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was
hostile and absurd he wrote: "The speech that told more than any other
on Brandon Hill was that of Charles Bradlaugh, Esq., and it was the
best portion of it that was appreciated; ... his exhortation to men to
be manly carried his hearers along with him.... Nothing was listened
to after Mr Bradlaugh had finished." In a day or so, however, the good
people of Bristol began to realise who this eloquent man was who had
so moved that great crowd, and two days later he was referred to in
the _Times and Mirror_ in most abusive and scurrilous terms, whilst
the _Wiltshire County Mirror_ tried to work upon the imagination of
its more timid readers by drawing a lurid picture of what was likely
to happen if the Reformers were triumphant: "Mr Beales is not a
professed infidel, we believe, but we are persuaded that his religious
convictions and feelings are of a very indiarubber kind.... Let these
two gentlemen [Mr Bradlaugh and Mr G. J. Holyoake] have their way, and
there would be an end to the institution of marriage, and communism
with all its abominations would be established amongst us." When a
too fertile imagination has carried a man thus far it is difficult to
see why he should not put even a little more colour on to his brush;
as it was, his statements only frightened "old ladies" (masculine and
feminine), and so served the purpose of political, religious, or social
intriguers. In this case it was the political intriguers who were
specially served, for it was considered a capital notion to associate
Mr Beales--and through him the cause of Reform--with "Infidelity," the
abolition of "the institution of marriage," and the "abominations" of
Communism. The four ideas well mixed together by not over-scrupulous
writers, formed such a fine jumble that the ignorant and pious could
not always distinguish the one from the other.

[Footnote 88: The _Bristol Daily Post_.]

In London, during the autumn and winter, Mr Bradlaugh spoke for the
Reform League at Chelsea, Cleveland Hall, Battersea, Pimlico, South
Lambeth, the Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel, and many other places, but
the note we found struck in the _Wiltshire County Mirror_ reverberated
with such force that at length my father said that he was not sure
whether "the course taken by the cowardly respectable press in
denouncing the movement as an infidel one, may not render it wiser for
me to leave the platform advocacy of Reform at the large gatherings to
men whose religious or irreligious views are not so well known as my
own." But when a few weeks later he was re-elected upon the Executive
of the Reform League, he resolved to allow no sneer at his creed to
influence him; no slander to make him hesitate, but to do his best,
whatever that best might be, to aid in winning the battle

 "between Tory obstructiveness and the advancing masses; between
 vested interests and human happiness; between pensioned and salaried
 lordlings and landowners' off-shoots on the one hand, and the
 brown-handed bread-winner on the other." "The people must win," he
 said.

Yes, "the people must win"--in the end; but complete manhood suffrage
is not ours yet, and universal suffrage is still far off. "The people
must win," but Oh how long the winning; and alas! the cost to the
victors.

In October Mr Bradlaugh was speaking for the League in Northampton.
I wonder whether there are Northampton men who still remember that
Reform demonstration held in their town in the autumn of sixty-six,
when they carried out their programme in the pelting, pitiless rain,
just as "cheerily and as steadfastly as though it had been sunshine
and a clear sky." Do they remember the procession, I wonder, when men
and women marched through the incessant downpour, the women as earnest
as the men? And the meetings in the Corn Exchange and the Mechanics'
Institute, where Mr Bradlaugh's speeches were received with great
applause by an enthusiastic audience? There was a meeting at the Town
Hall too, to which he went at Col. Dickson's invitation; though on
arriving it was only to find that the Town Hall was reserved for the
"respectable great guns," and therefore there was no room for him on
that platform. But other times, other customs, and many a time has the
Northampton Town Hall rung with his voice since that wet October day
twenty-eight years ago, when, "too proud to intrude," he went away
slighted and scorned.

Great spontaneity and heartiness met him at Luton, which, "though
a small town in a small county, gave us great welcome," said Mr
Bradlaugh. It had been arranged that a conference of delegates (amongst
whom were Mr Beales and Mr Bradlaugh, representing London) should
be held previous to the Town Hall meeting, at Messrs Willis & Co.'s
factory, but, much to the amazement of the delegates, when they reached
the factory gates they found a meeting of several thousand persons
collected there without call or summons; the gathering was such as "no
living man had ever seen in that still increasing town."[89] Every one
was so anxious to hear the speakers from London and elsewhere that
the conference of delegates was abandoned, and a public meeting was
at once held in Park Square, an open space in the centre of the town.
The _Mercury_ devoted a little leader to this Reform demonstration at
Luton, in which it said that

 "the terse and argumentative speech of Mr Bradlaugh roused the
 feelings of the thousands assembled to their highest pitch, and as he
 put the case of reform in a clear light he was most enthusiastically
 applauded."[90]

[Footnote 89: _Bedford Mercury_ of November 24th.]

[Footnote 90: The _Morning Star_ (London) of November 22nd also notes
the enthusiasm provoked by Mr Bradlaugh's "animated speech."]

In the course of his address, which was interrupted again and again
by the cheering of his audience, he felt it incumbent upon him to
deny that these meetings partook of the character of physical force
demonstrations. Hundreds of thousands of working men, he pointed out,
had assembled and kept their own order even when the police in their
officiousness had failed to preserve it. This denial was made necessary
by the attitude taken up by the Tories and weak Liberals who began to
be frightened by the growth of popular opinion as exhibited in these
great and orderly outdoor and indoor meetings which were taking place
every week in London and the provinces. In order to hide their fear of
_opinion_ they began to pretend fear of physical force, and by dint of
crying "Wolf" often and loudly they did not turn belief into disbelief
like the boy in the story, but reversed the process, and were at length
believed by men who ought to have known a great deal better. Take,
for example, Matthew Arnold, who a year or so later made a wholly
unprovoked attack upon Mr Bradlaugh, speaking of him as "Mr Bradlaugh,
the Iconoclast, who seems to be almost for baptizing us all in blood
and fire into his new social dispensation;" and again, "Mr Bradlaugh is
evidently capable, if he had h

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