It is not as defendant that I plead to you to-day—not simply as defending myself do I stand here—but I speak as counsel for hundreds of the poor, and it is they for whom I defend this case. My clients are scattered up and down through the length and breadth of the land; I find them amongst the poor, amongst whom I have been so much; I find my clients amongst the fathers, who see their wage ever reducing, and prices ever rising; I find my clients amongst the mothers worn out with over-frequent child-bearing, and with two or three little ones around too young to guard themselves, while they have no time to guard them. It is enough for a woman at home to have the care, the clothing, the training of a large family of young children to look to; but it is a harder task when oftentimes the mother, who should be at home with her little ones, has to go out and work in the fields for wage to feed them when her presence is needed in the house. I find my clients among the little children. Gentlemen, do you know the fate of so many of these children?—the little ones half-starved because there is food enough for two but not enough for twelve; half-clothed because the mother, no matter what her skill and care, cannot clothe them with the money brought home by the breadwinner of the family; brought up in ignorance, and ignorance means pauperism and crime—gentlemen, your happier circumstances have raised you above this suffering, but on you also this question presses; for these over-large families mean also increased poor-rates, which are growing heavier year by year. These poor are my clients, and if I weary you by length of speech, as I fear I may, I do so because I must think of them more even than I think of your time or trouble.
With righteous indignation Mrs. Besant repelled the accusation that The Fruits of Philosophy was an “obscene” publication. She showed by a quotation from Lord Campbell’s Act (upon which the prosecution was based) that the statutory definition of obscenity could not possibly be applied to a book containing “dry physiological details put forward in dry, technical language.” She next proceeded to urge that the right of free discussion upon matters of public welfare was really attacked by the prosecution:
Do you, gentlemen, think for one moment that myself and my co-defendant are fighting the simple question of the sale or publication of this sixpenny volume of Dr. Knowlton’s? Do you think that we would have placed ourselves in the position in which we are at the present moment for the mere profit to be derived from a sixpenny pamphlet of forty-seven pages? No, it is nothing of the sort; we have a much larger interest at stake, and one of vital interest to the public, one which we shall spend our whole lives in trying to uphold. The question really is one of the right to public discussion by means of publication, and that question is bound up in the right to sell this sixpenny pamphlet which the Solicitor-General despises on account of its price.
It would, however, be impossible to give, by extracts of reasonable length, an adequate idea of the striking and eloquent speech which Mrs. Besant addressed to the jury in her defence. The whole question of over-population and its consequences was examined with the greatest care and completeness. Profoundly convinced of the justice of her cause, Mrs. Besant pleaded that the teachings of New-Malthusianism, by making early marriage possible, promoted happiness and morality. She said:
I think, therefore, I may fairly put it that every young man naturally desires to make a home and enter upon married life when first he comes out into the world. I do not believe that any young man sets out with the intention of rushing into fast life and dissipation, but men are frequently drawn into habits of that kind because they fear the results that follow from early marriage. Since I am told that our object is to increase immorality, and that we only use the word “marriage” to conceal the foulest designs upon the purity of society, I may say freely that I hold early marriages to be the very salvation of young men, and especially of young men in our large cities. I hold the belief with a depth of conviction which I cannot put to you in words, that for one man and one woman to help, comfort, and support one another, which they are by nature adapted to do, is a state which is to be reached, which is to be perpetuated, by marriage and in no other way. It is only by companionship, and the union between a man and a woman, that this is possible. Shut a man out from the loving influence of home, the golden institutions of the fireside, his wife’s society, and the happiness of becoming a father, and you induce a life of profligacy. Gentlemen, do not be deceived. There is no talk in this book of preventing men and women from becoming parents; all that is sought here is to limit the number of their family. And we do not aim at that because we do not love children, but, on the contrary, because we do love them, and because we wish to prevent them from coming into the world in greater numbers than there is the means of properly providing for. Children, I believe, have an influence upon parents purifying in the highest degree, because they teach the parents self-restraint, self-denial, thoughtfulness, and tenderness to an extent that cannot possibly be over-estimated; and it is because I wish to have it made possible for young men and for young women to have these influences brought to bear upon them in their youth, that I advocate the circulation of a book that will put within their reach the knowledge of how to limit the extent of their families within their capabilities of providing for them; for no man can look with pride and happiness upon his home if he has more children than he can clothe and educate. It is because I wish them to marry in the springtime of their youth that I ask you by your verdict in this action to make discussion on these subjects possible, and that men should not be driven to find a substitute for true and pure womanhood and wifehood in other directions. If you render this possible you will make your streets purer and your families happier than they are at present.
Having in the course of a prolonged speech explained and vindicated the New-Malthusian doctrine from misrepresentations inspired by ignorance, prejudice, and bigotry, Mrs. Besant concluded her memorable address in the following words:
I fairly put it that unless you honestly believe that my whole speech to you has been one mass of falsehoods; unless you believe my intent to be a bad intent; unless you believe I have been deliberately deceiving you throughout, and stand here before you in the very worst character a woman could take upon herself, namely, that of striving to corrupt the morals of the young under the false pretence of purity here put forward, and unless you think that, for the after-part of my life, I deserve to pass through it with the brand upon me that twelve gentlemen, after all patience, thought not only that the book was a mistake, the opinions wrong, and the arguments unconvincing, but, in the terrible language of the indictment, that I am guilty of “wickedly devising and contriving as much as in me lay to vitiate and corrupt the morals of youth” as well as of others,—unless, I say, you believe that that has been my object and purpose, on this indictment, I shall call upon you, gentlemen, to return a verdict of “Not Guilty,” and to send me home free, believing from my heart and conscience that I have been guilty only of doing that which I ought to do in grappling honestly with a matter I consider myself justified in grappling with—that terrible poverty and misery which is around us on every hand. Unless you are prepared, gentlemen, to brand me with malicious meaning, I ask you, as an English woman, for that justice which it is not impossible to expect at the hands of Englishmen—I ask you to give me a verdict of “Not Guilty,” and to send me home unstained.
Mr. Bradlaugh, in his speech, dealt more fully than his co-defendant had been able to do with the legal and physiological aspects of the case. In the clearest fashion he maintained the lawfulness of disseminating the knowledge of innocent prudential checks:
I submit to you, gentlemen of the jury, that it is moral to teach poor people to marry early, and that this teaching avoids and will diminish illicit intercourse. I will not weary you with reading the whole of the report on the “Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture,” from which my co-defendant quoted that terrible extract from the report of Bishop Fraser. You will there find that the illicit intercourse which we are charged with trying to produce is an illicit intercourse which is going on and bringing with it the birth of the child, and bringing with it the murder of the child by the mother, because there is the pang of starvation and misery and shame to contend with. I say that it is amongst the poor married people that the evils of over-population are chiefly felt, and that it cannot tend to deprave their morals to teach them how to intelligently check this over-population.… I submit that the advocacy of all checks is lawful except such as advocate the destruction of the fœtus after conception or of the child after birth. I say that the advocacy of every birth-restricting check is lawful which is not the advocacy of the destruction of human life in any form after that life has been created.
Assuming the legality of such advocacy, it is useless unless conveyed in plain and simple language: