Lord Coleridge interrupted me. "You must learn one more lesson, Mr. Foote, and that is, that one judge cannot hear another judge censured, or even commended."
I was checkmated, but taking it with a good grace, I said:
"My lord, thank you for the correction. And I will simply
confine the observations I might have made on that subject to
the emphatic statement that I have learnt to-day, for the first
time—although this is the second time I have had to answer a
criminal charge—how a criminal trial should be conducted."
His lordship did not interrupt me again. During the whole of my long defence he leaned his head upon his hand, and looked steadily at me, without once shifting his gaze.
To put the jury in a good frame of mind I told them that two months before I fell among thieves, and congratulated myself on being able to talk to twelve honest men. In order, also, that they might be disabused of the idea that we were being treated as first-class misdemeanants, I informed them of the discipline we were really subjected to; and I saw that this aroused their sympathy.
Those who wish to read my defence in extenso will find it in the "Three Trials for Blasphemy." I shall content myself here with a few points. I quoted heretical, and, as I contended, blasphemous passages from the writings of Professor Huxley, Dr. Maudsley, Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, Lord Amberly, the Duke of Somerset, Shelley, Byron, James Thomson, Algernon Swinburne, and others; and I urged that the only difference between these passages and the incriminated parts of my paper consisted in the price t which they were published. Why, I asked, should the high-class blasphemer be petted by society, and the low-class blasphemer be made to bear their sins, and driven forth into the wilderness of Holloway Gaol?
Lord Coleridge, in his summing up, supported my view, and his admission is so important that I venture to give it in full.
"With regard to some of the others from whom Mr. Foote
quoted passages, I heard many of them for the first time.
I do not at all question that Mr. Foote read them correctly.
They are passages which, hearing them only from him for the
first time, I confess I have a difficulty in distinguishing
from the incriminated publication. They do appear to me to
be open to exactly the same charge and the same grounds of
observation that Mr. Foote's publications are. He says—and
I don't call upon him to prove it, I am quite willing to take
his word—he says many of these things are written in expensive
books, published by publishers of known eminence, and that
they circulate in the drawing-rooms, studies, and libraries
of persons of position. It may be so. All I can say here is—
and so far I can answer for myself—I would make no distinction
between Mr. Foote and anybody else; and if there are persons,
however eminent they may be, who used language, not fairly
distinguishable from that used by Mr. Foote, and if they are
ever brought before me—which I hope they never may be, for
a more troublesome or disagreeable business can never be
inflicted upon me—if they come before me, so far as my poor
powers go they shall have neither more nor less than the
justice I am trying to do to Mr. Foote; and if they offend
the Blasphemy Laws they shall find that so long as these laws
exist—whatever I may think about their wisdom—they will have
but one rule of law laid down in this court."
Another point I raised, which I neglected in my previous defences, was this. What is it that men have a right to at law?
"Every man has a right to three things—protection for person,
property and character, and all that can be legitimately
derived from these. The ordinary law of libel gives a man
protection for his character, but it is surely monstrous that
he should claim protection for his opinions and tastes. All
that he can claim is that his taste shall not be violently
outraged against his will. I hope, gentlemen, you will take
that rational view of the question. We have libelled no man's
character, we have invaded no man's person or property. This
crime is a constructed crime, originally manufactured by priests
in the interest of their own order to put down dissent and heresy.
It now lingers amongst us as a legacy utterly alien to the spirit
of our age, which unfortunately we have not resolution enough to
cast among those absurdities which Time holds in his wallet of
oblivion."