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THE LEGEND OF THE FROZEN LAKE.
(Translated from a Collection of Norwegian Folk-Lore and
Village Legends, L~c., published at Christiania.)
Once upon a time, in the early part of the winter, a traveller
had to cross over a frozen lake where the ice was of varied and
unknown thickness. Before venturing out on the ice he lighted his
pipe, and, sitting down on a stone by the side of a road (which
ran close to the lake shore, nearly at right angles with his own
course), he thus communed with himself: “ I am bound to cross
this lake ; but in so doing I run a considerable risk of losing my
health, or even life, by falling through the ice. If I can manage to
keep on the thick ice, and avoid the thin, of course I shall be all
right as far as safety is concerned ; but the road over the ice is not
staked out yet, and there is not so much as a footprint on it. Perhaps
some of these good people passing to and fro on the road may be
able to give me some useful directions. At any rate, I will just ask
them.” And so he did, there being no lack of people to ask ; they
all spoke kindly to him at first ; and though they did not answer his
questions satisfactorily as to the thickness of the ice, they seemed as
willing and as anxious to direct his course as if their own safety had
depended on it. What surprised the traveller immensely, however,
and perplexed him not a little, was that, whereas all advised him
earnestly, and some vehemently, no two of them gave him the same
counsel, and no one seemed to speak from experience or trustworthy
information. In a very few minutes the conversation became somewhat
general, the counsellors became more and more excited; some
warned him in rather discourteous terms against following the advice
of others ; and at last they began to quarrel amongst themselves.
The poor man returned slightly disgusted to his stone, his pipe, and
his meditations. “Now,” thought he, “if I had only met one of
these good people, I should as likely as not have followed his advice ;
but in the multitude of such counsellors there seems to be anything
but wisdom.” Just then two persons, evidently of superior rank,
appeared upon the scene; and these were a Bishop and an Arch
bishop. The Bishop, taking on himself the office of chief speaker,
did not wait to be asked, but at once thus addressed the traveller:
“ My son, I see thou art about to cross the frozen lake ; and I come
to tell thee that the ice is such and such a thickness, here and there
respectively, and it is thy duty to believe me.” “ Well ! ” said the
traveller, “ it is scarcely fair or reasonable to talk about duty in such
a matter; but if you really do know more about the ice than those
good people yonder, and if you will give me any accurate information
about it, I shall be most truly grateful to you.” “ My son,” said the
Bishop, “ I perceive thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond
�[2]
of iniquity. Here is no question of accurate information, but of
saving faith. As for knowing more about the ice than those good
people, the fact is that I know considerably less. All my knowledge
of ice is derived from ancient history. I have not made myself in
any way acquainted with this year’s ice; nor do I consider that I am
at liberty to do so with any view of forming, or helping others to
form, an independent opinion. From my early youth 1 have been
trained, and from early manhood hired and pledged, to declare to
such as you that the ice is just so thick and j ust so thin, respectively
here and there (no more and no less), as it was voted to me, or as it
was supposed to have been voted to me, many hundred years ago by
an assembly of good men, not one of whom ever saw ice in his life.
The actual thickness or thinness is of no real importance. To adopt
what we call the orthodox dimensions, is the one thing needful, and
there is a special over-natural efficacy in adopting these, by which
you will be enabled to skim over the thinnest ice in perfect safety,
while the thickest ice will melt away under the feet of him who
doubts, or is so unfortunate as to be influenced by measurement,
testimony, calculation, or otherwise to consider it as thicker or thinner
than he has been taught to believe it. Of course, when I say you
must believe, I mean you must profess to believe, and act as if you
did. Go now, my son, and be of good cheer.” The traveller, if the
truth must be told, did not think much of the Bishop’s reasoning ;
but he was much taken with the good prelate’s reverend appearance,
peculiar dress, and phraseology ; and still more by his authoritative
and yet benign and fatherly manner. So, after remaining a few
seconds, “perplexed with doubt and afraid of condemnation,” he
declared that he believed every word that the good Bishop had said
to him, went boldly forth on the ice, was soon out of sight, and has
never been heard of since. The Bishop tells everyone that the
traveller got safely over the lake, and the Archbishop adds that it is
“ a most wholesome doctrine and very full of comfort.”
[From Teubner’s American and Oriental Record.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The legend of the frozen lake
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 2 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "From Trubner's American and Oriental Record". Translated from a collection of Norwegian folklore and village legends etc. published at Christiana. Tentative date of publication from KVK.
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[s.n.]
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[1885?]
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G5531
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[Unknown]
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Faith
Folklore
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The legend of the frozen lake), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Conway Tracts
Faith
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e>2-rn
tJoZ|/
SEXUAL ECONOMY,
AS TAUGHT BY
CHARLES BRADLAUGH, M.P.
BY
PETER AGATE, M.D.
WITH ADDENDUM BY SALADIN.
London:
W. STEWART & Co., 41, FARRINGDON St., E.C.
��CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction ...
...
...
...
The Two B.’s and “ The Elements ”
...
Bradlaugh’s Quarrel with Joseph Barker ...
Sexual Religion
...
...
...
The Neo-Malthusian Doctrine of Marriage
Palaeo-Secular Views of Social Evils
...
Palseo-Secular Medicine...
...
...
The Palaeo-Secularist Malthusians
...
Palaeo-Secularist Society
...
...
Addendum, by Saladin...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
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5
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28
32
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45
5;
53
��INTRODUCTION.
Saladin, chaste knight ot Secularism, Freethought, Agnos
ticism, says my essay, or compilation, illustrative of Bradlaughism, Cat-and-Ladleism, Knowltonism, and the moral
sewage question generally, needs an introduction. He knows
better than I; so probably it does. My instant and eager
reply was : Who so fit and proper to introduce an unknown
volunteer, meddling in a matter which does not in the least
concern him personally—who so competent as the illustrious
Saladin—poet, philosopher, moralist—whom I have never
seen, and only read a year or two, from week to week in his
Secular Review I
But why not give the letter as I wrote it ? Here it is,
verbatim et literatim. In a matter which future ages will
consider so important every scrap relating to the champion
of Freethought and purity of morals will have its interest
and value. I wrote :—
“My Dear Saladin!—You think I need to be intro
duced. Well, why not introduce me ? You know the whole
matter of this controversy so much better than I do. A
few lines from your vigorous pen will be better than any
thing I could write. I agree that they should be written ;
but, as you have the matter so much better in hand, and as
I really need to be introduced, why not prettily and grace
fully introduce me ?
“ I remember, many years ago, reading an English book
which defended—in fact, recommended—incest, Sodomy,
�6
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
and bestiality, and denounced the laws against them as
superstitious tyranny. It was a nasty, bad book; but I do
not believe it was a tenth-part so mischievous as this work of
Dr.--------- , which I hold to be false in science—which
is, of course, to be bad in morals. Man, as the highest, or
most developed, animal, should be better, more natural, than
the lower species. Why man goes wrong, and how he goeswrong, in these matters, I do not know, as I do not know
the ultimate why or how of anything; only that all vicesseem to me unnatural, and all unnatural practices vicious—
two words for the same thing.
“When I can get to it I mean to go into all these ques
tions as thoroughly as I can. In the meantime, or just
now, will you write the few needed lines of introduction, asyou so well can, or must I write them as well as I can under
the circumstances? You knowing so much better the
reasons why my small pamphlet should be written at all, and
occupying the leading position in this really important con.
troversy.
“ P.S.—It strikes me that the reason for these excessesof early Secularists was the disposition to defend and
recommend whatever had been denounced or forbidden
by religious teachers : the Bible denounced Sabbath-break
ing, so they made it a duty to break the Sabbath; the Bible
burnt up people with fire and brimstone for Sodomy, there
fore they defended Sodomy; and so on.
“Now, if I were to write the introduction or preface, it
would be something like this note. With this note will you
be so kind as to write the introduction ?
“I presume you will, at the proper time, also publicly
introduce, as you have announced, the pamphlet. And I
fancy that, just because it is a scrimmage, it will be read by
a great many who, perhaps, might hesitate to read the Secular
Reviews
That is what I wrote to Saladin. I leave it to the candid'
�INTRODUCTION.
7
veader to say, to himself, whether it is not a reasonable
letter. And here is Saladin’s reply, or, rather, part of it;
for he “ private ”-ly assures me that he has tried and failed,
■and then goes on in this way“ Although, at the date of the publication of the Knowl
ton pamphlet, I was hardly known in the party at all, I
managed to have my name placed on the list of speakers
in.the first meeting that met to protest that anti-Christian
thought was not necessarily associated with an adoption
■of the practices of Onan. The meeting was held at Cleve
land Hall, and was a crowded and excited one. Those
who could not accept Christ, but who seemed eager to
accept Onan, were largely in the ascendant. Mr. Bradlaugh
was evidently the hero of the hour, as he always is with the
rougher and less-cultured order of Freethinkers, who let
him do the thinking, after his fashion, in order to save them
the trouble of thinking at all.
“ Mr. Charles Watts was in the chair, and on the platform
were Mrs. Harriet Law, Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, Mr.
G. W. Foote, and myself. Mr. Holyoake was, as usual,
excessively prudent. He diagnosed the temper of the
meeting, and, instead of venturing to sail against the stream,
■delivered himself of a few colourless platitudes. His shilly
shallying prudence cast its spell over the other speakers
Mr. Watts, as I told him afterwards, made a timid and half
hearted speech, from which I gathered that he wished to
still keep the door open for reconciliation with 1 our chief.’
In fact, in spite of its fleshliness, he had published the
Knowlton pamplilet down to the point where publishing it
became dangerous, and there he had deserted it. Mrs. Law
looked ludicrously sagacious, and half stood to her guns
and half ran away from them. Confronted by that meeting
(probably packed), Mr. Foote alone, of all the prominent
speakers, did not allow his heart to sink down to his boots.
His platform experience was to him invaluable; he uttered
�8
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
some cutting and caustic things, but adroitly managed to
secure as many cheers as hisses. I followed, more in
earnest and more bitter than Mr. Foote, and sadly lacking
in his tact and platform experience. In reply to the hiss of
opposition, which I cared not to conciliate, even if I had
known how, I raised my voice to a shout of defiance. I
managed to make myself heard over the hiss and groan of
Onanic disapprobation, till I thundered forth the words,
‘Charles Bradlaugh has dragged the standard of Freethought through the mire of Holywell Street.’ Upon this
the storm which had been raging burst into a hurricane.
There were clenched fists, and an angry and ominous
surging towards the platform. I stood facing the mass,
mute and defiant. Mr. Holyoake seized my coat-tail, to
pull me back to my chair. Still facing the audience, I
lifted my arm, and, not over gently, dashed away his hand.
The audience noticed this incident, and, for a moment,
their cries and hisses of anger were mixed with a peal of
laughter. Close to my ear I heard, ‘ Draw it mild,’ from
the thin, tin-kettle voice of Mr. Holyoake. I still stood
facing the audience, erect and motionless ; and when, at
length, the storm of groans and hisses died away, I took
one step forward, and repeated, with firm, slow, and syllabic
deliberation : ‘ Charles Bradlaugh has dragged the standard
of Freethought through the mire of Holywell Street I’ ”
There—that is how a poet tells you he cannot write.
How he can write is shown in the Secular Review and, as
to the matter in hand, in “ Knowltonism,”* which he issued
four or five years ago, and which every one who can com
mand twopence-halfpenny may read. In its preface Mr.
Charles Watts recognised the “ unique ability ” of Saladin
in his attack upon “ the vulgar teachings of Knowltonism,”
and also expresses the opinion that this “ must be acknow
ledged as the great social question of the day.”
* “ Knowltonism,” by Saladin.
(London : Watts & Co.)
�INTRODUCTION.
9
In this essay, well worth reading for the powerful conden
sation of its style, Saladin distincts Malthus from Knowlton
with a cut of his sharp scimitar through the bone and marrow
of the Neo-Malthusian Trinity. He insists “ that the means
specified to prevent conception are inadequate to that end,”
as any physiologist can see with half a glance, and as many
a poor girl, no doubt, has experienced to her infinite sorrow
and shame. Saladin maintains that, “ even if Knowltonism
were practicable, per se, it would be unconformable with
physical, and an outrage upon ethical, law.” It is better,
he holds, that the struggles of life should go on, and bring
about their natural results in the “ survival of the fittest.”
He holds with nature all through, yet quotes the delicate
and forcible lines of the Marquis of Queensberry :—
“ Go, tell mankind, see that thy blood be pure,
And visit not thy sins upon thy race;
Curse not thy future age with poisoned blood,
For, cursing, it shall curse thee back again.
*
*
*
For there are they
Who, either from hereditary sin,
Or from the sin they have themselves entailed.
Possess no right to be progenitors. *
*
*
Alas ! that such a cruel wrong should be,
Of sins upon the children visited.
And shall these grow to be progenitors
Of other souls, more burdened than themselves
With feeble bodies of impurity ?
Ye gods, forbid it !”
Saladin eloquently—how could he say anything otherwise
than eloquently and poetically ?—defines the right of every
human being to'be born, and fight his way in this beautiful
world. “ The cardinal duty of humanity,” he holds, is “ to
discover the processes of cosmical law and obey them, not
try to reverse or modify them in the plenitude of spurious
science and the hauteur of unphilosophical arrogance.
Down amid the green algae and the gleaming shells of the
ever-swinging and thundering ocean it is joy to be a bright
�IO
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
and agile herring, even for an hour, before the jaws of the
shark snap rapaciously, and one egoism in the vasty deep
ceases to be. The Babe born on the straw of a hovel, or
amid the silk and down of a palace, inspires and respires
the glad air of being—for life is a boon, whether in cottage
or in castle—sucks from its mother’s breast the nectar of life
and love, stretches out its fingers and its toes, elate with the
rich wine of vital existence; and what is death at seven days
or seventy years ?—Only a forgetting of what has gone by
and an arrestment of what is to come ; only a returning to
where you were before the sun shone in the heavens, towhere you may be when the sun may be no more.
‘ ’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.’
