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any of the groups (several meetings were held simultaneously), and
there was hardly a constable visible. On the Friday following, the
11th, a meeting was held at the Guildhall "to consider the measure
of Parliamentary Reform introduced by the Ministry." The chair was
taken by the Lord Mayor, and the speakers included Baron Rothschild,
one of the three members for the City, Samuel Morley, P. A. Taylor,
and Serjeant Parry. Ernest Jones, who rose to move an amendment,
was refused a hearing--under a misapprehension, it is said. When
Baron Rothschild began to speak he was considerably interrupted.
"Loud calls," said the _Times_ on the following day (when it was a
trifle less polite than on the previous Monday), "were also raised
for 'Bradlaugh'--a youthful orator who seemed a great favourite with
the noisier Democrats." The poor Lord Mayor vainly tried to restore
order, but louder grew the tumult and "more deafening" the calls for
"Bradlaugh." Baron Rothschild was at length obliged to limit his speech
to "I beg to second the motion;" and even these few words were only
audible to those within two or three yards of him. When the meeting was
drawing to a close, and the usual vote of thanks to the chair had been
proposed--

 * * * * *

 "The Lord Mayor acknowledged the compliment, at the same time
 expressing his deep regret that persons should have come to the hall
 bent on creating a disturbance. At this juncture a young man, with
 fair hair and thin but intelligent features, was seen gesticulating
 vehemently at the extreme end of the platform, to which he had worked
 his way unobserved amid the general confusion. His name, it appeared,
 is Bradlaugh, and his object evidently was to gratify his admirers
 by delivering an harangue. His words were, however, drowned by the
 conflicting clamour from the body of the hall. The Lord Mayor seemed
 to beckon him to the rostrum, as though his claim to speak were to be
 allowed; but a minute or two of indescribable confusion intervening,
 his Lordship came forward and then declared the meeting to be
 dissolved. This announcement had hardly been made when Mr Bradlaugh
 reached the part of the platform for which he had been struggling. His
 triumph was, however, very short lived. In an instant the Lord Mayor,
 though having one of his arms in a sling, was upon the refractory
 Chartist leader, and collared him with the energy and resolution of
 a Sir William Walworth. Two of the city officers promptly seconding
 his Lordship's assertion of his authority, Mr Bradlaugh was dragged
 forcibly to the back of the platform, and fell in the scuffle. All
 this was but the work of a moment, yet the uproar which it provoked
 continued after every occupant of the platform had retired. The
 undaunted orator found his way to the body of the hall unhurt, where
 he addressed such portions of the crowd as had not dispersed in
 frantic and excited eloquence. A considerable time elapsed before
 the building was cleared, during which Anarchy and Bradlaugh had
 undisputed possession of the scene."

How much of fact and how much of fiction there is in this lively
account the _Times_ only knoweth. The idea that a "Sir William
Walworth" with one arm in a sling could "collar" a man of my father's
herculean strength is sufficiently ridiculous. I myself saw him as late
as 1877 at a stormy meeting take two unruly medical students in one
hand and one in the other, and force them down the hall to the door,
where he cast them out. His resistance to his fourteen assailants on
August 3rd, 1881, is historic. It is hardly probable that a man who
could do these things when he had passed the fulness of his strength
would, when in the height of his vigour, have tamely submitted to be
"collared" by a one-armed man and then dragged back and thrown to the
ground by two "city officers;" and all "the work of a moment!"

Gatherings opposing the Government Reform Bill were held in different
parts of London and the country; and Mr Joseph Cowen, himself President
of the Northern Reform Union, writing to a friend in reference to them,
on the 16th March, says incidentally: "Bradlaugh is a clever young
fellow--full of vigour and daring--and is altogether a likely man to go
ahead if he has any backing."

Considering the limited time at his disposal, there is really a
tremendous record of public work for these two years, 1858 and 1859;
for in addition to that which I have already mentioned, my father held
several debates, some of them continuing for three or four nights in
succession. He had his first formal encounter in June 1858. Prior to
this, he had gained a little practice in discussing with the numerous
opponents who used to rise after his lectures; then there was the
more extended, but apparently informal, debate with Mr Douglas, to
which I referred some time ago; and also, in the early part of 1858,
Mr Bradlaugh seems to have arranged to speak at considerable length
in opposition to the lectures given by Thomas Cooper in the Hall of
Science, City Road; but the brief notices of these which appeared
do not enable one to form any opinion, beyond remarking a decided
irritability on the part of Mr Cooper, who permitted himself to use
distinctly unparliamentary language. The first formally arranged
debate in which he took part was a four nights' discussion with the
Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., then a dissenting minister at Sheffield, and
was held in that town on the 7th, 8th, 14th, and 15th June. In 1873
my father, writing of this occasion, said: "Mr Grant was then a man
of some ability, and, if he could have forgotten his aptitudes as a
circus jester, would have been a redoubtable antagonist." The audiences
were very large; the numbers of persons present on the different
nights ranged from eleven to sixteen hundred; and, considering the
heat of the weather and the still greater heat of the discussion, my
father's testimony is that they "behaved bravely." Writing shortly
afterwards, he says: "The chairmen (both chosen by Mr Grant) behaved
most courteously to me, and, in fact, the only disputed point of order
was decided in my favour." He seems to have been particularly impressed
by Alderman H. Hoole, the Chairman for the first two nights, who by an
act of kindly courtesy quite outside the debate, showed that the gibes
and sneers in which Mr Grant so freely indulged had little weight even
with his own friends.

A friend in Sheffield has lent me the report of the discussion, printed
at the time by Mr Leader of the _Sheffield Independent_, and which both
disputants agreed was a very fair representation of what was said.
According to the arranged terms, Mr Bradlaugh led the first night, and
the Rev. Brewin Grant on each succeeding evening. The proposition to
be affirmed by "Iconoclast" on the first evening was: "The God of the
Bible, revengeful, inconstant, unmerciful, and unjust. His attributes
proven to be contradicted by the book which is professed to reveal
them." His opening speech was mad

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