Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2)

Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2)
John Robertson

Hypatia Bonner

Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner

Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2) / With an Account of his Parliamentary Struggle, Politics and Teachings. Seventh Edition

PART I

CHAPTER I.

IN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN

Mr. Bradlaugh had agreed to make a second lecturing tour through the States in the autumn of 1874, and he started on it under the most inauspicious circumstances. We have just seen how he was obliged to delay his journey – just as earlier in the year he had been obliged to hasten his return – to contest the election at Northampton, where he was once more defeated for the third and last time. He had originally taken his passage by the White Star Line, in the Republic, leaving on September 24th. At his request the owners obligingly transferred him to the Baltic, leaving October 1st. Unable to get away by this boat, he forfeited his passage, and leaving Northampton on the night of the poll, he just caught the Cunard ship the Parthia at Queenstown on the 7th. He started on his voyage despondent, utterly wearied, and with "a tightish sensation about the heart," for he had hoped and believed until the last half-hour that he was going to win the election. He thought, too, that before he had left the town he had succeeded in pacifying his disappointed and angry supporters in Northampton, but the receipt of a telegram at Holyhead, telling him of the rioting there and the calling out of the military, depressed him more than ever.

When he got on board the Parthia a curious little incident happened. As he was "standing gloomily, watching the last package carried on board," he wrote, "I was approached by a man, a steerage passenger, who, reverently touching his billycock hat, said, 'Father, do you go with us to the other side?' For a moment I was puzzled; but seeing that the man was serious, I answered, 'You are mistaken; I am not a Father.' The man looked dubious, nervously scratched the deck with a blackthorn held loosely in his left hand, and rejoined, 'No offence meant; I ask your reverence's pardon, but anyhow, it will be a blessing to have you with us on board, Father.' That I looked clerical I had been told by the Gaulois, which described me in 1871, when attending the Paris Courts Martial, as dressed like a bishop; but this man's evidently earnest disbelief in my repudiation of priestly honours, coupled with his quiet acquiescence, made me doubt whether I was really the man who had been placarded a few hours before in Northampton as 'Bradlaugh the Blasphemer.'"

The journey began badly, and continued so until New Jersey was sighted. The sea was rough, the Parthia rolled, and the captain proved a churl. The embarkation of the steerage passengers was managed with an "uncouth harshness" which was painful to witness; to threaten "to put a man 'in irons' for coming back to give a last wave of his hand to a weeping sweetheart," commented my father, "was just a little too hard." On the 17th the passengers on board the Parthia had the mortification of seeing the Adriatic (White Star Line), which had left Liverpool two days after them, pass them, and forge ahead with a speed which soon left the Parthia behind. Everything seemed combined to render his journey unpleasant and vexatious.[1 - In reference to Mr Bradlaugh's voyage in the Parthia I append an extract from the New York Herald for 7th September 1881, which purports to be an account of an interview between the reporter of that journal and Mr J. Walter, M.P., of the Times: —"The Bradlaugh Incident"'Don't you think Bradlaugh was harshly treated?' 'Oh dear, no,' was Mr. Walter's eager response. 'That's all nonsense about his having crysipelas, and having been so brutally treated. He's a perfect ruffian. A fellow-passenger on the Bothnia told me of Bradlaugh and some of his comrades violently disturbing some religious services held on board the Parthia, so that Captain Watson was compelled to threaten him with putting him in irons before he would stop.'"My father, of course, wrote to the New York Herald and to Mr Walter, contradicting this, saying that the statement was "monstrously untrue." He made only the one voyage on the Parthia; he said: "No attempt of any kind was made by any one to disturb religious services during that voyage. There was a disagreement between Captain Watson and the passengers as to the singing after dinner in the smoking-room, but it had not the smallest connection with religious services. The particulars were given in a letter signed by the passengers, and which was published at the time in several of the American papers. I never sang in my life, and was most certainly not even one of the singers."]