And it is better to have lived under some circumstances than
never to have lived at all. The trifling differences between
brown bread and water and roast beef and champagne,
between the ingle of the cottar and the saloon of the duke,
are insignificant when taken into consideration with the
cardinal luxury of life. The sky is as blue to the peasant
as to the peer; as sweet is the fragance of the hawthorn, as
magnificent is the vista of hope; as joyous is the action of
muscle and nerve; as sublime and holy the first ecstacies of
‘Love’s Young Dream.’ It is an unfounded assumption,
resulting from the wide social hiatus which separates class
from class, that postulates all the sweetness of life with
riches, and all the bitterness of existence with poverty. If
it be true that the poor man does not eat his dinner because
he has no dinner to eat, the rich man as frequently cannot
eat his on account of dyspepsia and want of appetite ; and
perhaps the latter evil is worse than the former. The worn
fustian, with its spots of grime, ministers as well to the
animal caloric as does the purple and the ermine, flashing
with gold lace and resplendent with jewels. I ask, with him
'
�INTRODUCTION.
11
of Galilee, ‘ Is not the life more than meat and the body
than raiment?’
f
“The Knowltonian, by implication, admits himself to be
a coward, who would shirk the cosmical conditions which
are successfully coped with by the frog and the thistle, and
■even by the ephemera, which at the utmost has only an hour
to live, and has to plunge into the Struggle for Existence
for the privilege of entering upon the part or the whole of
the brief span of its life. With its stifled hum as it buzzes
in the blue air, or expands its wings in the flash of the
summer sun, it recites a homily that the Knowltonian might
con with profit. It enjoys the few minutes it has to live,
provides that there shall be ephemerae when it is no more,
and hums itself into the eternal non-ego of which it knows
as much as the wisest man that ever lived or ever will. Is
man afraid he may succumb to conditions which are suc
cessfully coped with by the aphis ? Even if absolutely
isolated from the male, the female aphis, by the peculiar
method of reproduction known as parthenogenesis, will pro
duce female young, and female young only, at the rate of
fourteen or fifteen a day; and these, in their turn, and in a
very short time, give birth to a third generation, and so on;
and this will go on for years without any male aphis whatever
being for once admitted. And yet in the whole world there
is, perhaps, not a single aphis more than there was a thou
sand years ago. The rapacity of the lady-bird, the lace
wing fly, and other enemies which prey upon the aphidre,
keep them within their legitimate bounds; and so the lady
bird of disease and the lace-wing fly of famine will keep
homo sapiens in his proper bounds without troubling him to
tax his ingenuity to degrade himself off the face of the
earth;
“ With the Knowltonian the earth is analagous to a boat I
at sea crammed with fifty shipwrecked men, but with food
for fifteen only. Under such circumstances it is normal to f
cast lots, and the Jonahs are thrown overboard. But it is
�12
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
better to ultimately get thrown overboard than never to have
been born. A struggle for six minutes in the deep is not so
much more terrible than a six months’ wasting disease in
bed. The man upon whom the lot falls to be drowned may
strip his coat and dive resolutely to death with the conscious
ness that he has, at least, had a grim and wild extension of
fairplay. Thus Knowltonians had better, than exercise
their sexual ‘ checks,’ go to the denizens of Whitechapel and
the Seven Dials at regular intervals, and mark out, Valkeyrylike, the particular individuals they deem redundant in their
microcosm, causing each to take a dose of strychnine, so that
only the correct number of ‘genteel’ people may take the
place of the plethoric fauna of the slums. As I have
pointed out, it is incalculable what philosophers and poets
and statesmen the ‘ checks ’ may dam back in the stream
of human existence. If the Knowltonian must adjust the
supply of the hoi poloi to the demand, he had surely better
do so in the light than in the dark; he had better engage in
a game of discriminating skill than in one of indiscrimi
nating hazard. By his ‘ checks ’ you know not whom he is
keeping out of the world: but, by his gallows, you would
know whom he is sending out of it. If the Knowltonians
were to erect a gallows in Vincent Square and clear out the
Westminster slums by the simple and drastic resource of
good plain hanging, one could have some voucher that they
had not robbed the world of a Shakespeare or a Bacon or a
Gladstone. But by their empirical pottering with sexual
physiology and pathology, with a view to make woman less
of a mother than a sort of safety-valve to sensual passions,
we know not whether we have not lost a spermatozoonal
Milton or a foetal Cromwell.”
In another place he says : “ I ask any of my readers to
note for themselves whether a non-Knowltonian mother of
fifty, and who has borne six or seven children, is not
stronger and healthier and happier than the Knowltonian
mother of the same age, and who has borne only one or
�INTRODUCTION.
13
two. I ask any of my readers to further note whether
every boy and girl of the family of six or seven is not
stronger, healthier, and happier than any member of the
family of one or two. If a woman do succeed in evading
her natural functions of parturition and lactation, she can
do so only by incurring greater sacrifices than parturition
and lactation entail. It is not my purpose to enter here
into the nosology of women who attempt to shirk their
natural and incumbent duty of Motherhood; but the
diseases, ailments, and mental and moral affections incident
to such are many and complicated ; and I aver unhesitat
ingly that the careful and extensive observation of any of
my readers, directed to this subject, will corroborate my
allegation on this point. You can, of course, prevent the
apple-tree from bearing apples; you can bark it, or dig it
half out of the ground, or cut it half through with an axe.
It is just as natural for a woman to bear children as it is for
an apple-tree to bear apples ; and in neither case can you
prevent production without doing violence to the producer.”
The Spartans settled the question in their fashion long
ago. Ignorant of, or scornfully rejecting, preventive checks,
they weeded out all babies that could be better spared. ,
The weaklings went early to the wall. The survival of the
fittest was decided as soon as fitness or unfitness was
apparent. They took also nearly as much trouble in the
breeding of the best qualities of men and women as our
stock-breeders and dog-fanciers now do in producing the
finest specimens of our favourite quadrupeds. Sensible, (
practical people, those Spartans; but not quite what we 'j
should call moral.
My object, in preparing this pamphlet, scarcely needs ex
planation. It is simply to show what is the actual position
of Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., on important questions of morals
and society. I show where he has stood for twenty odd
years. I do not question his right to stand there, nor the
right of the burghers of Northampton to have him for their
�14
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
representative, nor his right to have a seat and vote for his
constituents, the worthy cordwainers, pig-drivers, and Catand-Ladleites. He may stand before Mr. Speaker and shout,
“ So help me God !” (or “ god ”) to his heart’s content.
When Charles Bradlaugh swears allegiance to Queen Victoria,
and asserts his belief in god or God, or publishes “ The
Fruits of Philosophy,” or Mrs. Besant’s improvement upon
Knowltonism, or patronises “ The Elements of Social
Science,” it is no affair of mine. I hold to free thought and
free discussion; but I hold also that a man who aspires to
an eminent and responsible position should be clear, open,
above-board, and responsible for his words and deeds.
I have referred to Bradlaughism or Cat-and-Ladleism asPalaeo-Secularism, and to Saladinism or Anti-Cat-and-Ladleism as Neo-Secularism.
P. A.
�SEXUAL ECONOMY,
AS TAUGHT BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
Chapter I.
THE TWO B.’s AND « THE ELEMENTS.”
For about thirty years Mr. Charles Bradlaugh has been a
speaker and writer in the cause of Freethought, Secular
ism, and Atheism. Ambitious of political distinction, he
obtained, a few years ago, an election to the House of
Commons from Northampton. He also managed, in con
nection with a lady who has for some years assisted him in
his labours as writer and public speaker, to get convicted
of the misdemeanour of publishing an immoral pamphlet,
and both were sentenced to a term of imprisonment by the
then Lord Chief Justice; but both managed to escape what
many considered a merited punishment by a technical
informality. Not that a man or woman is the worse for
being legally convicted and unjustly punished. Mr. Brad
laugh and his partner in this supposed iniquity are Malthusians, and the pamphlet for which they were condemned
was written to teach people how they could gratify their
animal propensities without increasing an already burthensome population. The law, as represented by Judge and;
Jury, considered this immoral and criminal. The “Fruits;
of Philosophy ” was suppressed, and the lady in the case
wrote another pamphlet, which she considered better and!
more effective than Knowlton’s.
When elected member of Parliament for Northampton
nothing stood between Mr. Bradlaugh and the object of
�i6
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
his ambition but the oath, which he declared was meaning
less to him, but which he was, nevertheless, quite ready to
take. That is, Charles Bradlaugh, an avowed Atheist, was
more than willing to declare his belief in a God, in the most
solemn and public manner, by an act of religious faith and
worship—by kissing the Bible and saying, “So help me God!”
He actually did this. He read the oath and kissed the
book, putting up a public prayer to God in the House of
Commons; but the House, by a considerable majority,
refused to accept the solemn sacrifice. The Atheist’s prayer
remains unanswered.
I am not condemning Mr. Bradlaugh for not believing in
a God; I am not justifying the House of Commons for
requiring a declaration of such belief from all its members.
Belief is not a voluntary act of the mind, though supposed
to be necessary for admission to heaven and—at least, its
pretence—for taking a seat in Parliament. Mr. Bradlaugh
has for years insisted upon his right to kiss the Bible he
publicly denounces, and to say, “ So help me God!”
Whether an avowed Atheist, a public teacher and defender
of Atheism, can consistently and publicly put up this prayer,
or make this act of faith, is a question of conscience.
Thought is necessarily free. The advocacy of Freethought is not needed. The question is only whether any
expression of the free thoughts of men should be restrained
or punished. When such expression is considered a libel
the law punishes it by fine and imprisonment; when it is
considered treason it may bring heavier penalties. Mr.
Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant were sentenced to imprisonment
for the publication of their free thoughts as to the policy
and the means of satisfying sexual desires without increas
ing population.
As editor, for a long period, of a Freethought and Secularist
newspaper, and while until recently President of a Secularist
organisation, Mr. Bradlaugh publicly promoted the sale of
a book, entitled “Elements of Social Science”—a work
infinitely more demoralising, according to the common
ideas of morality, than “ The Fruits of Philosophya
book which denounces as a sin and a crime in men and
women what the civilised world has for ages considered
virtue and morality. I have no reason to doubt the sincerity
of Mr. Bradlaugh and His amiable coadjutor, Mrs. Besant
�THE TWO B.’s AND “THE ELEMENTS.”
17
I am not questioning their right to think and feel as they
can or must on all matters of religion or morals. The
policy of electing persons who promulgate such opinions to
Parliament is quite another matter, which constituencies must
settle for themselves. My sole object in this pamphlet is
to show what Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., has avowed as
his belief, and what he has publicly taught and, if a con
sistent man, privately practised; but that, of course, is no
one’s business but his own and that of “ whom it may
• concern.” I have nothing to do with any portion of his life
but his public teachings. For many years he has been the
friend and associate of the author of “ The Elements of
Social Science.” He has defended, eulogised, and, to the
extent of his influence, promoted the circulation of that
book. What I do and all I do is to show what that book
is by extracts from its pages. I only review the book, as
might be done in any magazine or newspaper, with such
extracts as show its scope, intention, and character.
I have nothing to do with the motives of either the
anonymous author or the well-known promoter of “ The
Elements.” I think I shall do a public service by showing
the character of the book and its promoter, even if its sale
is thereby increased. It is better, in all such cases, that the
truth should be known. If, knowing the facts, people choose
to stand by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, that is their
affair, not mine. I have no animosities to gratify. If a
majority of the electors of Northampton wish to be repre
sented by Mr. Bradlaugh, that is their business. If the
people of the United Kingdom wish to adopt the opinions
of Mr. Bradlaugh and his co-workers, it is no affair of
mine. If the palseo-Secularist sect or party wants him for its
leader, champion, and chief, their choice is free. They can
throw over Saladin, stand by the Neo-Malthusians, fatten
on “ The Fruits of Philosophy,” and revel in “ The Elements
~^f Social Science.”
�18
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter II.
BRADLAUGH’S QUARREL WITH JOSEPH
BARKER.
Strange as the fact may seem, it is quite true that the Secu
larist party in Great Britain has divided on the question of
social or sexual morality. The party of Bradlaugh and
Besant—the readers of the National Reformer, the NeoMalthusians and Knowltonites—have taken their stand
irrevocably on the doctrines of the Malthusian League and
“The Elements of Social Science.” This book was first
published about twenty years ago. It purports to be written
by “ A Graduate of Medicine,” whose name has never been
made public; but, as the articles on Political Economy and
Malthusianism, in the National Reformer in i860,.signed
“ G. R.,” are evidently by the same hand, and as “G. R.”
is the annotator of Mr. Bradlaugh’s and Mrs. Besant’s edition
of “ The Fruits of Philosophy,” we cannot be wrong in
attributing to “ G. R.” the authorship of “ The Elements of
Social Science.”
In the National Reformer of July 20th, 1861, Mr. Joseph
Barker, co-editor with Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, denounces, in
his half of the Secularist organ, people who are filling the
other half with “ follies, indecencies, immoralities, and
crimes.” “ The Elements of Social Science ” having been
commended by Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Barker declares that
“a work that exhibits, in ranker abundance or grosser
hideousness, all the bad qualities of the most revolting books
we never read;” and he denounces it as containing “ the
greatest amount of evil in the world,” and full of “ demo
ralising sentiments and odious vices ;” as containing “ popu
lation fallacies,” things “as foul as filth, the best of which a
man of sense and decency would sooner die than recom
mend
and yet this book, Mr. Barker complained most
bitterly, had been advertised and strongly and repeatedly
recommended in the other half (Mr. Bradlaugh’s half) of the
�BRADLAUGH’S QUARREL WITH JOSEPH BARKER.
19
National Reformer. He complained also that Mr. Bradlaugh
had sent a secret circular to the shareholders of the National
Reformer, and had formed a conspiracy with some of his
friends to get exclusive possession of it, “ and so exclude all
articles of a moral tendency, and devote it to the spread of
negative and purely demoralising forms of Secularism,” their
object being, he said, “ to destroy all sense of moral obliga
tion, and curse mankind with an unbounded sensual license.”
11 G. R.” came to the rescue and defended Mr. Bradlaugh.
Mr. Barker, August 3rd, admits that many public advo
cates of liberal views had been notoriously immoral, and
had published indecent and immoral works. Mr. Holyoake,
more scrupulous than many others, would not publish
Rousseau’s “ Confessions ” entire; but another Freethought
publisher did, and his edition was recommended in Mr.
Bradlaugh’s side of the National Reformer. Then Mr.
Barker goes on to denounce immoral Sceptics, and declares
that, if he cannot find moral ones, he will bury himself in
the wilds of America; as he did, poor man, some years later.
He says : “ Mr. Bradlaugh is terribly mistaken if he supposes
he can drag down Buckle and Mill into the filthy slough in
which he is wallowing, or raise himself from his horrible
position by an abuse of their honourable names.” To
“ G. R.” he says : “ I expect to shortly expose in a pamphlet
the revolting doctrines which you and Mr. Bradlaugh are
endeavouring to promoteand speaks of “ the atrocious
Elements of Social Science,’ which Mr. Bradlaugh has so
often and so loudly praised.”
