Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History

Book

Open Original Text

force the doors, volunteers for
the work immediately stepped forward; they begged him "to keep out of
action" until the doors were down; but to look on whilst others got
into trouble never came easy to my father. So he took a crowbar and
helped with the rest, and the twisted iron was preserved in triumph by
some Huddersfield friends until a few years ago. They attacked the pit
and gallery door in Bull and Mouth Street, and their united exertions
soon threw it open to the crowd impatiently waiting to enter. The
Police Office was next door to the Philosophical Hall, so the police
were able to watch the proceedings with little trouble to themselves.
When they arrested Mr Bradlaugh, so great was the indignation of the
crowd that they even threatened to rescue him by main force, and guards
of police were hastily put at all weak places. It was, however, Mr
Bradlaugh himself who relieved the fears of his captors. He sent a
message to his friends, asking them to leave peacefully and without
disorder, assuring them that he would be all right. In compliance
with his request the people who thronged the hall quietly dispersed,
only one person remaining behind to keep possession of the theatre.
Messrs Armitage and Mitchell rushed off in a cab to find a magistrate
liberal enough to become bail for the imprisoned Atheist, and during
their absence--on what seemed an impossible errand--Mr Bradlaugh sent
word from the police station to the committee that he would lecture at
half-past six. This message was received with the wildest enthusiasm,
but since Mr Bradlaugh was still in the hands of the police and it was
then four o'clock, it seemed, on reflection, highly improbable. But
the first messenger was rapidly followed by a second, bringing word
that "Iconoclast" was free once more. On his appearance on the platform
of the Philosophical Hall at the appointed time the enthusiasm and
excitement were unbounded, and his lecture on "Reform" was said to have
been "one of the most splendid and eloquent he had yet delivered."

On the following Tuesday Mr Bradlaugh had to appear before the
Huddersfield magistrates. Though there were five upon the Bench--only
two, G. Armitage, Esq., and S.W. Haigh, Esq.--heard the case. Naturally
enough, the Court was densely crowded, and many were unable to obtain
admission. Mr Nehemiah Learoyd prosecuted. This attorney was defined
as "a gentleman according to Act of Parliament," though it does not
appear that he had any other claim to the title. In the case against Mr
Bradlaugh he conducted himself with such effrontery and coarseness as
to make it more than ever evident that Acts of Parliament have their
limitations. My father was charged with doing damage to the door of
the Huddersfield Theatre to the amount of twenty-four shillings: after
this charge was read another charge of committing a breach of the peace
was brought forward. Mr Bradlaugh suggested that each charge should be
gone into separately: Mr Learoyd would have them taken together, and
the magistrates decided in his favour. The case for the prosecution was
opened and witnesses called. Mr Bradlaugh raised an objection to the
jurisdiction of the Court, and after some argument and some further
examination of witnesses, the magistrates retired to consider the
point. After an interval of ten minutes they returned, having decided
in Mr Bradlaugh's favour that they had no jurisdiction. Mr Learoyd
then, with unblushing effrontery, wished to proceed with the second
charge--the breach of the peace; but he had elected at the outset to
take both charges together, and by that he was compelled to abide. The
decision of the magistrates was greeted with instant applause, which
was of course rebuked by the Court. The case was reported at length
by the _Huddersfield Examiner_ and the _Huddersfield Chronicle_,
and gained for Mr Bradlaugh many friends in Huddersfield and the
surrounding districts. And thus for once was bigotry frustrated.

On the following Sunday Mr Bradlaugh was lecturing at Newcastle, and
many people, women as well as men, came in distances of fifteen and
twenty miles to hear him. One man told how he had come thirty-eight
miles "to get a grip" of my father's hand. Two days after this he was
at Northampton, where he found himself becoming quite "respectable,"
and, "to the horror of the saints and my own surprise," he said, he
was permitted the use of the Mechanics' Institute for his discourses.
A week or so later he was lecturing in the great Free Trade Hall,
Manchester, on behalf of the widow and family of his late colleague,
John Watts. He gave himself no rest in body or mind, nor did he seem
to relax the strain for a moment. The old year closed, and 1867 opened
with a course of lectures at the City Road Hall, at one of which,
by the by, it is interesting to note that Mr Bradlaugh defended Mr
Gladstone from an attack made upon his sincerity of purpose, "believing
him to be the most able and honest statesman whom the people have on
their side."

Notwithstanding all his lecturing, the great quantity of literary work
he was then engaged upon, the Reform Demonstrations, and harassing
private business, Mr Bradlaugh yet found time in the spring of 1867 to
engage in a six nights' debate with the Rev. J. M'Cann, M.A., curate
of St Paul's, Huddersfield. The discussion was arranged to take place
in the theatre, or Philosophical Hall, which had been forcibly closed
against the Freethinkers only a few months before. The preliminaries
to the debate were a little ominous: in the first place Mr Bradlaugh
was obliged to agree to the terms dictated by his religious antagonist
(or his committee), otherwise there would have been no discussion; and
above and beyond this the Rev. Mr M'Cann "refused to debate if the
name Iconoclast be used, and therefore it will be Charles Bradlaugh
who answers for the shortcomings of Iconoclast, despite the injury in
business caused by the wide publicity recently given to the name and
thus repeated."[100]

[Footnote 100: C. Bradlaugh in _National Reformer_, March 1867.]

The debate arose out of some "Anti-Secularist lectures" which Mr M'Cann
had been delivering in Huddersfield, presumably inspired thereto by
the sensation caused by the theatre episode of the previous November.
The subjects of these lectures were to be discussed for six nights,
three hours each night, Mr Bradlaugh attacking and Mr M'Cann defending.
Mr M'Cann, who was an Irishman, and who from the active part he was
taking in the Literary and Scientific Society and other institutions
of the town, was regarded as a "rising young man," rather disappointed
many of the Freethinkers after the first two nights' discussion.
Immovably confident in the ability of their own representative,
they were anxious to see him meet someone worthy of his steel. Mr
Bradlaugh's opinion, expressed at the conclusion of the six nights,
was that Mr M'Cann was a fluent, ready speaker, honest and earnest,
although no great debater.[101]

[Footnote

Previous Next