14th and 15th June. The
subject for the discussion, which was held in the Temperance Hall, was
"Is the Bible a divine revelation?" and people attended from Burnley,
Leeds, Bradford, and outlying districts; but judging from a brief
report which is all I have to guide me, I doubt whether it was much
worth a journey to listen to. Mr Porteous angrily spoke of my father as

 "one who, being a lawyer's clerk, had never been trusted with a brief;
 but who, in swollen rhetoric and with blatant voice, had indulged in
 misstatements and misrepresentations of the Bible which nothing could
 justify."[80]

[Footnote 79: _National Reformer_, June 24th, 1866.]

[Footnote 80: _National Reformer_, June 24th, 1866.]

It is rather curious to note, too, that during the evening the Rev. Mr
Porteous, just as the Rev. Brewin Grant had done on a former occasion,
strongly complained that Iconoclast looked at him whilst he was
speaking.[81]

[Footnote 81: "Look at me," said Bagheera, and Mowgli looked at him
steadily between the eyes. The big panther turned his head away in half
a minute.

"_That_ is why," he said, shifting his paw on the leaves, "not even I
can look thee between the eyes, and I was born among men, and I love
thee, little brother. The others they hate thee, because their eyes
cannot meet thine; because thou art wise; because thou hast pulled out
thorns from their feet; because thou art a man!"

 _Mowgli's Brothers_, by RUDYARD KIPLING.]

CHAPTER XXII.

"THE WORLD IS MY COUNTRY, TO DO GOOD IS MY RELIGION."

A demonstration was held in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon, September
28th, 1862, for the purpose of expressing sympathy with Garibaldi, and
protesting against the occupation of Rome by the French troops. The
hour announced for the meeting was three o'clock, and by that time
the _Morning Advertiser_ estimated that there were between 12,000 and
15,000 persons present. The proceedings were, however, very badly
managed; no steps whatever were taken for keeping order, and, indeed,
by three o'clock none of the conveners of the meeting had put in an
appearance, nor had any arrangements whatever been made for a platform
for the speakers. Mr Bradlaugh had been asked to speak, and was, as
a matter of course, punctually upon the scene. He found a ready-made
platform in a great heap about fourteen yards by nine, and rising
three feet from the ground. About this heap, upon which he and a few
others had posted themselves, the crowd gathered, and at length Mr
Bradlaugh, seeing no signs of the conveners, commenced to speak. He
was soon stopped by interruptions of every kind, and to make things a
little more regular, a chairman was appointed; but the chairman had
hardly begun to address the people when he "was hurled with his friends
from their seat of eminence by a movement which a few Irish roughs
had organised in the rear of them, down amongst the crowd beneath. By
remarkable dexterity, however, the chairman regained his place upon
the mount."[82] His efforts to be heard were again unavailing, and the
proceedings rapidly developed into a free fight.

[Footnote 82: _Morning Advertiser_.]

 "During one of the lulls in the fighting position of the affair," says
 the _Morning Advertiser_, "Mr Bradlaugh proposed a resolution to the
 effect that the meeting was of opinion that Garibaldi was faithfully
 doing his duty when he fell at Aspromonte, and desired to express its
 admiration of the heroic fortitude he displayed in his hour of trial."

The resolution was seconded and supported amid general uproar,

 "while it was confidently stated that in the course of the discussion
 of it, and during one of the encounters for the possession of the
 platform, an attempt was made to stab Mr Bradlaugh."[83]

[Footnote 83: Mr Robert Forder, who was present at the Garibaldi
meeting, sends me the following vivid account of what took place on
that day:--

"That afternoon," he relates, "was the first time I had the honour and
pleasure of speaking to your father. A few of us at Deptford, where
I then resided, had had printed a quantity of handbills announcing
the debate with the Rev. W. Barker, then appearing in the _National
Reformer_. I gave your father one, for which he thanked me. I should
like, with your permission, to add a few words as to what took place
on that exciting afternoon. The Irish Catholics had been well whipped
up for the occasion, and were there in force; most of them dock and
bricklayers' labourers, and in the mass totally uneducated. There were
three mounds of earth and stones intended to repair or make roads,
each about four feet high, and, so far as I can recollect after thirty
years have gone by, about thirty yards long by eight deep. These were
about fifty yards apart, and on the middle one were gathered the men
and two women--one of the latter in a red 'jumper,' that was afterwards
known in fashion as a 'Garibaldi.' The Irish were massed on and around
the two other mounds, and during the

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