My father arrived in New York unfortunately too late for many of his engagements. He was due to speak in Dartmouth College (New Hampshire) on the 20th, and he had barely time to get there. On the way he was delighted to meet Henry Wilson in the train. They chatted long together, enjoying each other's company, and talking much of Charles Sumner, a man reverenced and honoured by both, who had died since Mr Bradlaugh's last visit to America. As it happened, too, Sumner's opinion of my father's first lecture in Boston had only lately been published in the Boston papers. It was given in a letter written by Wendell Phillips in reply to some inquiries made of him by the Secretary of a lecture committee at Winchester, Mass. The letter ran: —

"Dear Sir, – In reply to your note of October 1st would say: I heard Mr Bradlaugh the first time he spoke in Boston. What Mr Sumner, who sat near me, said of that lecture, will deservedly have more influence and weight than any opinion of mine. While Bradlaugh was speaking, Sumner looked to me and said, 'This is very fine.' At the close of the lecture he remarked, 'This is, I think, the most eloquent speech I have heard for some years.'

    Wendell Phillips."
    "Boston, October 2, 1874."

At Dartmouth Mr Bradlaugh lectured to the students in their church, and the Rev. Dr Smith, President of the College, presided at his lecture. Two days later he was speaking at Cambridge, having this time a fine audience of over a thousand persons, including most of the Cambridge professors and a strong force from Harvard College. At Philadelphia on the 25th he won the sympathies of a crowded meeting, although here he had been publicly preached against, and people had been warned not to go to his lecture. At Charlestown (Mass.) he spoke in the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, with the pastor, the Rev. Mark Trafton, as president. In Boston he spoke in the Rev. James Freeman Clarke's Church of Disciples, and at Winchester in the Unitarian Church – "and yet," he said, "miracles are not believed in!" On the journey from Bangor to Dexter my father, at the invitation of the engine-driver, rode part way on the engine, and he relates how he found himself "perched on a nice soft seat in a corner, with my toes near enough to the furnace to make me forget that a sharp frosty wind was whistling; engine-driver Chase turned out to be quite a philosopher, and I had a pleasant time." Presently they had to slacken speed; "there are cattle on the track, three oxen and three full-grown calves. They run on in front, sometimes crossing the line; we ring the bell, whistle furiously, and puff-puff vociferously, till at last engine-driver Chase gets angry and says, 'It is no use, those cattle are as stupid as your House of Lords.' 'Yes,' I answered, 'and will get run down like the Lords, if they do not get off the track.'"

Senor Castelar stated after Mr Bradlaugh's death that he was shunned by the ladies; but Senor Castelar's English was a little at fault. When my father was at Delaware he was taken by the students to the Female College, "where," he said, "the president introduced me to the senior ladies' class, who sang to me the American national hymn. I was asked to make them a speech, and am afraid I made myself supremely ridiculous. It is no joke to be suddenly called on to say something to twoscore of extremely good-looking young ladies… They all looked happy, and gave me a very pleasant greeting, one which made me think of my own girls at home." The girls on their side were evidently equally pleased with their visitor, for just before my father commenced his lecture that evening he received the following note: —

"The members of the Clionian Society, having made Mr Bradlaugh an honorary member of the same, desire, if he has no serious objection, to see him wear their badge this evening.

    Anna C. Long."

He did wear the badge in his button-hole, "and very pretty it looked, and very pretty the donors looked too as they sat in the opera-house in front of me," he said.

In continuing his journey west he lectured at Chicago, and this time he was fortunately able to spend some hours with Hypatia Carlile and her husband. At Milwaukee his visit created extraordinary enthusiasm. "Nearly all the prominent lawyers, divines, newspaper men, merchants, thinkers, and writers of the city, with their wives, heard his first lecture; and they applauded at shorter intervals than any lecturer ever was applauded here before. It is rare indeed that such an aggregate of intellect is seen gathered together at one time in this city as was the case on Thursday, and that one man receives such approval."[2 - Chicago Tribune.] The Milwaukee people urgently begged for a second lecture, which a fortunately vacant date in the following week enabled him to give them.

Iowa was the furthest point west he reached on this visit, the whole journey covering a distance of more than 4500 miles. When he went west again in the following February he met with a terrific snowstorm, generally described as the worst seen for many years. At Milwaukee the cold was so severe that at his lecture the audience sat enveloped in furs and rugs, although the janitor protested that he had used three tons of coal in his endeavour to warm the Music Hall. "The next time," commented my father, "I hope he will use thirty tons." The cold grew more and more intense, until at Fond du Lac (Wisconsin) which he reached on 10th February, the spirit thermometers registered forty degrees below zero. On leaving Fond du Lac there was a wait of ten hours at the station before any train came by which he could get to Oshkosh, where he was due that evening; at which place – reached only just in time – he found a fine audience awaiting him in spite of the weather, if "weather" can be looked upon as an adequate term for atmospheric conditions where one thermometer registers forty-five degrees below zero and the others are congealed. The following day he was due at Madison, but as traffic was suspended he remained for a short time snow-bound at Oshkosh. Towards the end of February his farewell lecture was given at Chicago to the largest audience he had had that winter. "Every seat was filled, the stage was filled, the aisles were filled, and even the staircases were alive with people."[3 - He spoke in M'Cormick's Hall to an audience of 3600 persons, of whom 3500 had paid for admission; the hall had never been so full before, and the audience was as enthusiastic as it was large.] On this journey west he did a tremendous amount of travelling; in one stretch of eight days he was only two nights in bed.

In the Eastern States he had lectured at Salem (Mass.), with Dr Loring once more for his host and chairman, and an audience who gave him a glorious reception, although, apart from the warmth of their greeting, nearly everything was in "a state of unmitigated freeziness." At Bangor (Maine), where the snow was six feet deep in drifts, and was nowhere less than two feet save on the most travelled roads, the intense cold (twenty-three degrees) kept away the audience; but amongst those who did "brave the elements" was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Maine, who warmly congratulated Mr Bradlaugh at the end of his lecture. At Lynn (Mass.), where he gave one of his last lectures in New England, in going from the railway station to the hall, he humorously relates: "I sat down twice to reflect on the uncertainty of human progress. To sit down in snow two or three feet deep is not dangerous, but is cold, and most certainly is ridiculous, especially when the sitter is tall and heavy. The second time I sat down I broke one of my ribs – that is, one of my umbrella ribs, and I filled my gloves with snow. I was reconciled to my fate when I learned that the gentleman sent out to escort me, and whom I had missed, had sat down three times."

At Philadelphia he spoke before the Pennsylvania Peace Society, and was delighted to find amongst his auditors Mrs Lucretia Mott. After the lecture Mrs Mott, on the invitation of the chairman, stood up to speak, and, said my father, "I felt reverence for the white-haired dame, which was mingled with astonishment when, her voice losing the tremor of age noticeable in the first few sentences, she spoke as clearly and distinctly as though at least thirty years had been taken from the count of her full-spent life. I valued highly the praise she gave me."

At Boston and at New York he was welcomed as heartily as ever. After his first lecture this time at Boston it had been noted that "for once" the great audience, who, it was said, seemed completely under his control, remained to hear the last word; after the last it was agreed that his lectures had been the greatest success of the season. His headquarters had been this time in Boston, and whenever he returned there from his lecturing journeys receptions were given to him, and every one seemed eager to show him some kindness or courtesy. Not the least valued mementoes of this visit were a complete and finely bound edition of Sumner's works, a handsome memorial volume printed in honour of Sumner, and three fine photographs of the dead statesman. All these were brought him at different times by the Hon. Joshua B. Smith, who idolised the great Abolitionist. He brought these tokens of Sumner to my father because, as he once said, "Mr Bradlaugh was the friend of one I loved."

Although he was comparatively little at New York, still while he was there he met amongst others James Paxton, E. C. Stedman, the poet, and Anna E. Dickinson, who greatly charmed him by her apparent sincerity, her eloquence, and her clearness of thought.

My father returned at the end of February, with the satisfaction of knowing that, despite its ominous commencement, his winter's work had been a success in every way. The liabilities incurred by his sudden departure from the United States the year before, and his delayed arrival this year, had been met, and his indebtedness at home had been cleared to the extent of £1000.

He came home by the City of Brooklyn, and met with a very stormy passage. There was a furious gale, the waves sweeping the decks and bursting the doors. The wheel became unmanageable; the wheelmen were flung right and left. "For five hours and twenty minutes," wrote my father a week later, "our engines were stopped; the sea played with our helpless vessel as with a toy, and the whole of those on board stood near death's gates. Captain J. S. Murray behaved in this terrible emergency with a courage and self-possession for which no praise can be too high. The City of Brooklyn, too, proved to be a good sea boat, and the morning light saw us out of danger; but in that twenty-four hours we only made ninety-one miles, and the log recorded a 'violent hurricane with mountainous seas.'"

My father's departure for the United States for his third lecturing tour, in the autumn of 1875, was very different from that of the year before, or even that of 1873. Now, at last, Fortune seemed to smile upon him, and everything was propitious. He set out in gay spirits and high hopes; his successes of the last two winters had assured him a welcome when he reached the States, and there was every prospect that by the time he came home again he would be able to lighten that terrible incubus of debt even more substantially than before.

