[54] The Plymouth and Exeter Gazette (April 1878) reproved Mr Bradlaugh for the glaring inconsistency of his practice with his democratic principles, "by living in the most aristocratic style."
[55] The Leeds Daily News (July 1883) said his income was £12,000 a year.
[56] He was frequently charged with drinking expensive wines, but the hock he had straight from Bensheim at a cost of 1s. 3d. per bottle (including carriage and duty); the burgundy came direct from Beaune, and cost a trifle more.
[57] During the time he was not allowed to take his seat he attended the House constantly, sitting under the gallery in a seat technically outside the House.
[58] One year he calculated that he had written 1200 letters of advice in the twelvemonth—this, of course, in addition to general correspondence.
[59] The following extracts, taken at hazard from New Year's addresses to his friends in the National Reformer, will show how grateful he was to them for their help and what support he found in their love and trust:—
"Women and men, I have great need of your strength to make me strong, of your courage to make me brave. I am in a breach where I must fall fighting or go through. I will not turn, but I could not win if I had to fight alone" (1st January 1882).
"1883 has freed me from some troubles and cleared me of some peril, but it leaves me in 1884 a legacy of unfinished fighting. I thank the friends of the dead year, without whose help I, too, must have been nearly as dead as the old year itself.... I have had more kindnesses shown me than my deservings warrant, more love than I have yet earned, and I open the gate of 1884 most hopefully because I know how many hundred kindly hearts there are to cheer me if my uphill road should prove even harder to climb than in the years of yesterday" (6th January 1884).
"The present greeting is first to our old friends; some poor folk who early in 1860 took No. 1 [of the National Reformer], and have through good and ill report kept steadily with us through the more than a quarter of a century struggle for existence" (3rd January 1886).
[60] Bognor Observer, February 1887.