Aug. 3rd.—Mr. Bradlaugh, acting on his right to enter the House of Commons, is seized at the door of the House by fourteen men, police and ushers (Inspector Denning said ten), and roughly hustled out into Palace Yard, Mr. Bradlaugh protesting against such treatment as illegal. “In the passage leading out to the yard Mr. Bradlaugh’s coat was torn down on the right side; his waistcoat was also pulled open, and otherwise his toilet was much disarranged. The members flocked down the stairs on the heels of the struggling party, but no pause was made until Mr. Bradlaugh was placed outside the precincts and in Palace Yard.”—Times. Alderman Fowler was heard to call, “Kick him out.” This he afterwards denied, but there is evidence that he did so. (Mr. Bradlaugh suffered the rupture of the small muscles of both his arms, and erysipelas ensued).
Many thousands of people went up to the House with petitions, urging the House to do justice to Northampton and Mr. Bradlaugh.
In the House Mr. Labouchere moved a resolution condemning, as an interference with the privilege of members, the action of the authorities in expelling Mr. Bradlaugh from the lobby. This was rejected by 191 votes against 7, and a motion of Sir Henry Holland, declaring the approval of the House of the course taken by the Speaker, was agreed to without controversy.
At a crowded meeting at the Hall of Science the same evening Mr. Bradlaugh stated that he had told Inspector Denning in Palace Yard that he could come back with force enough to gain admittance, but that he had no right to risk the lives and liberties of his supporters.
Aug. 4th.—The Times declares, in an article favorable on the whole to Mr. Bradlaugh’s claims, that the House of Commons was yesterday the real sufferer in dignity, authority, and repute. It says: “the question contains within itself the baleful germ of a grave constitutional contest between the House of Commons and any constituency in the land;” and “such a conflict can but have one conclusion, as all history shows.”
The Daily News, in a similar article, concludes thus: “Sooner or later it will be generally acknowledged that Mr. Bradlaugh’s exclusion was one of the most high-handed acts of which any legislative body has ever been guilty.”
The following unique paragraph from The Rock is worth preserving in its original form: “The question now is whether the Christian people of this realm will quietly allow clamorous groups of infidels, Radicals, and seditionists, by organised clamor, bluster, and menace, to overawe the legislature, and by exhibitions of violence—not at all unlikely, if permitted to develop into outrage and riot—to cause an organic and vital change to be made in our Constitution and laws, in order that brazen-faced Atheism might display itself within the walls of the British Parliament.”
Mr. E. D. Girdlestone writes: “If the present Cabinet does not secure your admission to the House in some way or other, I can only wish they may soon be turned out of office. I don’t know what more I can do than say, ‘Go on! and go in!’”
Aug. 5th.—Mr. Bradlaugh’s application at Westminster Police Court for summons against Inspector, for having assaulted him at the House of Commons on the 3rd inst., refused.