Finally, in the last number of the National Reformer
which he was permitted to edit, he fills pages with extracts
from the book to prove what he had said of its horrible and
revolting character.
Later, in his own paper, Barker's Review, vol. i., p. 118,
he vigorously denounces the doctrines taught by Mr. Brad
laugh and the National Reformer, and points out that “ the
principle that the animal appetites should rule; that powerful
animal appetites are great virtues ; that there is no danger in
their free, unlimited indulgence, is represented by the author
of the loathsome publication in which this theory is taught
and defended, and by those who commend the work and aid
an its circulation.”
And in Barker s Review, vol. i., p. 170, he says: “Only
�20
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
one public man among the Secularists condemned the book
until we exposed it. It has been advertised, recommended,
and circulated by Secularist lecturers; its author almost
worshipped, and the moment a Secularist retracted his com
mendation of the work he was savagely assailed by the
editor of the National Reformer.”
It was in vain that Joseph Barker worked for the separa
tion of Freethought from immorality, and called his oppo
nents “ the unbounded license party.” The majority was
against him. Mr. Bradlaugh was consistent, and stands to
day where he did twenty years ago, with Mrs. Besant as hisfirst Vice-President of the National Secular Society, and the
eloquent defender of the doctrines denounced by Mr. Joseph
Barker, who had vainly tried to carry the morals of Methodism
into the advocacy of Secularism. From that day, up to a
recent period, during sixteen years, “ The Elements of Social
Science” was advertised in the then leading organ of
Secularism, and its principles advocated in its columns ; and;
in “The National Secular Society’s Almanack for 1878” I
find the following advertisement:—
LEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; OR, Physical, Sexual,,
and Natural Religion. An Exposition of the True Cause
and Only Cure of the Three Primary Social Evils—Poverty, Prostitu
tion, and Celibacy. By a Doctor of Medicine. Sixteenth Edition.
Twenty-eighth Thousand.
E
Translations of this Work have been published in the following
languages:—
In French—Elements de Science Sociale.
In German—Die Grnndzilge der Gesellschafts-vissenschaft.
In Dutch—De Elementcn der Sociale Wetenschag.
In Italian—Elementi di Scienza Sociale.
In Portuguese—Elementos de Sciencia Social.
And among the “ Opinions of the Press ” we read :—
“ This is the only book, so far as we know, in which, at a cheap price
and with honest and pure intent and purpose, all the questions affecting
the sexes, and the influence of their relations on society, are plainly
dealt with. It has now been issued in French as well as in English,
and we bring the French edition to the notice of our friends of the In
ternational Working Men’s Association, and of our subscribers in France
and Belgium, as essentially a poor man’s book.”—National Reformer
edited by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh.
�BRADLAUGH’S QUARREL WITH JOSEPH BARKER.
21
The Medical Press and Circular says :—
“We are told that it has been largely read in London by medical
men.”
The Examiner, in one of its many phases, said :—■
“.This is’ we believe, the only book that has fully, honestly, and in
a scientific spirit, recognised all the elements of the problem, How are
mankind to triumph over poverty, with its train of attendant evils ? and
fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical solution.”
The Reasoner, edited by Mr. G. J. Holyoake, said:—
“ It is, in one sense, a book which it is a mercy to issue and courage
to publish.”
The Boston Investigator, the leading palaeo-Secularist paper
in America, says :—
“ We_ have never risen from the perusal of any work with greater
satisfaction.”
Italian and German Secularist writers even more emphati
cally commend it.
This book, “ The Elements of Social Science,” was thus
for years advertised, eulogised, and promoted by Mr. Brad
laugh. He has never, to my knowledge, withdrawn his
commendations or repudiated its teachings. It remains,
therefore, only necessary to show what are the doctrines of
the book, in order to show what are the social and moral,
beliefs of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., etc.
�22
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter III.
SEXUAL RELIGION.
The religion of Palaeo-Secularism, as accepted and promul
gated by Mr. Bradlaugh and his associates, consists in the love
of the world and the worship of matter, and especially of the
human body. Thus, in this “ Bible of Secularism,” we have
sections on “ Natural Religion ” and “ Physical Religion
but nearly the whole book is occupied with teaching the
most important principle, or doctrines, of “Sexual Reli
gion.”
According to this religion, the chief end of man is to
glorify his animal desires, and, this being his only world and
only life, to have in it all possible sensual enjoyment. This
great duty of humanity is enforced as a matter of natural
religion, sexual religion, science, and philanthropy. It is
urged for physiological and pathological reasons, and recom
mended as a means of preserving health and of curing
disease.
The union of the sexes in marriage has been supposed by
moralists to have for its principal end the production of
offspring and the continuation of the human race on the
earth. ThePalaeo-Secularist Bible teaches an entirely different
doctrine. The great object of such intercourse is pleasure;
and the production of offspring is, beyond a very narrow
limit, an evil which it is our duty to avoid. Chastity, it
■contends, is a violation of natural law; continence is a
•crime ; marriage, so far as it limits or hampers the enjoyment
of the senses, is a superstitious and tyrannical institution;
fidelity is an evil; prostitution, as far as it goes, is a remedy
for bad institutions; but it may be abolished by the universal
acceptance of Palaeo-Secularist doctrines and practice as re
commended in “ The Elements of Social Science,” a book
which is so warmly commended and widely circulated among
Palaeo-Secularists all over the world, and especially by Charles
�SEXUAL RELIGION.
23
Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, who say, in the Publishers’
Preface to “The Fruits of Philosophy,” last edition, 1877 :
“ Physiology has made great strides during the past forty
years, and, not considering it right to circulate erroneous
physiology, we submitted the pamphlet to a doctor in whose
accurate knowledge we have the fullest confidence, and who
is widely known in all parts of the world as the author of
‘ The Elements of Social Science.’ The notes signed
‘ G. R.’ are written by this gentleman.” Thus it appears
that “ G. R.,” the annotator of “ The Fruits of Philo
sophy,” is the author of the Bible of Secularism, “The
Elements of Social Sciencewhile Dr. Drysdale, also
a distinguished physician, is President of the Malthusian
League, whose offices are’ those of the publishers of the
National Reformer and “The Fruits of Philosophy;” and
Mrs. Besant, first Vice-President of the National Secular
Society, is Hon. Secretary of the Malthusian League and
the author of “The Law of Population,” a pamphlet written
to take the place of the legally-condemned and rather obso
lete one of Dr. Knowlton, and which is intended to aid
people in carrying out more thoroughly the most important
duties of “ sexual religion,” as laid down in “ The Elements
of Social Science.”
I have stated briefly what these duties are. It is evident
that they are the exact opposites of the duties taught and
practised more or less by what are called respectable people.
Christians are supposed to renounce “ the world, the flesh,
and the devil;” Secularists, of “ The Elements ” type, glorify
the world; they teach the duty of revelling in sensuality, and,
rejecting all ideas of spiritual existence, they do not, of
course, believe in angels, good or bad.
It remains for us to show, by extracts from the book,
which contains the most comprehensive and authoritative
statements we can find of Mr. Bradlaugh’s doctrines respect
ing sexual morals," or “ sexual religion ”—a book so
thoroughly endorsed in the National Reformer that we have
not mis-stated nor over-stated the purport of such doctrines
as he so warmly approves, and mean to do simple justice in
this matter by giving the doctrines as set forth in the words
of the writer of “ The Elements of Social Science,” as well
as the reasons he gives for maintaining them.
This book, so highly commended by Mr. Bradlaugh—
�24
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
written by one of his most active partisans, as well as his
teacher in morals—holds that all men and all women should,
not only as a right, but as a duty, and as a religious duty
appertaining to “ sexual religion,” live in the free, full, fre
quent exercise of their sexual propensities. It teaches
as duties what moralists condemn as lust, and fornication,
and adultery. It teaches that continence and chastity, com
mended by others as virtues, are unnatural vices and deadly
-sins. It teaches the necessity, and therefore the right, of
marital infidelity and the duty of seduction. It defends
and honours prostitution, while it regards universal license
and promiscuity as a more natural and desirable condition.
These are the doctrines which some of the chosen, or self
appointed, leaders of the Palaeo-Secularist party have for many
years accepted and defended, and which they have pro
pagated in their far-reaching organisation.
It is probable that many Palaeo-Secularists will be disposed
to deny, and angrily resent, this indictment. I can sympathise
with them ; but I am obliged to do what is much worse than
to make such charges—I am obliged to prove them. To do
ihis I must give a few extracts from “ The Elements of
Social Science,” as Joseph Barker did twenty-four years ago
in his portion of the National Reformer, before he ceased to
be one of its editors.
Here, then, are the doctrines and morals set forth in a
book highly commended by Mr. Bradlaugh, M.P., circulated
wherever the English language is read, and translated into
the most important languages of Western Europe.
In the section on “ Sexual Religion : Laws of the Sexual
‘Organs,” it is stated that:—
“One physiological law of supreme importance and
“ universal application in our constitution is, that every
“ several member must, in order to be vigorous and
“ healthy, have a due amount of exercise, and that of the
“ normal kind. Thus the eye must have light, the limbs
“ motion, the intellect reflection, and our appetites and
“ passions their normal gratification, else will they infallibly
“ become enfeebled and diseased. Either excessive or
“ deficient exercise is injurious ; and, in order to have a
“ well-balanced bodily constitution (just as much our
“ honour and our duty as a well-balanced mind), we must
�SEXUAL RELIGION.
2$
“ obey this law. The generative organs are subject to it
“ as well as every other; and hence we shall see the duty
“ and necessity of their having due exercise from the time
“ of their maturity, which takes place at puberty, till that
“ of their decline ” (page 78).
“ Hence we must acknowledge that every man who has
“ not a due amount of sexual exercise lives a life of natural
“ imperfection and sin ; and he can never be certain how
“ far Nature’s punishment for this will proceed in his
“ case ” (p. 83).
“ The commonly-received code of sexual morality is
“ most erroneous, and erected in ignorance of, and opposi“ tion to, natural truth; the real natural duties of every
“ human being (however social difficulties may interfere
“ with the discharge of them) towards his reproductive
“ organs, and the passions connected with them, consisting
“ in their due and normal exercise, for which the social
“ provision of marriage is quite inadequate. Nature lays
“ one command on us : ‘ Exercise all thy functions, else
“art thou an imperfect and sinful being” (page 153).
“ It is absolutely certain that Nature meant the sexual
“ organs in either sex to have a due amount of exercise,
“ from the time of their maturity till their decline; and
“ no one who knows anything of the bodily laws can
“ doubt that every departure from the course she points
“ out is a natural sin; and she shows this herself by the
“ punishments she inflicts. She forms no organ that she
“ does not intend to be exercised, rouses no desires merely
“ to torment by their self-denial. It is not by shutting
“ our eyes to these facts that we can hope to progress
“ either in knowledge or in virtue” (page 163).
“ Chastity is considered one of the greatest of all virtues
“ in woman, and in man too, though in his case it is
“ practically less regarded. We have no longer voluntary
“ nuns, but of involuntary ones there are myriads_ far
( more, in reality, than ever existed in any Roman
“ Catholic country. Millions of women pass a great part
“of their sexual lives, and immense numbers pass the
“ whole, in total sexual abstinence, without any of the
“ enjoyments of sexual pleasures or the happiness of a
“ mother’s affections. For all this incredible self-denial,
“ which causes more anguish and disease than any mind
�-2 5
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“can conceive, they have for their reward the barren
“ praise of chastity ” (page 162).
“Chastity, or complete sexual abstinence, so.far from
“ being a virtue, is invariably a great natural sin. We are
“ short-sighted beings, full of errors and false theories;
“ but Nature is absolutely unerring, and it is only by con“ suiting her that we can gain a true knowledge of our
“ virtues and vices. If we attend to Nature, we shall find
“ that all our organs are subject to the same law of health;
“ the great law of normal and sufficient exercise. There
“ is no organ in our body, nor any faculty in our mind,
“ which, to be healthy (or, in other words, virtuous), does
“ not require its due share of appropriate exercise. The
“ sexual organs are subject to this law exactly as all others;
“ and, whatever theories we form about them, Nature in
variably rewards or punishes them, according as the
“.'conditions of their health are observed. She cares not
“ for our moral code ; marriage has nothing sacred in her
■“eyes; with or without marriage, she gives her seal of
“ approbation to the sexually virtuous man or woman in a
“ healthy and vigorous state of the sexual organs and
“appetites, while she punishes the erring by physical and
“moral sufferings ” (p. 162).
“The two natures [of man and woman] are built on
“ the same original model, and, in the main, they are alike
“ in their laws. The great law of exercise of every part
■“ applies equally to both sexes; and in woman, as in
“ man, physical strength is more virtuous than weakness;
■“ courage than timidity; nervous power than nervous
“debility; and it is a sign of an effeminate and un“ natural theory of life that these truths are not deeply
“ felt by all of us ” (p. 163).
“ We may do what we please in the way of other healthy
“ influences ; we may bestow every other care on the
“ nurture and education of our beloved ones; but it is
“ absolutely impossible to make women healthy or happy
“without a due amount of sexual enjoyment” (p. 175).
“ When the universal applicability of the great law of
“ exercise to all our organs is understood, every one will
“ perceive that he is morally bound to exercise duly his
“ sexual organs throughout the period of sexual life. Thus
“ the young man, on entering upon puberty, will feel that
�SEXUAL RELIGION.
27
“ Nature commands him to indulge, to a moderate extent,
“ his sexual desires; and, when once he is fully convinced
“ of the natural rectitude of this, he cannot fail to perceive“ the insufficiency and unnatural character of our moral
“ code ” (p. 176).
We need not extend these quotations, which cover the
whole ground of sexual morality as taught by the highest
Malthusian authority, and as accepted and taught by pro
minent Secularist leaders. The book from which they are
taken is to be found in most Secularist libraries, and it isread in six languages.
�28
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter IV.
THE NEO-MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF
MARRIAGE.
Marriage, according to the principles laid down in the
preceding chapter, is an unnatural institution, a hateful
monopoly, a delusion and a snare. The one fact of a large
surplus female population is, with Palaeo-Secularistic Malthusians, sufficient to condemn monogamic marriage. Polygamy
would be a partial remedy for that evil; but in other
countries, and in all new colonies, there is a surplus male
population—sometimes a very large one—whose require
ments are to be provided for, which would introduce the oppo
site institution of Polyandry, said to exist in Thibet, where
one woman is married to several husbands. The only other
resources are prostitution, as it exists in nearly all com
munities, or general promiscuous intercourse, such as is
advocated by the author of “ The Elements.” He is too
scientific, in his way—too logical, and too honestly out
spoken, to leave us in any doubt on a matter of such im
portance. He sees clearly that “Sexual Religion,” as he
preaches it, cannot be practised with the existence of legal
marriage. This is a clear deduction from his “ Law of
Exercise;” but it is enforced, as we shall see in another
chapter, by reasons drawn from what he considers medical
science.
In “The Elements of Social Science” (department of
“ Sexual Religion ”) we read :—
“ Many of the sexual evils most widely spread among
“ us depend directly upon the errors of our code of sexual
“morality. According to this code, all love except
“married love is considered sinful. Marriage, it is held,
“ moreover, should bind people together for life, without
“ leaving them the power of indulging in any other sexual
“ intimacy, or of divorce from each other, unless either
�THE NEO-MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE.
29
“ the husband or wife commits adultery. If this, which
“ is the view of marriage generally entertained in this
“country, were to continue, there are very many fearful
“ sexual evils which could not be removed. In the first
“place, what is, or should be, the grand object of any
“social institution for uniting the sexes? It is, that each
“ individual in society, every man and woman, should have
“ a fair share of the blessings of love and of offspring, and
“ that the children should be duly provided for. But, if
“ marriage be the only honourable way of obtaining sexual
“and parental pleasures, very many must be excluded
“ from them; for, even supposing that there were room
“ for the exercise of all the reproductive powers, as in
“ America, or that, by preventive intercourse, the propor“ tion of children in each family were to be small, so as
“ to allow of a great many marriages, still there would be
“ a large number of women, and even of men, who, from
“ plainness and other unattractive qualities, would find no
“ one who would be willing to be rigidly bound to them
“for life” (p. 356).
“ The irrevocable nature of the marriage contract, and
“ the impossibility of procuring divorce, lead to the most
“fearful evils. Mr. Hill shows this in his work on
“ ‘ Crime,’ telling us that the great majority of murders
“ and brutal assaults now-a-days are committed by
“ husbands upon their wives, and showing that it is in the
* nature of all long and indissoluble contracts to cause
similar evils. All contracts binding two human beings
“ together in an indissoluble manner for long periods are
“the fruitful source of crimes and miseries............. The
“ custom, moreover, of selecting one sole object of love,
“steeling one’s heart, as far as sexual desires are con“ cerned, against all the rest of man or womankind, has a
“ very narrowing effect on our capacity for affection and
“ appreciation of what is good and amiable in the different
“ characters we see around us. Hence, in great measure,
has arisen that fastidiousness in love which is so marked
“ among us, and is the sign of a narrow and effeminate
“ culture ” (p. 358).
The great natural sexual duties of man and woman
“ do not, as is commonly imagined, consist in being a
“constant husband or wife, or in avoiding unmarried
�3°
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ intercourse, but are of a very different nature. It is of
“ the highest importance that the attention of all of us
“ should be steadfastly concentrated upon the real sexual
“ duties, and not dazzled by mere names. Marriage
"■diverts our attention from the real sexual duties, and
“ this is one of its worst effects ” (p. 363).
“ Every individual man or woman is bound to exercise
“duly his sexual organs, so that the integrity of his own
“ health shall not be impaired on the one hand, and so
“ that he shall not, on the other, interfere with the health
“and happiness of his neighbour.
Every individual
“ should make it his conscientious aim that he or she
“ should have a sufficiency of love to satisfy the sexual
“demands of his nature, and that others around him
“should have the same. It is impossible, as has been
“ shown before, that each individual should have this in
“ an old country, unless by the use of preventive means.
“ The use of these means, therefore, comes to be incum" bent upon all those who seek to enjoy the natural
“ pleasures of love themselves without depriving their
“neighbours of them ” (p. 366).
“ It is absolutely impossible to have a free, sincere, and
“dignified sexual morality in our society as long as
“marriage continues to be the only honourable provision
“ for the union of the sexes, and as long as the marriage
“ bond is so indissoluble as at present............ It is only by
“ relaxing the rigour of the marriage bond, and allowing
“greater sexual freedom, that it is possible to eradicate
“prostitution, and with it venereal disease” (p. 368).
“ Now, in reality, facility of divorce does away with
“ marriage ; it thoroughly alters the theory of the institu“ tion, and makes it in reality nothing more than an agree“ ment between two people to live together as man and
“ wife, so long as they love each other. And such is the
“ only true mode of sexual union; it is the one which
“ Nature points out to us; and we may be certain that
“ any institution which defies the natural laws of love, as
“ marriage does, will be found to be the cause of immense
“ evils; ever accumulating as the world rolls on, and man“kind become more free and more enlightened in the
“physical and moral laws of their being............. Let
“those who will marry; but those who do not wish
�THE NEO-MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE OF MARRIAGE.
31
“ to enter upon so indissoluble a contract, either on
“ account of their early age, or from a disapproval of the
“ whole ceremony, should deem it perfectly honourable
“and justifiable to form a temporary connection” (p. 371).
“ As I have already endeavoured to show, the present
“ system of prostitution and indissoluble marriage (which
“ are closely connected together), might be, or ought to
“ be, superseded by preventive intercourse, and by a re
laxation of the marriage code, when the diseases of
“ abstinence and abuse might not only be satisfactorily
“ treated, but effectually prevented ” (p. 504).
“ The noblest sexual conduct, in the present state of
“ society, appears to me to be that of those who, while
“ endeavouring to fulfil the real sexual duties, enumerated
“ in a former essay, live together openly and without dis“ guise, but refuse to enter into an indissoluble contract
“of which they conscientiously disapprove ” (p. 504.)
It is needless to multiply quotations on this point, for the
whole science and logic of the book are utterly irreconcil
able with the institution of marriage ; so that this book, so
highly commended by Mr. Bradlaugh, M P., in its chapters
on “ Sexual Religion,” is a protest and a conspiracy against
it; and, if the teachings of “ The Elements of Social
Science ” are carried into practice, marriage, as commonly
understood, becomes impossible.
�32
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Chapter V.
PAL^O-SECULAR VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVILS.
Let it be understood that I do not impeach the motives of
the author of “The Elements of Social Science.” No
doubt he would abolish marriage and chastity, and what
men have for so many ages called purity and virtue, for what
he believes to be the best interests of humanity.
The author of “ The Elements ” is earnestly, and even
pathetically, philanthropic. In the last paragraph of the
book he says:—
“ It is not for myself that I ask consideration; it is for
“ the unfortunate sufferers to whom this work is devoted,
“and for whose benefit I would readily submit to any
“ amount of obloquy—even from those I wish to serve.
“ Alas ! when I see around me the poor perishing in their
“ squalid homes, the forsaken prostitutes wandering in our
“streets, the sexual victims pining in solitude and bitter“ ness; when I look down into the fearful abyss of our social
“ miseries and wrongs, and think, moreover, of the mutual
“ destruction by which all this suffering is attended, the
“reflection overpowers me—that it matters little what
“ becomes of myself. What am I better than they that
“ I should be happy when so many are miserable ? If I
“ can help my suffering fellow-men, it is the dearest wish
“of my heart—that for which I live—that for which
“I would willingly die; if not, I am indifferent to
“ my own fate. But I have a deep and abiding convic“ tion that these evils are not insuperable ; that the future
“ of our race will be brighter than the past; and that what
“ I have written has not been written in vain ” (p. 592).
In another place he says :—
“Morality, medicine, religion, law, politics are solemn
�PAL7E0-SECULAR VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVILS.
33
“ farces played before the eyes of men, whose imposing
“ pomps and dazzling ceremonies serve but to divert the
“ attention from the awful tragedies behind the scenes.
“ We may be absolutely certain of this, that, unless we can
“attain to some other solution of the social difficulties,
“our society must for ever continue, as it ever has been,
“a chaos of confusion, of wrongs, and of misery.”
The ground he takes in regard to our great social evil,
prostitution, proves his humanity, as the whole book does
his sincerity. He regrets its evils, he mourns over its
degradation, he pities its victims, but thinks “ the life of
voluntary celibacy led by these ladies ”—who try to reform
prostitutes—“ quite as sinful a one as that of the prostitutes
they endeavour to convert,” and asks :—
‘In what light, then, is prostitution to be regarded
“ when we take into consideration the great primary
“ necessity of sexual intercourse ? It should be regarded
“as a valuable temporary substitute for a better state of
“ things. It is greatly preferable to no sexual intercourse
“ at all, without which, as has been shown, every man and
“ woman must lead a most unnatural life. Therefore, the
“ deep gratitude of mankind, instead of their scorn, is
“ due, and will be given in future times, to those unfortu“ nate females who have suffered in the cause of our sexual
“nature. We shall find that, if we love and reverence
“these girls (at the same time that we endeavour totally
“ to remove from our society the fearful evil of prostitu“ tion), they will love and reverence us, and on no other
“consideration. If Society enfold them in her bosom,
“ they will soon learn gratefully to repay her love; but,
“if she continue to spurn them, her punishments and
“ sufferings will be no less than theirs. Her unnatural
“ treatment has made them so degraded, and from that
“ degradation only her repentant love and reverence will
“uplift them” (p. 270).
In the present social state, the only resource of a young
man, he says, is one of three necessary evils, of which mer
cenary love is the least. But—
“ Mercenary love, besides the fearful dangers of venereal
�34
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ disease, is exceedingly degrading; and the amount of
“ evil done to men, as well as to women, by this general
“ degradation of their first sexual experiences is little con“ceived. The young woman is in a much worse sexual
“ position than even the young man, for even mercenary
“love is far better than total sexual abstinence” (p. 239).
Here, as elsewhere, our author seems content to make
woman the victim of what he considers the necessities of
man ; but the social system he advocates would make men
and women equal, and there is, from his point of view, both
justice and good feeling in the following observations :—
“ Clandestine love fills the whole of society with deceit
“ and suspicion ; every one suspects his neighbour, and is
“in his turn the object of suspicion ; and even were there
“ no other obstacles to the elevation of the human cha
racter, this alone, as long as it continues to exist, must
“ be fatal to the hopes of the moralist.
“ But, if man be placed in so humiliating a position in
“ sexual matters, unfortunate woman is infinitely more so.
“ In the first place, we have the vast multitude of
'•'■prostitutes, on whose awful degradation one cannot think
“ but with dismay and anguish. That there should be
“among us a class of unfortunate women, who are
“ treated worse than dogs; who are hunted about by the
“ police, despised and abhorred by their own sex, and
“abused and neglected by man, to whose wants they
“minister, is a page of human shame too dark for tears.
“ It is the greatest disgrace of civilised society—a dis“ grace deeper even than negro slavery. And for what
“are these poor girls hunted down in this merciless
“ manner ? In truth, for acting exactly the same way as
“ all of us—as all young men, who go with them, enjoy
“ ourselves with them, and then desert them, and leave
“ them to their fate; for supplying a want in our society,
“ which man, by the necessities of his nature, cannot do
“ without, and which only they, who know little of human
“nature, imagine may be withheld without the most de“ structive consequences. Instead of contempt, these
“poor neglected girls deserve the warmest thanks of
“ society, for the heroic mode in which they have borne
�PAL7E0-SECULAR VIEWS OF SOCIAL EVILS.
35
“ the misery and the burden of our shame. Notwith“ standing the enormous evils which they aid in causing,
“ they have been in the main exceedingly serviceable to
“ mankind, by palliating in some degree the other alter“ native evils of the law of population—namely, sexual
“ abstinence or premature death; and thus, as already
“ mentioned, they should be regarded as sexual martyrs.
“ If youth is to be humiliated and disgraced for indul“ ging in sexual intercourse, at least let all of us bear our
“ share, and be ashamed to throw the whole burden on
“ poor helpless woman. While so glaring an injustice
“ exists, how can we talk of the nobility or dignity of
“ man ? In truth, no one member of the human family,
“ no prostitute nor criminal, can be degraded, without
“ dragging down all the rest. In the case of prostitution
“ the whole of society is concerned in it. Men, it may be
“ said, are as a general rule all prostitutes ; for there are
“ but an inconsiderable section of them who do not
“ indulge more or less at some period of life in mercenary
“ loves, and it matters little in such a case whether the
“ money be given or received. The general character of
“ woman also is exceedingly debased, and their dignity
“ and freedom lessened, by the existence of such a class
“among their sex” (p. 409.)
He feels deeply and he complains bitterly of this unnatural
state of things, and says :—
“ As long as the present sexual system lasts there is no
“ such thing as a dignified life for youth. Mercenary
“ love, in itself, is an abomination, utterly abhorrent to
“Nature, and full of degradation to all concerned in
“it........... In fact, in all sexual intercourse, except in
“ marriage, the young man has to act and feel like a pick“ pocket, shunning the light, and being for ever on his
“guard against discovery ; and it can readily be perceived
“ what an effect this must have in degrading his character”
(p. 407).
Condemning prostitution as abominable, utterly abhorrent
to nature, full of degradation, our philosopher can still look
upon prostitutes as heroic martyrs, who “deserve the
�36
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
warmest thanks of society.” But a scientific philanthropist
can look charitably even upon what are called unnatural
vices. He says:—
“All these vices have met with an opprobrium far
*
“ greater than they deserved ; for the public mind loses all
“ sense of justice when it comes to consider a sexual fault,
“and is always far too harsh in its judgments. I should
“ say that, of all acts, none are viewed with such unjust
“ severity as these unnatural vices........... As long as the
“present obstacles continue to the gratification of the
“ normal desires ; as long as all unmarried love is regarded
“ in a harsh and degrading light, so long will prostitution
“ and unnatural vices flourish, and it will be out of human
“ power to suppress them ” (p. 249).
The present obstacles to perfection are the institution of
marriage and the common ideas and feelings opposed to
universal license and promiscuity. The great evil—almost
the only evil in the world—is the repression of what Chris
tian moralists call licentiousness. The greatest good possible
for humanity would be the removal of all such prejudices
and restrictions, so that prostitution, shameful, unnatural,
abhorrent as it is, is to be preferred to civilised morality;
and our author says :—
“ As long, however, as prostitution continues to be, in
“ many cases, the only attainable intercourse, although I
“ deeply deplore its existence, it seems to me a far smaller
“ evil that a man should indulge in it than that he should
“ waste away under the miseries and evils of abstinence
“ or unnatural and diseasing abuses.”
In a word, the “ social evil ” is to be tolerated, and even
cherished, until women generally become so far Malthusianised—or, may I say, Bradlaughised ?—as to make it no longer
a necessary evil.
�PALAEO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
37
Chapter VI.
PAL^EO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
It could not be expected that a “ Graduate of Medicine ”
would write a book upon “ The Elements of Social Science
and Sexual Religion ” without treating largely of the diseases
which are caused by civilised morality, and are to be cured
by the opposite system, accepted, adopted, and recommended
by the partisans of the seatless M.P. What are called the
sexual diseases of men and women are, therefore, described
at length; but it is not necessary that we should enter into
these unpleasant professional details. It will be sufficient to
show that, according to this author, all these diseases have
their origin in the one evil of sexual restraint or chastity,
and their one cure is sexual license.
Writing of “Hysteria,” the author of the “Elements”
says :—
“ Chastity or sexual abstinence causes more real disease
‘‘and misery in one year, I believe, in this country than
‘‘sexual excesses in a century. We must not include
‘‘venereal disease among the evils of excess, as it has
“ nothing to do with it; it depends always on infection,
“not on over-use of the sexual organs ” (p. 186).
“Woman’s peculiar torments begin at puberty, and
“ from that time, in innumerable cases, till her marriage,
“ she is the constant prey of anxiety. Ungratified desires
“ distract her, endless temptations and excitements
“surround her, marriage is for her so critical a step, and
“ yet she has not the power of selection. The fatal ques
tion, Shall she be married at all? gradually dawns
“ upon her, and the clouds and whirlwinds of anxious
‘‘and conflicting passions darken her sky............ The only
“ one who can cure a hysterical young woman is a young
‘‘ man whom she loves, and with whom she may gratify
“ her natural feelings, and have a free and happy outlet
�38
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ for the emotions which have been so long disordering
“her” (p. 183).
“ I am convinced,” says this high medical authority, “ that,
if sexual intercourse were used early enough in these diseases
[mentioning some to which young girls are liable], very few
cases would exsist ” (p. 172).
Treating of “ Chlorosis,” a disease of girls, he says :—
“ The crippling idea of chastity and female decorum
“ binds her like an invisible chain, wherever she moves,
“ and prevents her from daring to think, feel, or act, freely
“and impulsively........... If we examine into the origin and
“ meaning of these singular ideas with regard to woman,
“we shall find that they are based upon no natural distinc
tion between the two sexes, but upon the erroneous
“ views of man, and especially upon the mistaken ideas as
“to the virtue of female chastity. It is to guard this
“ supposed virtue that all the restrictions on female liberty
“ and female development in body and mind have arisen.
“........... Society is itself to blame for all such errors as
“unnatural sexual indulgences in either sex. Until we
“ can supply to the violent sexual passions of youth a
“ proper and natural gratification, we may be absolutely
“certain that an unnatural one will be very frequently
“resorted to............ The only true and permanent remedy
“is a proper amount of sexual exercise” (pp. 167-171).
Of course, the same remedy is prescribed in diseases of a
similar character in men, and there is no doubt that this kind
of practice has spread to a considerable extent in the medical
profession, and that—
“It is now comparatively common among our most
“skilful medical men to recommend sexual intercourse to
“young men suffering from genital debility.”
With them there is little difficulty in carrying out such a
prescription; with women it is different. Our author says :—
“ But for suffering woman no one has yet raised his
“ voice, no one has applied to her case the only true and
“scientific remedy; that remedy which is the keystone of
�PALJEO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
39
“ female therapeutics, and without which all treatment or
“ prevention of female disease is a vanity and a delusion.
“ The great mass of female sexual diseases, even more than
“ those of men, arise from sexual enfeeblement, consequent
“ on the want of a healthy and sufficient exercise for this
“important part of the system. From the want of this,
“the green sickness, menstrual irregularities, hysterical
“ affections without number, proceed; and it is utter
“ vanity to expect to cure, and still more to prevent, these
“ miserable diseases, without going to the root of the
“ matter. It is a certain and indubitable fact that, unless
“ we can supply to the female organs their proper natural
“ stimulus, and a healthy and natural amount of exercise,
“ female disease will spring up on every side around us,
“ and all other medical appliances will be powerless against
“ the hydra ” (p. 163).
But, in addition to the slavery of one sex to prejudices
and superstitions about chastity, virtue, and morality, there
are still but comparatively few physicians who have the
science and the courage to make the proper prescription :—
“ How few English physicians are there who have the
“ courage, even if they have the knowledge, to prescribe—
“ nay, even to tell the patient of this one and only physio
logical remedy! No; overawed by the general erro“ neous moral views on these subjects, they shrink from
“ their duty of asserting the sacredness of the bodily laws
“ in opposition to all preconceptions ” (p. 81).
In some cases physicians advise marriage; but how seldom
can such advice be taken! What man or woman would
wish to be administered in that way as a remedy for disease ?
Our author sees and admits the difficulty. He says :—
“ Marriage deserts us at our greatest need; and, if it
“ should continue to be the only attainable sexual inter“ course, the cure of vast numbers of genital diseases
“ would be, as at present, impossible, and might be given
“ up in despair. But not only the cure, the prevention of
“ these diseases in any satisfactory degree would be
“ impossible; for, unless all young people were to marry
�40
,
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ about puberty, which would create the most fearful sub“ sequent repentances, an immense amount of genital
“ disease would be certain to arise, were no other honour“ able provision made for the gratification of the first and
“ most impetuous passions. It is very generally about and
“shortly after the age of puberty that masturbation
“ begins to be practised among both sexes; chlorosis is
“ most frequent in girls still in their teens ; in short, it is
“ an absolute impossibility to prevent the development of
“ an immense amount of genital disease and morbidity if
“ marriage be the only sexual provision for youth.”
The sole alternative, as we shall see more fully stated later
on, is to abolish marriage, and adopt universal promiscuous
intercourse.
Treating of “ Dysmenorrhoca,” our author, after prescrib
ing his panacea, says : —
“ To prevent this disease, we must endeavour to eradicate
“ throughout society the causes which lead to it. Of
“these by far the most important is sexual abstinence...
“....... And I believe that by far the most important class
“ of sexual diseases are those which arise from sexual
“abstinence or abuse, and which are characterised by
“ genital enfeeblement, giving rise to general debility and
“ mental irritation, discontent, and despondency. These
“are universally spread throughout our society in the
“present day, and spring naturally from the universal
“ difficulties opposing the healthy exercise of the sexual
“ organs” (p. 238).
Young men suffering from a very common form of nervous
exhaustion are advised to use “ the natural remedy ” very
moderately at first—once a week or so—gradually increasing
with the waxing powers (p. 105).
I regret the necessity of entering into these particulars,
but can see no other way of bringing this very important
subject to the attention of thoughtful men and women. It
is right that fathers and mothers should know what kind of
advice such a “ Graduate of Medicine,” and all who may
agree with him, may give their sons and daughters, and it is
right that society should know what kind of medical doc
�PAL2E0-SECULAR MEDICINE.
41
trines are approved and widely promulgated by those who
sympathise with the author of this book, and those who
have done most to aid its circulation. But for the fact that
this book, from which I have so liberally quoted, solely
because I do not wish to do any injustice to its distinguished
author, or his more distinguished or better known patrons
and supporters, has been and is a recognised text-book of a
great movement, or one branch of a growing organisation, I
might have hesitated to lay such doctrines or such opinions,
claiming to be scientific and medical, before the possible
readers of these pages. But since I have decided that it is
best that the real facts of life should be known—whether of
the slums investigated by Royal Commissions, or the moral
slums of false science and false philosophy, I think it right
to give the author’s defence of what most men, and, one
may hope, nearly all women, will consider horrible doctrines.
It is also but just to the unseated member for Northampton,
who has so long and steadfastly stood by the book and worked
with its author, who was, it will be remembered, the profes
sional endorser and friendly annotator of “ The Fruits of
Philosophy,” published by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant.
The author of the “ Elements ” says :—
“ Every act of every organ is essentially good. This
“ law applies exactly in the same way to all the intellectual
u and moral operations ; every thought and feeling of the
“ mind must, by the necessity of our being, tend to the
“ preservation, and not to the destruction, of the organism,
“ and therefore must be in like manner essentially
“good ” (p. 415).
“ In health and disease,” he says, “ this is alike true
so that it is impossible for a man to think a bad thought or
do a bad act.
All thought and all action is the result of material forces,
which can, of course, have no moral character. He says :—
“ Matter, when in the form of a muscle, can contract;
“ when in the form of living nervous substance, it can
■“ think. Thought is, in some mysterious manner, con“ nected with phosphorus, and must, in some way or other,
“ be an exaltation and refinement of properties naturally
�42
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
“ inherent in that substance and in the other elements of
“ the brain, but in what way is yet totally unknown. On
“ reflection, we perceive that, as there is a chemical action
“ attending every mental process, just as there is one
“ attending every act of life, every change in the mind
“ must be connected with an exactly corresponding change
“ in these chemical actions ” (p. 440).
Certainly no one would think of attributing free will,
responsibility, and morality, or immorality, to chemical com
binations ; and here is the whole philosophy of Materialism.
There is no longer any question of morality, since morality
cannot exist.
Mr. G. J. Holyoake, a less logical Materialist than the
“Graduate of Medicine,” admits accountability for the
operations of phosphorus, carbon, and oxygen, but limits
it. He says (“ Principles of Secularism ”): “ No man or
woman is accountable to others for any conduct by which
others are not injured or damaged.” As it must be difficult
to determine when or how much others are injured by our
acts, this rule is not easy of application; and it clearly
denies the right of interference with any act whose conse
quences may be supposed to be confined to the individual,
as suicide or murder; since it cannot be certainly proved,
according to palaeo-Secularist principles, that for a man to
hasten his own annihilation can be an evil to society ; while it
may be a decided benefit; and the “ painless extinction ” of
the lives of others might be, under conceivable circumstances,
a mercy to them and a favour to the community. In any
case, it would only interrupt unpleasant chemical action.
The action of phosphorus, according to the author of
“ The Elements,” has hitherto been very unfortunate. He
says :—
“When we look around us among our friends and
“ acquaintances we can scarcely find a single individual
“whose life we could call a happy one. For my part, I
“ do not think that I know in this country a single such
“ case, and I have heard the same opinion from others.
“ All of us are worn by anxiety, and depressed by the
“ atmosphere of misery that overspreads our society........
“ Hitherto all happiness has been built on the misery of
�PAOEO-SECULAR MEDICINE.
43
“ others. No man at present can be happy himself without
“inevitably causing his neighbour’s misery” (p. 335).
The remedy for this miserable condition of the chemicals
by whose reactions we think, feel, and suffer we have given
in abundant extracts from the palaeo-Secularist’s text-book and
Materialist’s vade mecum. It consists in unbounded freedom
of “ Sexual Religion,” and the artificial prevention of its
natural consequences—only a very slight interference with
the chemical operations of phosphorus, carbon, etc.; for
he says:—
“ An increase of sexual connections is, indeed, in itself,
“ one of the greatest blessings; but it is only a subject
“ for true and unqualified congratulation when it is not
“ followed by a corresponding increase of offspring ”
(p. 481).
Mrs. Besant, the present shining light of Bradlaughism,
though a devout believer in “The Elements,” whose
doctrines she has written a special pamphlet to promote,
attributes the miseries of human life to that peculiar result
of the operations of phosphorus and other chemicals called
Christianity. In No. 10 of the National Secular Society’s
tracts, “The Fruits of Christianity,” which are “black,
bitter, and poisonous,” she says: “How Christianity has
darkened the innocent brightness of the world is known to
■every student. Roman Catholic Christianity made a miser
able life a holy life, but was content to leave it to the
religious only: Protestant Christianity forced it on all
alike. The Swiss Calvinists set the example of austerity,
and the French Huguenots quickly followed. They forbade
theatres, private theatricals, dancing, gay dresses, conjuring,
puppet shows, etc., making gloom synonymous with piety.
In Scotland the Protestants made the Sunday a misery.”
And she quotes Buckle as saying of them : “ Men, in their
daily actions, and in their very looks, became troubled,
melancholy, and ascetic. Their countenance soured, and
was downcast. Not only their opinions, but their gait, their
demeanour, their voice, their general aspect, were influenced
by that deadly blight which nipped all that was genial and
warm........... Thus it was that the national character of the
�44
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Scotch was, in the seventeenth century, dwarfed and muti
lated.” Astounding effects of chemical reactions, natural
selection, and the survival of the fittest! and only to be
remedied by joining the National Secular Society and the
Malthusian League, sending Mr. Bradlaugh to Parliament,
and making a diligent study of “ The Elements ” and Mrs
Besant’s “ Law of Population.”
�THE PAUEO-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
45
Chapter VII.
THE PAL/EO-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
Mr. Malthus was a respectable English clergyman, who
thought that there was a danger that the population of a
country might increase faster than its supply of food, and
he proposed that people should prevent the calamity of
having more children than they could take care of by avoid
ing early marriages.
As a matter of fact, the people of several European coun
tries do postpone marriage from prudential motives, and,
in England, while the lower classes in towns marry at twenty,
in the upper ranks the average age at marriage is about thirty.
The calculations and warnings of Malthus made some
excitement in his time, and his ideas were adopted by James
Mill, John Stuart Mill, and other political economists, and
also by Richard Carlile and some Socialist writers. Some of
these were not, however, content with the prudential checks
to population of late marriages, or of married people living
in continence, to limit the number of their children; and
they recommended the use of certain methods for preventing
pregnancy. Some went further and advocated infanticide, or
what was called the “ painless extinction” of every unwelcome
babe at the moment of its birth. There is no doubt that,
more or less in consequence of such teachings, a vast
number of children have been wilfully murdered; as a vast
number are also dying continually of unsanitary conditions
and parental neglect.
The Population Question, as it is called, has been taken
up by the leading Cat-and-Ladleites, and they have generally
advocated “ preventive intercourse ” in preference to late
marriages or married abstinence. Carlile in his “ Every
Woman’s Book,” Robert Dale Owen in his “ Moral Physio
logy, ” Dr. Knowlton in his “ Fruits of Philosophy,” the
�46
SEXUAL ECONOMY
“ Graduate of Medicine ” in his “ Elements of Social
Science,”' and Mrs. Besant in her “ Law of Population,”
have all taken the same ground—the dangers of too great
and rapid an increase of population, and the necessity of
finding some check; and they have adopted some mechani
cal or chemical method of preventing conception.
