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[Footnote 103: C. Bradlaugh, in _National Reformer_, July 1869.]
Summer or winter, fair weather or foul, people would come many and
many a mile to hear him speak. At Over Darwen, where he had some fine
meetings that October, he found that some of the poor folk had come in
from a distance of "twenty-three miles; many had come ten to sixteen
miles, some walking steadily over the 'tops' through the mist and rain,
and having to leave home as early as six in the morning in order to get
to us; one sturdy old man declaring that he never missed when I was
within twenty-five miles of his home."[104]
[Footnote 104: Of these Darwen lectures all the Preston papers gave
long reports. The Conservative _Preston Herald_ thought that "the
burning words of eulogium [on Mr Gladstone] that fell from the lips of
the clever advocate" laid Mr Bradlaugh "open to the suspicion of having
accepted a retainer and a brief from the astute statesman"! About 1200
persons attended each lecture, and the "quiet village of Darwen was
rendered as throng as a fair" by the influx of people from so many of
the surrounding villages.]
I should like also to note here the open-mindedness shown about this
time by a Catholic priest at Seghill. Mr Bradlaugh was to lecture
in the colliery schoolroom on "The Land, the People, and the Coming
Struggle," but almost at the last moment the authorities would have
none of such a wicked man. Upon hearing this a Catholic priest named
Father O'Dyer allowed the lecture to take place in his chapel at
Annitsford, and he himself took the chair. Mr Bradlaugh, of course,
greatly appreciated this unlooked-for kindness on the part of Father
O'Dyer, though in his surprise at such unwonted conduct he might
humorously comment "the age of miracles has recommenced."
In December Mr Bradlaugh was in Lancashire--one Saturday at Middleton,
the next day at Bury, where considerable excitement had been created
by the burning of the _National Reformer_ in the Bury Reform Club by
one of the members; on Monday at Accrington, where the lecture was
followed by a three hours' drive in the night across country, over bad
and slippery roads, to Preston to catch the London train. At Preston
the station was locked up, but Mr Bradlaugh managed to get inside the
porters' room, where there was happily a fire, by which he dozed until
the train was due. Then six hours' rail in the frosty night, and back
to city work for Tuesday morning. "Who will buy our bishopric?" he
asked. But to this there was no reply.
CHAPTER XXV.
IRELAND.
I am now come to a point in my father's history at which I must confess
my utter inability to give anything like a just account of his work.
All I can do--in spite of great time and labour almost fruitlessly
spent in following up the slenderest clues--is to relate a few facts
which must not be taken as a complete story, but merely as indicating
others of greater importance. The reason for my ignorance will be found
in Mr Bradlaugh's own words written in 1873:--
"My sympathy with Ireland and open advocacy of justice for the Irish
nearly brought me into serious trouble. Some who were afterwards
indicted as the chiefs of the so-called Fenian movement came to me for
advice. So much I see others have written, and the rest of this portion
of my autobiography I may write some day. At present there are men
not out of danger whom careless words might imperil, and as regards
myself I shall not be guilty of the folly of printing language which a
Government might use against me."[105]
[Footnote 105: _Autobiography._]
That "some day" of which he wrote never came; and to-day we know
little more of what help he gave to the chiefs of the "so-called
Fenian movement" than we did in 1873. There is, however, one man
still living--perhaps there are two, but of the second I am not quite
sure--who could if he chose throw considerable light upon this period;
but this person I have been unable to reach. From the time when, by
sending the 7th Dragoon Guards to Ireland, the English Government
was kind enough to afford the newly enlisted Private Bradlaugh an
opportunity of studying that unfortunate country from within, and by
sending him on duty at evictions to bring him face to face with the
suffering her wretched peasantry had to endure--from that time (in
the early fifties) until his death, English misgovernment of Ireland
and the condition of the Irish people occupied a very prominent place
in his thoughts. Between 1866 and 1868, while Ireland was in a state
of agitation and insurrection, he frequently brought the subject of
her grievances before his English audiences: articles on the Irish
land question and the English in Ireland appeared in the _National
Reformer_, and he himself took the Irish question as a frequent theme
for his lectures. "Englishmen," he would say, "have long been eloquent
on the wrongs of Poland and other downtrodden nations, insisting
on their right to govern themselves; but they have been singularly
unmindful of their Irish brethren. Advocacy of the claims of Poland
showed a love of liberty and freedom. Advocacy for Ireland spelled
treason. The three great curses of Ireland were her beggars, her bogs,
and her barracks. The reclaiming of the millions of acres of bogland,
now waste, with proper security for tenants, would diminish the
beggars; and as bogs and beggars decreased, contentment would increase,
and Government would be deprived of all excuse for the retention of an
armed force." Talking in this strain, he would strive to win English
sympathy for Ireland. At meeting after meeting he pointed out the
evils of our Irish legislation, and won the thanks of Irishmen for his
"outspoken language."
The Fenian Brotherhood, was, as we know, a secret association, founded
and framed by James Stephens, for the establishment of an Irish
Republic. That the association was a secret one was the fault of the
English Government, since it forbade all open and orderly meetings; and
the more open agitation was suppressed, the stronger grew the Fenian
movement. Some of the Fenian leaders, amongst whom were Colonel Kelly
and General Cluseret, came to Mr Bradlaugh for legal advice; and one
of the results of the many consultations held at Sunderland Villa was
the framing of the following proclamation, which was published in the
_Times_ for March 8th, 1867, at the end of two or three columns of
excited accounts of the Fenian rising in Ireland:--
"I. R.--Proclamation!--The Irish People to the World.
"We have suffered centuries of outrage, enforced poverty, and bitter
misery. Our rights and liberties have been trampled on by an alien
aristocracy, who, treating us as foes, usurped our lands, and drew
away from our unfortunate country all material riches. The real
owners of the soil were removed to make room for cattle, and driven
across the ocean to seek the means of living and the political rights
denied to them at home; while our men of thought and action were
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