A few days later Sir Thomas Nelson, the City Solicitor, served a summons on Mr. H. C. Cattell of 84 Fleet Street, who had so annoyed the bigots by exposing the Christmas Number of the Freethinker in his window. Detectives also visited other newsagents and threatened them with prosecution if they persisted in selling my paper. It was evident that the City authorities were bent on utterly suppressing it. They tried their utmost and they failed.
CHAPTER VI. PREPARING FOR TRIAL.
There were many reasons why I did not wish to be tried at the Old Bailey. First, it is an ordinary criminal court, with all the vulgar characteristics of such places: swarms of loud policemen, crowds of chattering witnesses, prison-warders bent on recognising old offenders, ushers who look soured by long familiarity with crime, clerks who gabble over indictments with the voice and manner of a town-crier, barristers in and out of work, some caressing a brief and some awaiting one; and a large sprinkling of idle persons, curious after a fresh sensation and eager to gratify a morbid appetite for the horrible. How could the greatest orator hope to overcome the difficulties presented by such surroundings? The most magnificent speech would be shorn of its splendor, the most powerful robbed of more than half its due effect. In the next place, I should have to appear in the dock, and address the jury from a position which seems to require an apology in itself. And, further, that jury would be a common one, consisting almost entirely of small tradesmen, the very worst class to try such an indictment.
For these and other reasons I resolved to obtain, if possible, a certiorari to remove our Indictment to the Court of Queen's Bench; and as the first Indictment had been so removed, I did not anticipate any serious difficulty. On Monday, February 19, after travelling by the night train from Plymouth, where I had delivered three lectures the day before, I applied before Justices Manisty and Matthew, who granted me a rule nisi. But on the Saturday Sir Hardinge Giffard moved that the rule should be taken out of its order in the Crown Paper, and argued on the following Tuesday. Seeing that the Court was determined to assist him, I acquiesced in the motion rather than waste my time in futile obstruction. On Tuesday, February 27, Sir Hardinge Giffard duly appeared, supported by two junior counsel, Mr. Poland and Mr. F. Lewis. The judges, as on the previous Saturday, were Baron Huddleston and Mr. Justice North. The former displayed the intensest bigotry and prejudice, and the latter all that flippant insolence which he subsequently displayed at my trial, and which appears to be an inseparable part of his character. When, for instance, I ventured to correct Sir Hardinge Giffard on a mere matter of fact, as is quite customary in such cases; when I sought to point out that the Indictment already removed included Mr. Ramsey and myself, and not Mr. Bradlaugh only; Justice North stopped me with "Not a word, sir, not a word."
Sir Hardinge Giffard made a very short speech, knowing that such judges did not require much persuasion. He moved that the rule nisi should be discharged; put in a copy of the Christmas Number of the Freethinker, which he described as a gross and intentional outrage on the religious feelings of the public; alleged, as was perfectly true, that it was still being sold; and urged that the case was one that should be sent for trial at once.
My reply was longer. After claiming the indulgence of the Court for having to appear in person, owing to my purse being shorter than the London Corporation's, I laid before their lordships my reasons for asking them to make the rule absolute. I argued that, as a press offence, our case was eminently one for a special jury; that the law of blasphemy, which had not been interpreted for a generation, was very indefinite, and a common jury might be easily misled; that as contradictory statements of the common law existed, it was highly advisable to have an authoritative judgment in a superior Court; that grave questions as to the relations of the statute and the common law might also arise; that it was manifestly unfair, while a sweeping Indictment for blasphemy was removed to a higher Court, that I should be compelled to plead in a lower Court on a similar charge; and that it was unjust to try our case at the Old Bailey when the City Corporation was prosecuting us.
To none of these reasons, however, did their lordships vouchsafe a reply or extend a consideration. Baron Huddleston simply held the Christmas Number of the Freethinker up in Court, and declared that no sane man could deny that it was a blasphemous libel—a contumelious reproach on our Blessed Savior. But that was not the point at issue. Whether the prosecuted publication was a blasphemous libel or not, was a question for the jury at the proper time and in the proper place. All Baron Huddleston was concerned with was whether a fairer trial might be obtained in a higher Court than in a lower one, and before a special jury than before a common one. That question he never touched, and the one he did touch he was bound by legal and moral rules not to deal with at all.
Justice North briefly concurred with his learned brother, and refrained from adding anything because he would probably have to try the case at the Old Bailey himself. What a pity he did not reflect on the injustice of publicly branding as blasphemous the very men he was going to try for blasphemy within forty-eight hours!
The next morning, February 29, Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Kemp and I duly appeared at the Old Bailey. Before the regular business commenced, I asked his lordship (it was indeed Justice North) to postpone our trial until the next sessions, on the ground that, as my application for a certiorari was only decided the day before, there had been no time to prepare an adequate defence. His lordship refused to grant us an hour for that absurd purpose. Directly I sat down Mr. Poland arose, and begged that our trial might be deferred until the morrow, as his leader, Sir Hardinge Giffard, was obliged to attend elsewhere. This request was granted with a gracious smile and a bland, "Of course, Mr. Poland." What a spectacle! An English judge refusing a fellow-citizen a single hour for the defence of his liberty and perhaps his life, and granting a delay of twenty-four hours to enable a brother lawyer to earn his fee!