He sailed in the City of Berlin, then one of the largest and most perfectly fitted Atlantic Liners afloat. He felt quite at home in her, for there were several familiar faces amongst the officers, and the captain was so courteous that the passengers voted him a special vote of thanks. It is rather curious that this resolution should have been signed on behalf of their fellow-passengers by Dr Fessenden, N. Otis, and Mr Bradlaugh, because a little later Dr Otis proved a friend in need to my father. On the voyage all went well, the weather was good, and the Berlin made a record passage of seven days eighteen hours.

After two or three days spent in New York my father went on to Boston, to find that city in the throes of an election for the office of Governor of Massachusetts. He attended a "Republican rally" at the old Faneuil Hall, and as he sat listening to the speeches of Henry Wilson and others, the influence of the room seemed to grow upon him; he remembered that it was there "that Otis pleaded against Lord North and George III.; it was there that the Boston men gathered that very December day on which the tea was thrown overboard in Boston harbour; it was there that groans accompanied the reading of the Boston Ports Bill." The meeting had the still further interest to him that it was presided over by R. H. Dana, the man who had been counsel for Anthony Burns.

Another question was also agitating, not merely Boston, but the whole country, and dividing parties into hostile camps, and that was the Currency question; and as upon this subject my father and Wendell Phillips took opposite views, their relations were by no means so friendly as heretofore.

The religious feeling which had been raised against Mr Bradlaugh every time was renewed with special bitterness this winter, and created quite a panic amongst the managers of lecture courses. It is much to their credit that the Rev. Dr Miner and the Rev. Dr Lorrimer had the courage to disregard the outcry, and invited him to lecture to their congregations as before.

At the end of October he was feeling very unwell, but persisted in continuing his work, and for a week or two seemed rather better. Since the friendship which sprang up between them on board the City of Berlin, Dr Otis and my father had not lost sight of one another, and when he became worse again he consulted Dr Otis, who strongly advised change of scene and climate, as preparation for the hard work and the cold which would have to be faced on his Western tour. Hence, in the middle of November, finding himself part way there, he went on to Washington. At Washington he found that almost his only friend in the city, Henry Wilson, the Vice-President of the United States, was lying sick unto death in the Capitol. He called upon him, but finding him so ill, simply left his card. Mr Wilson, on hearing of his visit, sent his secretary with a note – the last, I believe, that he ever wrote – asking him to come on the following morning, but my father never saw him again. He returned to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, sad and ill. Dr Otis saw him professionally and in the report he sent to England early in December he said he had been suffering from "much work and little rest" for several days; later he found him suffering from pleurisy and some threatenings of typhoid. As the fever rapidly developed, Dr Otis suggested that he should go to St Luke's Hospital, where he could have the best care – professional and general – and on my father agreeing, he took him there in his own carriage on 30th November. At St Luke's Hospital Mr Bradlaugh felt that he owed his life "to the great skill and generous kindness of Dr Leaming, to the unremitting attentions of Dr Abbe, and to the patient and never-ceasing care of my nurse, William Shaw." Even before he was allowed to leave his bed it was decided he could do no more lecturing that season, and within four days from leaving his sick-bed he was on board the City of Richmond on his way home. Friends said he was rash – that the journey would kill him. He was so weak that he could scarcely stand, and he shed tears almost directly a kind word was said to him; but if his body was weak, his will was strong; he would go, and he was sure that he would grow stronger more quickly moving on board ship than inactive in New York. A copy of "Alice in Wonderland" had been accidentally left in his cabin; he was so weak that it took him nearly the whole voyage to read this little book; he laughed over it and delighted in it like a child. Afterwards, he always remembered it with a certain enjoyment, and was ever ready to quote from it such touching verses as "You are old, Father William," "'Tis the voice of the sluggard," or "Will you walk a little faster?"

Speaking of his sudden return a week or two later, Mr Bradlaugh said: "I came back to England because I was advised that it would have been suicide in my weak state to face the Western winter. I come back to Europe reluctantly, for I went to the United States to earn enough money to pay my debts, and I am compelled to return poorer than I left. Indeed, I owe it to Mr Moncure D. Conway's assistance that I was enabled, at the moment, to discharge the obligations my illness had created in New York."

Mr Conway has since told me that when he went to see my father while he lay ill in the St Luke's Hospital, my father begged him to make inquiries of nurse and doctors whether he had said or done anything during the time of his illness which could be construed into an alteration of his opinions upon religious subjects. He wished Mr Conway, in the event of his death, to bear testimony that his convictions had remained unchanged. Mr Conway, whose own opinions were by no means so heretical as Mr Bradlaugh's, was nevertheless anxious to carry out the wishes of the sick man with the utmost exactitude, and therefore made the most scrupulous inquiries. But he only learned that Mr Bradlaugh had been a most docile, uncomplaining, and grateful patient, and that he had not uttered a single word which could afford the slightest justification for a suggestion of recantation. That my father's dread of the usual "infidel deathbed" myth was well founded we know by what has happened since 1891. Even as it was, although he recovered from his illness in New York, and was alive to contradict such fables, it was actually said that he had sent for a minister to pray with him, and one clergyman was even reported to have specified the "minister" as a Baptist! It was long before my father entirely recovered from this illness, and although formerly a smoker, after this he lost all desire for a cigar. It was not until a few years before his death that he renewed the habit, and even then only in a very modest way – a cigar in going to the House of Commons, a cigar in coming back he enjoyed; at other times he smoked little.

It is worth noting that while Mr Bradlaugh was in the States, whenever he had an evening to spare, wherever he might happen to be, he generally devoted it to going to hear some lecture or sermon, or attending some meeting. In this way he heard, amongst others, Parker Pilsbury, Newman Hall, O. B. Frothingham, M. D. Conway, Horace Seaver, and Dr Miner. He two or three times attended and spoke at Women's Suffrage meetings, and was invited on at least two occasions to take part in Masonic festivals.

Everywhere he went he made careful inquiries into the labour conditions of the locality, and where possible, he visited mill and factory, and talked with both workers and employers. He also specially studied the workings of the liquor laws in the States where they obtained, and the effect of his observations was to decide him against them. On each visit he wrote home weekly letters for the National Reformer, which were interesting for what they told about his own doings and about persons, and invaluable to intending emigrants for the information they gave concerning labour in the different States which he visited. He afterwards published the result of his investigation into labour questions in America as a little booklet entitled "Hints to Emigrants."

CHAPTER II.

MRS BESANT

In 1874 Mr Bradlaugh lost a friend and gained one. Between himself and the friend he lost the tie had endured through nearly five-and-twenty years, of which the final fourteen had been passed in the closest friendship and communion, tarnished neither by quarrel nor mistrust. By the death of Austin Holyoake my father lost a trusty counsellor and loyal co-worker, and the Freethought movement lost one who for fully twenty years had served it with that earnest fidelity, high moral courage, and unimpeachable integrity which were amongst his most striking characteristics. In health and in sickness he toiled incessantly to promote the interests of the cause he had at heart, and at no time of his life did he shrink from duty or responsibility.

Austin Holyoake died in the spring of 1874, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery in the presence of a great crowd of sorrowing friends. Just before his death he dictated his "Sickroom Thoughts" to his wife, uttering the last broken paragraph only a few hours before he died. For three years he had known that death was near, and this final statement of his opinions on death and immortality was purposely deferred until the last moment he deemed it prudent, so that he might leave a record of his last deliberate opinions, and as such these "Thoughts" provoked very considerable comment.[4 - "My mind being free from any doubts on these bewildering matters of speculation," he said, "I have experienced for twenty years the most perfect mental repose; and now I find that the near approach of death, the 'grim King of Terrors,' gives me not the slightest alarm. I have suffered, and am suffering, most intensely both by night and day; but this has not produced the least symptom of change of opinion. No amount of bodily torture can alter a mental conviction."]

Austin Holyoake, like his friend, lived and died a poor man, and my father pledged himself to him on his deathbed to raise a sum of £650 to purchase the printing and publishing business hitherto conducted by Mr Holyoake in the interests of Freethought literature. The money raised was to benefit the widow and the two children, and the business was to be handed over to Mr Charles Watts. A subscription which was started realised rather less than £550, and the National Secular Society determined to make up the balance out of a legacy left to the President by a Dr Berwick. Unfortunately, however, Dr Berwick's trustee absconded with the money, and consequently, as Mr Bradlaugh had promised his dead friend that the sum of £650 should be raised, he paid the deficiency out of his own pocket, by weekly instalments.