After Richard Carlile, Watson, a Secularist publisher, sold
“ The Fruits of Philosophy,” which was also sold by the
Holyoakes, and by Charles Watts until his prosecution,
when it was taken up by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant.
But the great authority accepted by nearly all the Secu
larist leaders is the book from which I have made so many
extracts. The “ Graduate of Medicine ” is a thorough
Malthusian ; only he rejects Malthus’s remedy for over-popu
lation. He is not in favour of late marriages—he prefers
that people should not marry at all; but he is in favour of
perpetual and limitless licentiousness, and of preventing its
natural result. Here is the case as he puts it over and over
again, with all his force and eloquence:—
It is absolutely necessary to health and happiness that
every male and female should have frequent sexual inter
course, from the age of puberty as long as the propensity
exists.
It is absolutely necessary that the number of children
born should be limited to the supply of food.
Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to prevent the natural
result of sexual indulgence.
Granting the premises, it is impossible to arrive at any
other conclusion.
Let us give the concise statement in his own words :—
“ The Law of Exercise. The health of the reproduc“ tive organs and emotions depends on their having a suffi“ cient amount of normal exercise ; and the want of this
“ tends powerfully to produce misery and disease in both
“ man and woman.
“ The Law of Fecundity. Each woman tends to pro“ duce from ten to fifteen children or thereabouts.
“ The Lazo of Agricultural Industry, or Diminishing
“ Productiveness. The proportional returns to agriculture
“ tend to diminish. In other words, the produce of the
“soil tends to increase in a less proportion than the labour
“ bestowed on it.
�THE PAUEO-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
47
“ From these three laws arise—
“ The Law of Population, or Malthusian Law. The
“ natural increase of population has always been, and
“ will always continue to be, most powerfully checked in
“ all old countries, and in new colonies also, as soon as
“ their cultivation has reached a certain extent, by Celibacy
“ (that is, Sexual Abstinence), Prostitution, Sterility, Pre
ventive Intercourse, or Premature Death, whose collec“ tive amount varies inversely in proportion to the rapidity
“ with which the population of the country is increasing,
“ and to the number of emigrants minus that of immi“ grants ; while the amount of each individually varies
“ inversely in proportion to the others.
“ From these laws arise two duties—
“ The Duty of Limited Procreation. In an old country
“ it is the duty of every individual, whatever be his or
“ her station in life, to bring into the world only a very
“ small number of children.
“ The Duty of Sexual Lntercourse. It is the duty of
“ every individual to exercise his or her sexual functions
“ during the period of sexual life, abstinence and excess
“ being alike avoided ” (p. 558).
This is, briefly stated, the doctrine of the book which has
been, and is, accepted by the Palaeo-Secularist leaders, and
we may fairly conclude is approved by the great body of their
followers; for this is the doctrine set forth in the speeches
of Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, with great ability and
eloquence, in our courts of justice and in their lectures to
crowded houses in the principal towns in Great Britain.
After giving an abstract of the essay of Malthus on
“ Population ” in “ The Elements,” the author says
“Thus finishes this wonderful essay, the most im
“portant contribution to human knowledge, it appears
“ to me, that ever was made. On rising from it, with a
“ mind overpowered by the vastness of the subject, and
“ the incomparable way in which it has been treated, I
“ cannot but consider its author to have been the greatest
“ benefactor of mankind, without any exception, that ever
“existed on this earth” (p. 315).
�4«
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Describing the evils of poverty, he can find but one
remedy:—
“ Poverty is a sexual evil, depending on a sexual cause,
“ and admitting only of a sexual cure ” (p. 484).
“ If the proportion of the people to the food can be
“made a smaller one, poverty will be benefited [pre
sented?], but by no other conceivable means. The
“ only possible way to remove poverty is to have fewer
“children” (p. 341).
Admiring Malthus as he does, the author condemns his
advice in regard to marriage ; besides, there is a vast number
of women for whom marriage is impossible :—
“ In some parts of England, and in many counties in
“ Scotland, the proportion of spinsters is as high as forty“ one per cent, of the women, from the age of twenty
“upwards. There are 1,407,225 women between the
“ ages of twenty and forty who have never married, and
“359,969 old maids of the age of forty and upwards.
“ Those who are at all aware of the misery and disease of
“ sexual abstinence will be able to form a slight idea of
“ the suffering arising from this form of the preventive
“check” (p. 343).
“ The great error in Mr. Malthus’s reasoning was that
“ he, like most of the moralists of his and our own age,
“was unaware of the frightful evils and fearful natural sin
“ of sexual abstinence. The ignorance of the necessity of
“ sexual intercourse to the health and virtue of both man
“ and woman is the most fundamental error in medical
“ and moral philosophy ” (p. 345).
Here, as in every instance, the italics are those of the
author.
“ There is a way, and but one possible way, of sur“ mounting these evils and of securing for each individual
“ among us a fair share of food, love, and leisure, without
“ which human society is a chaotic scene of selfishness,
“injustice, and misery” (p. 347).
“ The means I speak of—the only means by which the
�THE PAL7E0-SECULARIST MALTHUSIANS.
49
“ virtue and the progress of mankind are rendered pos'“ sible—is Preventive Sexual Intercourse. By this
“ is meant sexual intercourse where precautions are used
“ to prevent impregnation. In this way love would be
obtained without entailing upon us the want of food and
“ leisure by overcrowding the population........... Women,
“ if they had not the fear of becoming pregnant before
“ their eyes, would indulge their sexual desires just as
“ men do. Hence the vehement prejudices in favour of
“ our present code of sexual morality, and of the institu“ tion of marriage, together with the determined hostility
“ to anything in the shape of unmarried intercourse—at
“ least, on the part of women—are the chief obstacles to
“the consideration of the most important of all subjects—
“ preventive sexual intercourse ” (p. 349).
“ Preventive sexual intercourse, then, is the mode, and
“ the only possible mode, of reconciling the opposing
“difficulties of the population problem, and is the only
“possible solution for the great social evils of this .and
“other old countries. I stake my life—I would stake a
“thousand lives—on the truth of this. There is no
“ subject on which I have thought so long and felt so
“ deeply as the sexual one. It has been ever present to
“ me for many years; and, long before I read the works
“of Mr. Malthus and Mr. Mill, my mind was absorbed
“ in the evils I saw and read of from sexual abstinence
“and other sexual difficulties and diseases ” (p. 352).
“ Therefore, any man or woman, it matters not what
“ be their station in life, whether their destiny be a palace
“or a hovel, who has more thari the small proportion of
“children which the circumstances of an old country
“ allow, as the fair average to each individual, is an irre“ ligious being, and disregards one of the most sacred of
“ all the moral duties, thus inevitably causing disease and
“misery to some of his fellow creatures” (p. 362).
This must end our quotations from a book which we
need not characterise; written, as the reader may be able
to judge from the examples we have given, with great
earnestness and with considerable ability. We have quoted
fairly, but could not properly go into medical and surgical
-details, and we refrain from publishing the methods suggested
�5°
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
for securing the end proposed. They are similar to thosegiven in “ The Fruits of Philosophy ” and in Mrs. Besant’s
“ Law of Population.”
Will it be pretended that these are merely the teachings
of one man, for whom the great body of Secularists are not
responsible? Mrs. Besant thinks otherwise. “What is
morality ?” she asks, in her “ Law of Population.” “ It is
the greatest good of the greatest number. It is immoral to
give life where you cannot support it. It is immoral to bring
children into the world when you cannot: clothe, feed, and
educate them.”
And she goes on to instruct women as to how they can
avoid the greatest evil of life, and justifies herself by
quotations from a long list of Secularist philosophers:
Francis Place, James Watson, Robert Dale Owen, the two
Mills, the two Holyoakes, and several others. But we have
already had abundant evidence that “ The Elements of
Social Science ” embodies the principles of Cat-and-Ladle
Secularism, and we should as soon expect to see the Koran
repudiated by Mohammedans, or the New Testament by
Christians, as “ The Elements ” by any palaeo-Secular orga
nisation.
�PAL7E0-SECULARIST SOCIETY.
51
Chapter VIII.
PAL^EO-SECULARIST SOCIETY.
It is time that we consider what is involved in these Palaeo
Secularist doctrines, and what would be the condition of
human society if they were universally adopted and carried
out in practice. Either boys and girls, as soon as they
arrived at the age of puberty, say from fifteen to seven
teen years, would marry, or would engage in sexual amours
without marriage. If the rule were marriage, it would
necessitate polygamy in old countries where there is a
surplus of women, and polyandry where there is a surplus
of men. Virginity in either sex is denounced as a state of
mortal sin, dangerous to health and life. For the married
some provision must be made for husbands during the
periods of maternal disablement, necessary absence, or the
illness of either wife or husband; and there could be per
mitted only very brief widowhood.
Palaeo-Secularists stipulate for free and easy divorce, and
that means simply a system of concubinage such as now
exists to some extent, and is not considered of sufficient
importance for legal registration. If the physiological
doctrines of “ The Elements ” are true, special arrange
ments should be made for the army, navy, and all sea-going
vessels. Women should be enlisted in all the services as
well as men. Prostitution, as we have seen, though de
grading, is honourable; but, if all women would adopt
these principles, there would be no need of a particular
class, because all women would be virtually prostitutes, and
The now necessary and useful profession would be abolished.
Seduction would be neither actionable nor immoral—in
fact, as soon as all women are converted to palaeo-Secularism
it would cease to exist. As common hospitality and common
humanity would forbid men and women to deny to others
any necessary of life, there could no longer be any jealousy,
�52
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
or miserably selfish suits in the Divorce Court about
adultery. With free divorce the court could be abolished,
and marriage itself, in its legal form, must quickly disappear.
All poems, novels, tragedies, and comedies, based upon past
or present ideas of virtue, chastity, fidelity, and what have
been considered manly and womanly virtues, would be obso
lete, and read only as antique curiosities. We should have
a practical palaeo-Secular world, satisfying its animal propen
sities and using artificial means to prevent having too many
children.
Men and women of England, this is the picture of the
society of the future set before you by the palaeo-Secularist
leaders and the author of “ The Elements of Social
Science.” These are the lessons taught to the young men
and young women in the halls of science, advocated in news
papers and pamphlets, and studied in Secular reading-rooms^
Look at these doctrines :—
Chastity is a crime.
Unbridled sensuality is virtue.
The Law of Nature commands the constant exercise of
the pro-creative function.
The Law of Population forbids that this act should be
allowed to produce its natural result in the production of
offspring.
There have been Atheists who worship Nature; but the
Secular Malthusians hold her in small reverence. They
mend her blunders with their superior wisdom. Nature
has united pleasure with the function which continues the
life of the race. They seek to enjoy the pleasure and
prevent the object for which the function was made. This
is the outcome of development by natural selection. There
must be, however, some old-fashioned people in the world
to whom these results of “science, falsely so-called,” are
what the Bible has characterised them, in three words:—
“ Earthly, Sensual, Devilish.”
�ADDENDUM.
55
ADDENDUM.
We have heard a good deal about the heroism involved
in the publishing of such works as “ The Elements ” and
the Knowlton pamphlet. There is no heroism in the thing
at all; but there is a good deal of cowardice, not without a.
dash of greed and avarice. A section of the public is
prurient, and the publication of “ nasty ” books like “ The
Elements’’and “The Fruits of Philosophy” is profitable.
It is a trait of a coward to insult when he deems he can do
so with impunity. The publishers and abettors of these
feculent works have insulted society, but they dare not
defy it. If a certain lady and gentleman be earnest and
consistent teachers, they surely ought to practise what
they preach re promiscuous coition and artifices to escape
*
maternity.
Dare they state in the press that they do so ?
Dare they mount the platform and illustrate before the audi
ence animal as they might do vegetable physiology, as re
gards fructification and reproduction ? They dare not do
this because of the police. They have the avarice and
truculence to insult society; but they have not the earnest
ness and heroism to defy it. They can put their names to
obscene works ouf of which they can make notoriety and
money, but beyond this they dare not go: decency they
have already set aside, but they are deterred by fear.
* It must be strictly understood that I deal with the two persons,
referred to as public teachers, and as public teachers only. As indi
viduals I have nothing whatever to do with them.
�54
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
While we execrate their indecency, let us be thankful for
their fear. Let us congratulate ourselves that, although by
their pruriency Freethought has been insulted, we owe it to
their cowardice that Freethought has not been outraged.
Talk of the Pagan Saturnalia and Eleusinian Mysteries ; talk
of the early Christian Agapse : what were these to the Brad
laugh and Besant theory carried out to public demonstra
tion “in the interests of the poor”? Split in the party!
Better a thousand splits than a moment’s acquiescence in
such inexpressible subter-beastliness ! Attacking fellowFreethinkers ! Fate forfend that I should acknowledge them
as fellow Freethinkers of mine. The cross is the symbol
of Christianity; and, if the syringe is to be the emblem of
Freethought, I must mourn without ceasing that, in virtue of
my mental and moral organisation, it is impossible for me to
'be a Christian and accept the creed whose symbol is the
•cross and not the syringe.
Do I state a far-fetched and false corollary when I allege
that the propagandists of Knowltonism should resort to
practical demonstration if they were consistent and had the
■courage of their convictions ? I submit that the corollary
is a pertinent, inexpugnable one. Knowltonism involves
practical physiology, practical chemistry, and practical
mechanics, and I contend that those branches of science
cannot be taught effectively without demonstration and ex
periment. In a little theoretical treatise at sixpence I
deny that they can be taught effectively “ in the interests of
the poor.” Why, in the name of courage and consistency,
is the demonstration lacking ?
Do I write on an indelicate subject ? The fault is not
mine. I am a Freethinker, and those describing themselves
by the same specific term have committed themselves to
abominations against which I, in the name of Freethought,
must protest. I must protest, too, that the only organised
•Society of “ Freethinkers ” in England perpetually elects as
President one who has done worse than blasphemed fifty
�ADDENDUM.
55
gods, has outraged the highest and purest instincts of human
nature. Do I write harshly ? It is because the language
of mortals lacks in bitterness that I do not write more
harshly still. The gentleman who could sit down with
another gentleman’s wife to edit in conjunction with her a
work on sexual commerce should be painted in pigments the
due manipulation of which is beyond my skill as a limner.
Is it well to place in the front of English Freethought
a gentleman who, in conjunction with another gentleman’s
wife, edited a work which dealt with making sexual inter
course abortive, and which work a jury of his countrymen
pronounced obscene ? I say it is not well. And, since on
the subject every other voice in the Freethought ranks is
dumb, I lift my voice in the name of the mothers and
daughters of England who, in renouncing Christ, did not
also renounce chastity; who, in disbelieving that their
bodies were temples of the Holy Ghost, did not necessarily
believe that they were mere organisms for the gratification
of carnal desire. In the name of the English wife and
mother I plead and I appeal. Against obscenity in office
and filth in high places in bur party I, a man in the ranks,
lift up my testimony, execrating all that would sully the
purity of woman and the sanctity of home.
