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ne Saturday evening at Sowerby Bridge on
"George, Prince of Wales." By some curious blunder the friends who were
making the arrangements placarded the town with the subject announced
as "Albert Edward, Prince of Wales." The effect of this was to cause a
large number of police to be drafted into the town, and a Government
shorthand reporter was sent down from London, travelling by the same
train as my father. The hall was, of course, crowded, but whether the
audience were disappointed when my father explained the mistake in
the subject of the lecture, my informant did not say. In any case I
expect that the officials who had been so busy in preparing for treason
and riot, and found only history and order, felt that the proceedings
had turned out rather flat. At Stourbridge, where Mr Bradlaugh was
invited[135] by some "gentlemen of Republican tendencies" to discourse
upon the "House of Brunswick," Lord Lyttleton, as Lord Lieutenant
of the county, tried to induce the Stourbridge Town Commissioners
to withdraw from their agreement to let the Corn Exchange for the
lectures, but his efforts were in vain. His Lordship seems to have
been a little angry, and it was even rumoured that he went so far
as to tell the magistrates that he would have Mr Bradlaugh arrested
for treason. He succeeded in raising such a scare that a large extra
body of police were drafted into the town under the order of the
Chief Constable of the county. There were two lectures, and Colonel
Carmichael, the Chief Constable, was present at both, but, as I gather
from the printed reports, the meetings were large, the audiences
delighted, and of both the end "was peace."

[Footnote 134: At the end of 1872 Mr John Baker Hopkins made a
violent attack upon Mr Bradlaugh for his "Impeachment of the House
of Brunswick" in the pages of the _Gentleman's Magazine_. A reply to
this from my father's pen appeared in the January (1873) Number, but
there was such an outcry raised in the press at the insertion in the
"Gentleman's" Magazine of an article by "Mr Bradlaugh of Whitechapel
and Hyde Park respectively" that Mr John Hatton, the editor, felt
so far obliged to defend himself as to say a word in favour of free
discussion. He further atoned for his sins by allowing Mr J. B. Hopkins
to return to his attack in the following month.]

[Footnote 135: December 1871.]

In the summer of 1871 Mr Bradlaugh went one Monday evening to Newton
Abbot to address a meeting in the New Vegetable Market, used then for
a public gathering for the first time. The subject on which he was to
speak was "The Land, the People, and the Coming Struggle." Very few of
the tradesmen in the town would consent to expose bills of the lecture,
and several who did display them at first took them from their windows
at the advice of the "respectable and pious," and in the end only
two showed the announcements. Two gentlemen who were present at the
meeting--one as a reporter for the local paper, the other, one of the
five Radicals who invited Mr Bradlaugh to Newton--have given a vivid
account of a little incident which enlivened the evening's proceedings.
It appears that in 1871 a certain Mr John George Stuart was the High
Bailiff of the town. "This gentleman," I am told, "was a Methodist,
and had at that time two sons who were studying for the ministry. He
was also a distinguished boxer, and he had the reputation of being the
most formidable wielder of the gloves in England." Mr Stuart, supported
by two friends, "attended the meeting with the avowed intention of
obstructing Mr Bradlaugh. As soon as Mr Bradlaugh began to speak,
Mr Stuart commenced to disturb the meeting. Mr Bradlaugh repeatedly
requested him to reserve his criticisms until the close of the lecture,
when an opportunity would be offered him of speaking from the platform.
But Mr Stuart continued to shout his opinions upon Mr Bradlaugh's
Atheism, although the lecture was on a purely political question. At
last Mr Bradlaugh said that unless the interruptions ceased, he should
be compelled to act as his own chairman, and to request Mr Stuart to
leave the building. As Mr Stuart and his friends would not desist from
shouting, Mr Bradlaugh stepped from the platform, walked up to the
athlete, and carried him to the door with ease. At the doorway Mr
Stuart spread his arms and held the jambs, but Mr White, who was acting
as doorkeeper pushed one of his hands aside, and Mr Bradlaugh set the
disturber down in the street. None of Mr Stuart's friends offered
the least resistance, and the crowd, which was made up of hostile as
well as friendly hearers, loudly cheered Mr Bradlaugh's unceremonious
ejectment of the local hero of the 'noble art.'" The friends to whom
I am indebted for the foregoing say further that Mr Stuart's pride
was brought very low by this episode, and that he rarely appeared
afterwards among the former admirers of his prowess.

In the course of my father's lecturing experiences, he several times
met with local "champions," as defenders of the faith. A few months
later, at Sowerby Bridge, a local champion wrestler entered the room
during the delivery of his lecture and commenced abusing him loudly.
The man was spoken to several times, but he would neither remain
quiet, nor quit the place. Mr Bradlaugh was at length obliged to leave
the platform and put him out _vi et armis_. Put out at one door, he
reappeared at another; but this time the audience took the matter into
their own hands, and kept him out. Another "champion" conducted a
serious disturbance at Congleton, but of that later.

In the month of March (1871) Dr Magee, then Bishop of Peterborough,
delivered three discourses in the Norwich Cathedral in "vindication
and establishment of the Christian faith," and "directed against
modern forms of infidelity." The Freethinkers of Norwich, anxious to
give these discourses the attention which the high position and high
reputation of the speaker demanded, had asked Mr Bradlaugh to come to
Norwich to represent them on the occasion of the Bishop's discourses.
This he consented to do, and attended all the lectures, but--as perhaps
it is superfluous to say--he was not allowed to make any remark upon
them. It was however desired that he should make some reply in the
town where the lectures had been delivered, at least, if not in the
Cathedral to Dr Magee himself, but it was not easy to obtain the use
of a hall for the purpose. A circuit of the town was made in the vain
endeavour to hire a building, and it was only after considerable
difficulty that the Free Library Hall was at last procured. As my
father truly said, "the approved mode of encountering modern infidelity
seemed to be that of free speech for the Church advocate, and gagged
mouth for the pleader on behalf of heresy."[136] In the Norwich Free
Library Hall he delivered three lectures in reply to Dr Magee. These he
afterwards published, together with the Bishop's discourses; and as a
statement of the cases for and against Christianity and 

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