Austin Holyoake, the friend Mr Bradlaugh lost, was steadfast, loyal, unassuming, and unswerving in his opinions; Mrs Annie Besant, the friend he gained, was even more remarkable, though in a very different way.

Having enrolled herself a member of the National Secular Society in August 1874, Mrs Besant sought Mr Bradlaugh's acquaintance. They were mutually attracted; and a friendship sprang up between them of so close a nature that had both been free it would undoubtedly have ended in marriage. In their common labours, in the risks and responsibilities jointly undertaken, their friendship grew and strengthened, and the insult and calumny heaped upon them only served to cement the bond.

This lasted for many years until Mrs Besant's ceaseless activity carried her into paths widely divergent from those so long trodden by her colleague, paths which brought her into close association with persons strongly inimical to Mr Bradlaugh and the aims to which he was devoting his life. For some time before he died, he had, as Mrs Besant herself has written in her recently published Autobiography,[5 - See page 322.] lost all confidence in her judgment; she had disappointed him, and it would be unworthy of both not to recognise that the disappointment was very bitter, though his desire to serve her and shield her always remained unchanged. For thirteen years she had stood upon the same platform with him; and when she one day said that for ten years she had been dissatisfied with her own teaching, he felt it very keenly, but he neither uttered a word of blame himself, nor would he allow any one else to blame her in his hearing.

Every movement, every cause, has its ebbs and flows; there seems to be only a certain amount of activity possible to men in the mass, and now it flows in one direction, now in another. The Freethought movement, when Mrs Besant came into it, had for some years been slowly but surely increasing in activity and prosperity. The National Secular Society, although not so complete an organisation as it was soon to become, was nevertheless to be found in all the great centres of population. The National Reformer, the representative organ of Freethought, in the five years which lay between 1867 and 1872 had nearly doubled its circulation, and was read in almost all parts of the world. It was sent to the three presidencies of India, the United States and Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, the West Indies, Egypt, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Germany. On its staff there were several very able writers, and if it was not exactly a profitable property, it at least paid its way.

People have sometimes deliberately asserted that Mrs Besant's desertion and Mr Bradlaugh's death inflicted an irremediable injury on the cause of Freethought, but this is merely an assertion, and one which will not bear a moment's investigation. Happily for the human race, the growth of public opinion does not depend upon any single man or woman, however able, however energetic, he or she may be. The loss of a leader amongst men may for a moment check the onward movement, and it may be there is even a temporary reaction – a swing back – but never in the history of the world has the loss of one of its pioneers proved an "irremediable injury" to the cause of progress.

If indeed it should be thought, and it is a proposition that I am not in a position to deny, that this is a moment of ebb in the tide of Freethought, the fact would only be in harmony with the general tendency of the times, and would prove nothing against the ultimate acceptance of the truths of Materialism. The growth of population in our great cities has caused the evils of poverty to press more closely upon general attention, and the public energy is directed towards seeking a solution for these immediately important problems, rather than for those more abstract theorems arising out of religious speculation.

Mrs Besant was herself obeying this tendency when, in 1886 she thought she had found in the optimistic dreams of Socialism a remedy for this most bitter of human ills. This was the point upon which she first diverged from Mr Bradlaugh, and once having separated her thought from his, the breach swiftly widened. Socialism was, as it were, the fork in the Y of their lives. Nothing, I think, will show how far these two had drifted asunder more than that Mr Bradlaugh should first learn of Mrs Besant's adhesion to the Theosophical Society through an article written by her in a weekly paper, and not from her own lips.

Mrs Besant's first contribution to the National Reformer appeared in its issue for 30th August 1874, and with that she entered in good earnest upon the work which was to engross her for many years to come. Over the signature of "Ajax" she commenced a series of notes, entitled "Daybreak," which were to mark "the rising of the sun of liberty … when men should dare to think for themselves in theology, and act for themselves in politics," and these notes were continued weekly for several years. From August 1874 to April 1891 Mrs Besant remained connected with the National Reformer, first as contributor, and then as sub-editor, becoming shortly afterwards co-editor and co-proprietor. The co-editorship was resigned in October 1887 for reasons set forth by Mrs Besant in her Autobiography,[6 - See p. 320.] and the co-proprietorship ceased with the dissolution of the partnership between herself and Mr Bradlaugh, in December 1890.