I am willing to admit that our existing social arrangements
are not all that can be desired; that the social machine
works with considerable friction. This may be a reason
why the machine should be lubricated; but it is no reason
why it should be broken to pieces. That wives are not
always happy is no reason why all women should be un
married harlots. The besetting sin of mob-Freethought of
the Richard Carlile school is the prejudiced assumption
that everything that is is wrong, simply because it is.
“Down with all that’s up!” is practically the motto and
watchword of the unthinking outcasts and rebels who, for
the last seventy years, have made Freethought stink in the
nostrils of everybody whose adhesion would be valuable.
�56
SEXUAL ECONOMY.
Prima facie, because a thing is up it should be up, and
because a thing is down it should be down. The world was
not “created” yesterday; and, by the doctrine of Evolu
tion, about which mob leaders prate so loudly, and which
they understand so imperfectly, it has had considerable time
and opportunity to arrange itself according to evolutionary
law. Evolution must be permitted to work till we rise to
higher and purer social levels. In the home and the family
centre the most dearly-cherished love and the holiest
sentiment of the English race. This cannot and must
not be overthrown by cataclysm. We cannot and must
not substitute for the family only isolated children, whom
sulphate of zinc have spared, and who may know their
mother, but who cannot possibly know their father; while
•their mother’s ignorance on the subject would necessarily be
nearly as profound as their own. The bare idea is a crime,
because it is revolting to the holiest instincts of our nature.
Would man gain as much by the free exercise of sensuality
as he would lose by having no home—for a wife a supply of
harlots, and for sons and daughters promiscuously-begotten
and promiscuously-supported children, the results of sen
suality having failed in its devilish artifices ?
The Freethinkers, so-called, persistently place at their head
a man who, as I have said elsewhere, the gentlemen of the
British House of Commons will not permit to sit on the
same benches with them, even though, by keeping him out,
they break the law and outrage the Constitution. On
technical pretexts he is prevented from taking his seat; but
the true reason for the aversion to him is not heresy and
Radicalism—there are plenty of heretics and Radicals in
the House already—but men turn away, as from a toad or
a serpent, from a person who teaches that marriage is an
•evil and chastity a crime, that promiscuous coition is most
desirable, and that seduction is a virtue. Liberal and Con
servative alike bolt the door in the face of this Caliban who
■would, by his teachings, make every woman a prostitute, every
�ADDENDUM.
57
home a maison-de-joie, and licentiousness and the manufac
ture of syringes the staple industries of England. And this
person, not permitted to sit with the most abandoned rake
and reprobate the House can produce, the English “ Free
thinkers ” elect as their President, and then they wonder that
they do not succeed, that they have to meet in tenth-rate pub
lic-houses, and clank their applause with pewter-pots ; while
not even a solitary thinker of distinction has ever joined
them—not one scientist of reputation, not one poet or man of
letters, not one individual of the slightest social weight. The
Freethinkers proper—the Herbert Spencers, the Huxleys,
the Tyndalls, the Frederic Harrisons, the Matthew Arnolds,
and the Algernon Swinburnes—would never dream of
touching the mess of Secularistic pottage into which the
“ fighting President ” has dropped his syringe, in order that
no respectable person may put a spoon in it. Popular Freethought can never reach the Ai of success while Achan,
the son of Carmi, is in its ranks, treasuring “ the accursed
thing”—the shekels of silver and the goodly Babylonish
*
garment —in the shape of profits from the sales of works
that contend that man should be a sensualist and the world
a numero.
We have, more than once, been assured that “The
Elements ” and kindred works are issued with the best
intentions. Even if we take this apologetic allegation as
genuine, we cannot forget that a certain mythical locality is
paved with good intentions ; and surely this advocacy of
unbridled lust is the largest and most prominent paving
stone in all hell. I am free to admit that the author of
the book is evidently a man with more than average ability,
and there is a certain Machiavelian insidiousness in his
pages which greatly enhances their danger to the morals of
the young and inexperienced, and they make up a very large
component part of the public.
* See Joshua vii., passim.
�SEXUAL ECONOMY.
True, the Divorce Court and the existence of such social
hideousness as was only too distinctly indicated by the
Mary Jeffries exposure may afford a pretext for a desperate
*
measure to counteract a desperate malady; but surely, in
the name of common sanity, to abolish the Divorce Court
by abolishing marriage, and to suppress houses of evil fame
by making all women courtesans, is a measure drastic even
to madness. Monogamic marriage may set up a standard
which is too high to be generally attainable; but all social
standards should be high, and public teachers should ever
be urging on the public conscience to an attempt to reach
the highest moral level. This, with its thousand faults,
Christianity, through its ministers, has not failed to do; and
we must not censure it too harshly because it has not
always succeeded. As long as Christianity insists on sexual
purity and restraint, and debars the transgressor from her
sacraments, she does the world a service which goes some
way to compensate for many crimes and errors of which
she has been guilty. As long as Freethought gives counte
nance and encouragement to sensuality, she perpetrates
against society an error and a crime for which all the good
she has done the world can hardly compensate. As long as
the Christian teaching as to sexual morals obtains and has
Society’s endorsement, the most pronounced evil-liver is
constrained to be remorseful that he has fallen short of the
standard; and that very feeling of remorse acts as a restraint
to still further excesses. But he who adopts the teachings
of “ The Elements ” has no high ideal up to which he
tries to bring the measure of his conduct; with him
there need be no remorse and no regrets; there is no
standard of purity after which to struggle and to strive;
there is only the inexpressible Malebolg£ of unbounded
sensuality and shameless lust: no woman you love that it is
not proper for another to love to-morrow; no maid such as
See the Sentinel for June, 1885.
�ADDENDUM.
59
has heretofore blessed the bridegroom’s arms, but only a
shameless and deflowered harlot who has responded to the
desires of others as she responds to yours; a social con
venience, like a drinking fountain or a chalet; a creature
liable to be called into use anywhere, at any time, and by
anybody, and who constantly carries a syringe in her muff,
in the name of Bradlaugh and “Freethought!”
Saladin.
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Sexual economy, as taught by Charles Bradlaugh, M.P. : with addendum by Saladin
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Agate, Peter
Ross, William Stewart
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 59 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Appears to have taken from a bound volume. Top edge gilded. Date of publication from KVK. Stamp on verso of t.p.: Bishopsgate Institute Reference Library. Part of another Bishopsgate stamp on p. 59. From the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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W. Stewart & Co.
Date
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[1885?]
Identifier
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N041
Subject
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Sexuality
Birth control
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Sexual economy, as taught by Charles Bradlaugh, M.P. : with addendum by Saladin), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Birth Control
Charles Bradlaugh
Contraception
Joseph Barker
NSS
Sexual Behaviour
-
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Speech for the Defence
BY
JOHN BURNS,
IN THE
Trial of the Four Social - Democrats for
Seditious Conspiracy.
Heard
At
the
from 5TH to ioth of
Central Criminal Sessions
April, 18.86,
at the
Old Bailey
Before Mr. Justice Cave.
---- —♦---------
(From the Verbatim Notes of the Official Shorthand Reporter.)
����SPEECH BY JOHN BURNS,
DELIVERED FROM
The Dock in the Old Bailey, on 9th April, 1886.
My Lord, and Gentlemen of the Jury: As an unem
ployed worker, and a Social-Democrat I am placed in
a somewhat peculiar position in this case. I expected
when I was of the age of 16 or 17 that, at some time of
my life, I should be brought face to face with the
authorities for vindicating the class to which I belong.
I have from my earliest infancy been in contact with
poverty of the worst possible description. I may tell
you, my lord, that I went to work in a factory at the
early age of 10 years and toiled there until 5 months
ago, when I left my workshop to stand as Parliamentary
Candidate for the Western Division of Nottingham. I
have done everything I could, in a peaceful manner, to
call the attention of the authorities to the frightful
amount of poverty and degradation existing among the
working class. 1 have done my best as an artizan
to educate my unskilled fellow workmen, to point
out to them that they should educate themselves
and organise themselves in such a manner that by
peaceful demands a better state of things should be
�brought about. Our motives have been aspersed by
journalists, who are paid to traduce us. We have
been charged with being notoriety-hunters, with being
men anxious for our own advancement and self interest.
That is not the case. Since I was 16 years of age I
have done everything in my power to benefit the
workers in a straightforward way. I have deprived
myself, as many of my class have done, of hundreds of
meals on purpose to buy books and papers to see if we
could not possibly by peaceful consultation, by delibe
rate and calm organization, do that which I am inclined
to think the middle and upper classes by their neglect
apathy and indifference, will compel artisans to do other
wise than peacefully. I plead Not Guilty, my lord, to
the charge of sedition, particularly to the charge of
seditious conspiracy.
I PLEAD NOT GUILTY,
not to deny the words I used on February 8th,
or any other words I ever used, but simply because the
language which I used on that occasion had no guilt or
any sedition in it. I expressed the virtuous indignation
against misery and injustice of a man who from his earliest
infancy up to the present moment has struggled and
worked hard to support his wife and an aged mother,
both of whom would instantly repudiate me if I were
to go back from one single statement that I made
on February Sth. But I am here to repudiate state
ments made by other men. I object to being saddled
with speeches such as the “bread and lead” phrase,
and the “ powder and shot ” interjections made by
men in the crowd at Hyde Park. I do object to words
�7
spoken and actions done—not by myself but by men
whom I tried to control.
As there has been much misapprehension in the
mind of the public, I would briefly refer to the motives
which prompted me to go to Trafalgar Square and to
the Holborn Town Hall meeting. Misapprehension,
not to say misrepresentation, exists in the minds of those
gentlemen who have had charge of this prosecution. I
heard that there was going to be a meeting of the
starving Unemployed of London in Trafalgar Square
on February 8th. I heard that this meeting was
convened by four of the most infamous scoundrels that
ever wore boot-leather in the streets of London—four
men whose antecedents were bad, who were prepared to
trade on the misery of the poor provided their pockets
were filled, who on the night after the meeting were
ejected from public-houses in Fleet Street for drunken
ness and disorderly conduct. I heard that these men
were going to trade upon the poverty of the Unemployed
and to advocate an economical fallacy, for puffing which
they were paid. I reached the place at 1.30. I was
recognised, as I am very well known to the workmen of
London, by a large number of people who were then
present. They called on me for a speech. I declined
to speak, and I told them that when the Fair Traders
arrived I would move an amendment, and that if they
declined to have the amendment moved I would hold a
meeting of my own. The crowd pushed me towards
the lower part of the Square and hoisted me on to the
plinth of the Nelson Monument. I then entered into a
consultation with the police, I told them I had no desire
to interfere with their authority, that I would use what
influence I had over the crowd as a means of securing
�a peaceful meeting and see that no property was
damaged. Superintendent Dunlap, in the exercise of a
wise discretion, allowed me to speak. I got up upon
the plinth and spoke to 13,000 or 14,000 men, and I
would here call attention to the fact that Superinten
dent Dunlap and the police frankly confessed that, prior
to the balustrade meeting, what influence and control
I had over the bona fide workmen was used in protecting
public property and not exercised against the police.
Superintendent Dunlap admits that I facilitated his
duty on that occasion, and it is admitted by other
witnesses that I did everything I could to control the
turbulent element in the crowd, and so far from my
language having a tendency to incite to riot and as
sault, it had directly the contrary effect.
What was the result of the first meeting at the Monu
ment ? I laid a resolution of the Social-Democratic Fede
ration before the meeting. I pointed out that a remedy
could only be found by bringing pressure to bear upon
Parliament and the local authorities, as I had tried to do
twelve months before, when I had to walk the streets of
London for 7 weeks for daring to speak as to the con
dition of the workers. For I was boycotted by the
employers, then as I have been since I came back from
Nottingham, simply because I was a Social-Democrat.
I ask you to remember this. I ask you, can you wonder
at a workman’s language being strong? I am inclined
to think that the day is not far distant when stronger
language will have to be used than even that of the
“ Loyalist ” members in the House of Commons.
Our meeting at the Nelson Column was satisfactorily
conducted. Quietness and order prevailed. After
speaking I called on several whom I recognized in the
�9
crowd, and resolutions were submitted to about 20,000
persons, for by this time the crowd had considerably
augmented. No damage was done. There was no
conflict with the police—we avoided that, as Superinten
dent Dunlap admits. When the Fair Traders came
I climbed up the balustrade and acted as Chairman of
that second meeting. Why? All know that the Fair
Traders, Messrs Peters, Kelly, Kenny, Lemon, and
others, are regarded as arrant impostors by the workmen
of London, and I was desirous that there should not be
a physical conflict between the Unemployed and those
honest but misguided men who are the dupes of these
bogus representatives. I decided upon giving them some
thing better for their purpose than listening to the
exploded nostrums of the Tory party or of others. The
day of these mercenaries I am pleased to say is now over.
The penalty for betraying the workers, I hope, will be
heavy enough to deter any man from selling their cause,
as it has many times been sold. We had a remarkably
good meeting ; in fact we completely stole the audience
ofthe F air Traders, m uch to the delight of the U nemployed
who were there. I made a speech which Mr. Burleigh
says would make about three columns in length—in fact I
almost reiterated the speech that I made on the plinth of
the Nelson monument. 1 pointed out the steps that were
necessary for a peaceful solution of the difficulties which
the industrial classes have to encounter and which press
so hardly upon the lower classes of society—as they are
falsely called. I pointed out how the unequal incidence
of taxation pressed upon the shop-keepers and others,
and how the. capitalists and the rich only were able to
tide over the difficulties. My speech was substantially
what the witnesses have said—that laws should be
�IO
passed ; that the Government should provide work for
skilled and unskilled labourers ; that the principles of
Socialism recognized to-day by the State in regard
to sewage farms and water-works, railways, post-offices
and telegraphs, should be further extended ; and that in
so far as they were extended it would conduce to the
well-being of the community—of which the Unemployed
in Trafalgar Square are a more important part than the
Club loungers think they are. Is it revolution to
demand that the workers should be allowed to live like
men ? Was it sedition for a man to ask his brothers to
combine ? If so, sedition of that kind was going to be
very popular in the near future.
The meeting passed off satisfactorily. I found that the
crowd were becoming somewhat turbulent in conse
quence of the Fair Traders’ platforms being upset, and
I thought it my duty to listen to the suggestion which
was made to me from many quarters that we should
proceed in procession through the West End to Hyde
Park. And I would call the Attorney-General’s atten
tion to this significant fact, supported by the whole of
the evidence—and that is that no damage was done by
the procession from the time we left Trafalgar Square
until we reached the Carlton Club. And what was
the initial cause of the damage being done ? Probably
you, gentlemen, have not been in so many demonstrations
and processions as I have, but it you would consult the
working classes who think on political and social sub
jects and who have attended large mass meetings in
Hyde Park, you would find, on investigation, that there
is a class of men who make it a practice, on occasions
of political demonstrations, to laugh and jeer, from their
Club windows, at thepoverty of what they term “the great
�11
unwashed,” to jeer at the misery their own greed has
created, and yet at elections these very men crave votes
of those who previously had received their sneers
*
The crowd were not in a temper to stand
even mere laughing, and they were not disposed
to respond to contemptuous jeers by a smile. And
what was the result ? Stone-throwing commenced.
And that was the result of the stupid, ungentlemanly,
criminal conduct of the Carlton Club members. I did
my best to repress the stone-throwing, instead of incit
ing the crowd, believing, as I do, that window breaking,
except perhaps as a warning, is useless to effect a
change in our system of society based as it is upon the
robbery of labour. I did everything, as the evidence
proved—as you have heard said—that was in my power
to conduct the procession as peacefully as possible to
Hyde Park, where it was my intention to call on them
to disperse. The stupidity of the members of the Carl
ton decided otherwise. The stone-throwing continued
to Hyde Park, but not consecutively.
It ceased
between the Carlton and the Thatched House at the
bottom of St. James’ Street, and very little damage was
done between those places, as by this time I was able
to exercise some influence in keeping the men quiet.
That part of the route is a proof that we did exercise
our influence and control in a proper direction. But at
the Thatched House Club the contemptuous jeering was
renewed. It was more vehement than at the Carlton ;
and from the Thatched House right up to St. James’
Street and down Piccadilly, riot—if you define “riot”
as the breaking of windows—was supreme. I was
unable to check it. The fault was not mine.
We proceeded thus up St. James’ Street until we
�12
reached Piccadilly. Williams and I tried our best to stop
the stone-throwing, and to restrain the crowd instead of
inciting it. Against this system of Society I frankly
confess
I AM A REBEL,
because Society has outlawed me.
I have protested against this state of Society by
which at present one and a half millions of our fellowcountrymen, adult males, are starving—starving because
they have not work to do. I had very strong feelings
upon this matter of the Unemployed, particularly on
the day in question, when we were brought face to face
with men who for month after month had trod the
street in search of work, with men whom I knew were
honest, whose only crime was that they let the idler
enjoy that which the producer alone should have—not
loafers and thieves—but the real Unemployed of our
nation city. Talk about strong language I I contend
my language was mild when you consider the usage
they have received, and that the patience, under severe
provocation, displayed by the workers is almost slavish
and cowardly.
We reached Hyde Park. I got on the Achilles statue
and called upon the workmen to discontinue the violent
outrages which had taken place, as it was not by break
ing windows that an intelligent reorganization of Society
could be brought about. The men agreed with me.
Some hot-headed ones shouted out and asked that they
might be led against the soldiers. Mr. Champion and
I directed our replies in response to those suggestions.
And what was the result ? The crowd at the Achilles
statue quietly dispersed. And we have it upon the
�13
authority of the police themselves that although some
from the meeting did go into South Audley Street, and
there was rioting there, it was not due to the speeches
because the damage and rioting took place contempor
aneously with our speeches at the Achilles statue. It
appears that the prosecution have been strangely in
want of a case, or the legal gentlemen who are connected
with it have been totally at a loss for one, when they
waste the time of the Jury in listening to a case that
common sense would have dictated the rejection of.
Now what have we done ? We have pursued the same
course for the last five years. These are remarkable
Defendants who stand in this box. There must be
some unusual agitation to prompt one of the idle classes
like Mr. Champion, a skilled artisan like myself, an
unskilled laborer like Mr. Williams, and a middle-class
man like Mr. Hyndman to stand in this box for one
simple cause. There must be something unusual to
bring us here. We have gained nothing by this agita
tion, on the contrary we have lost what material well
being we had, and we come before you not as paid
agitators pecuniarily interested in creating riots, tumults,
and disturbances, but men anxious to change the existing
system of society to one in which men should receive
the full value of their labor, in which society will be
regarded as something more than a few titled non
producers who take the whole of the wealth which
the useful workers alone produce. We are indicted
for seditious conspiracy. If it were not so serious a
charge in itself, it would be enough to raise a smile.
Seditious conspiracy ! Why, if there is one thing that
the Whigs, Radicals, and the Tory party accuse us of it is
this—that we have brought these questions—and we
�are the first who have done it—into the . open street!
When we are again accused of conspiracy it will be
when all open methods of securing redress have been
tried and have failed. I can understand why the xoth
count has been added to the indictment—because the
Jury would have to reject the nine counts unless the
charge had been bolstered up against us.
It is not my intention to lay before this Court any
more reasons for my conduct on this particular occa
sion ; but if you want to remove the cause of seditious
speeches you must prevent us from having to hear,
as we hear to-day, of hungry poverty-stricken men
who from no fault of theirs are compelled to be out of
work, who are fit subjects for revolutionary appeals.
If you want to remove a seditious agitation, as it is
called, you must remove not the effect, but the cause
of such agitation, by bringing about in this disorganized
system of society some change—as you were told
by the witness Condon, who is compelled to accept
starvation wages, and who cannot in his trade get work
for more than five months out of the twelve. We are
not responsible for the riots; it is Society that is res
ponsible, and instead of the Attorney General drawing
up indictments against us he should be drawing up
indictments against Society, which is responsible for
neglecting the means at its command. I have not one
single word of regret to utter for the part I have taken
in this agitation. Some of the phrases that are attri
buted to me in the indictment are proved to have been
used by other men. And if my language was strong,
the occasion demanded strong language. I - say we
cannot have in England as we have to-day five millions
living on the verge of pauperism without gross discon-
�i5
tent. I am inclined to predict that unless the Govern
ment adopt our proposals, the shadow of which they
have adopted by a recent circular issued by the Local
Government Board, I am inclined to think in the near
future if Society does not recognise the claims of the
workers to a greater share of the comforts and neces
saries of life, these meetings would, by hunger and
starvation, be made the rule instead of being the excep
tion. Well-fed men never revolt. Poverty stricken men
have all to gain, and nothing to lose by riot and
revolution. There is a time, I take it—and such is
the present, a time of exceptional depression—when it is
necessary for men, particularly for the working classes, to
speak out in strong language as to the demands of their
fellows ; and I contend it would be immoral, cowardly,
and criminal to the worst degree if I, having what little
power I possess to interpret the wishes of my fellow
workers, were not to use every public occasion for
ventilating thegrievances of those who, through no fault
of their own, are unable to ventilate them themselves.
On February Sth a meeting was convened, and we put
before the workers legitimate proposals; and, singular
to say, that meeting has had a decided effect upon the
Local Government Board, Before the riots they would
not admit that there was any exceptional distress, and
I am sorry to say that it seems to be characteristic of
the Government and the governing classes to be
influenced only by fear—at least, Mr. Gladstone, Lord
Randolph Churchill and Mr. Chamberlain say that their
Governments are not susceptible to reason or appeals,
unless the Hyde Park railings are pulled down, and the
club windows are smashed. It shows at least that the
riots had a good effect upon the Local Government
�i6
Board in the direction we indicated. It is true Mr. Cham
berlain denied prior to the riots that exceptional distress
prevailed ; but about a fortnight afterwards he admitted
that it was exceptional and severe, and he actually sent
round a circular to the Boards of Guardians, who
partially adopted our proposals such as having unskilled
labour on sewage farms. It also made the landlords
and capitalists surrender to the Mansion House Fund
some of the proceeds of their past robbery in the shape
of charity. Riot it was not, it was nothing more nor
less than honest poverty knocking at the door of selfish
luxury and comfort, poverty demanding that in the
future every man should have the wealth created by his
own labour. That meeting of February 8th called the
attention of the people of Great Britain to this fact—
that below the upper and middle strata of society there
were millions of people leading hard, degraded lives—
men who are forced to live as they do, but who would, if
possible, work and live virtuous lives—men who through
the unequal distribution of wealth are consigned to the
criminal classes, and women into the enormous
army of prostitutes, whom we see in the streets of
our large cities. And as an artisan I cannot see poor
puny little babes sucking empty breasts, and honest
men walking the streets for four months at a time—I
cannot hear of women of the working classes being
compelled to resort to prostitution to earn a livelihood
—I cannot see these things without being moved not
only to strong language, but to strong action, if neces
*
sary.
My language on this occasion was the language
of a man anxious to obtain some system where, by a
* In his summing up, Mr. Justice Cave referred to this phrase as
a proof of the absolute sincerity of the defendant.
�!7
peaceful change, this poverty could be removed. The
Social-Democrats, who advocate these changes, are the
true policemen and true “ guardians of law and order,”
by preventing poverty and riot by removiug the causes.
And when the Attorney-General says we incited to riots
I say that the social system is to blame. It prompts
men to thieve, and it prompts women of the working
class to resort to dishonest acts, by not giving all a fair
start in life and not giving them an opportunity to get
honest work. Society journals demand our imprison
ment. Why? Because ^11,000 worth of windows
have been broken. But how about the sacred human
lives that have been, and are, degraded and blighted by
the present system of capitalism.
We have been told that our meetings had a seditious
character. Well, my lord, I have been unable to hear
what sedition is. I frankly confess I am inclined to
think if any man is to be indicted for seditious speeches
you will have to indict the 650 members of the House
of Commons. We have not done as the “ Loyalist ”
members have done in and out of Ireland. We have
not asked the Unemployed to line the ditches with rifles
to enforce their demands ; we have not suggested to the
crowd as Lord Randolph Churchill has suggested, that
civil war would be the only product of giving Ireland
Home Rule. On the contrary we have gone to
the Government and calmly and deliberately sug
gested to them matters of an economical character.
We have gone with deputations to the Local Govern
ment Board, to Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. G. W. E.
Russell, and Mr. Jesse Collings, and we have told them
for the last three years unless they move in the direc
tion we indicate there would be sure to be riot and re-
�i8
volt in the streets of London. My predictions made
twelve months ago to a Cabinet Minister have proved
true. The responsibility, however, is not with us, but on
those who neglect the warnings that have been given
to them ; and I contend everything that we did on the
8th February and at the Holborn Town Hall was con
sistent with the conduct of peaceful law-abiding citizens.
I ask you, gentlemen, not to forget that the times are
exceptional, that the poverty is excessive; all through
out the country people are suffering through no fault
of their own ; and I ask the jury to recognise this fact—
that what might be seditious on an ordinary occasion, is
an honest man’s duty when destitution exists. Here
we have a disorganised mass brought together in Tra
falgar Square—not called together by us, and I did my
best to lead a portion of the crowd away, for one thing
in order to avoid any conflict with the police. If we
had not taken this crowd to Hyde Park the result
would have been that the Strand would have been
looted from the Grand Hotel to Ludgate Hill. That
was the opinion of the Police, and that was mine too.
We adopted what we thought the best course. We took
the crowd as quickly as possible to Hyde Park. We
asked the crowd to disperse, and they did. The
Prosecution, instead of indicting those who were re
sponsible for the preservation of law and order, indict
those men who at great risk to themselves stopped the
thieves who were plying their trade, stopped men who
were inciting others to rob men and women, and
asked the crowd to protect the public property.
Those are the men who are indicted for sedition—
inciting to a breach of the peace. It is to be regretted,
my lord, that your time has been wasted by the hearing
�19
of a case of this description. I am inclined to think
that public opinion has completely changed since
February the 8th. A doctor cannot give one pill to
five men. Why was Sir Edmund Henderson dis
missed from his post? He had not been guilty of
seditious speeches, or of seditious conduct of any
kind—he has been forced to resign in consequence of
the faulty police arrangements on that occasion. His
dismissal exonerates us for occurrences that took place
because there were no police on the route from Tra
falgar Square to Hyde Park. Inthe opinion of the Com
mittee who were called upon to investigate the cause
of the riots the only reason for the damage of property
which took place was because there were no police from
Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park. And I am inclined
to think that we cannot be held responsible; the police
having been held to be responsible by an important
committee held upon the cause of the riots.
This Committee found, according to their official
report, that the condition of things in Trafalgar Square
was most threatening. What would it have been if, as
chairman of that meeting, I had not exercised the
control that I did over the large crowd that was there
assembled ? We find the police was in such a dis
organised state that according to the report of the
Committee the condition of Trafalgar Square on that
occasion was almost inconceivable. It was not incom
prehensible to me. I recognised the turbulent nature of
the crowd that I had to deal with, and I perfectly know
the working class over which I have some control—
perhaps in consequence of my strong voice—and I
exercised what capacity I had in the direction of making
up for the disorganisation of the police. Superintendent
�20
Dunlap proves that conclusively, so does the official
report; and when I heard that I was going to be prose
cuted for inciting to riot I was inclined to think, as Mr.
William Thompson has truly said, that this was
A Panic Prosecution.
It is a panic prosecution, my lord, and it has been
conducted in a state of confusion by the gentlemen
on behalf of the prosecution. Where is the evidence
to support their charge, in the tenth count, of seditious
conspiracy ? They have not brought a single witness to
prove the meeting was held for the purpose of taking
deliberate concerted action to commit a breach of the
peace. The only evidence they have brought has been
that of three witnesses, of whom two are descriptive
reporters of the Daily Telegraph, which is generally
known by the public as making spicy reports, and
giving descriptive summaries, sometimes of things that
do occur, but very often of things that do not happen.
This was the evidence on which the Government rely
in their prosecution. It is not necessary, or I could
give you dozens of instances and prove it distinctly,
that the Daily Telegraph is known throughout the world
as a rather lively journal, not particularly confined to
facts.
Of the reporters they bring two are on
the staff of that journal. The only independent witness
brought to corroborate this testimony is a gentleman
who makes cricket bats for the police; and probably
on the occasion of his visit to Scotland Yard he thought
he was killing two birds with one stone by acting as
informer to the Crown and getting an order for cricket
bats from the police for the ensuing season.
Gentlemen, you cannot rely on such evidence against
�a plain straightforward statement such as I have called
many witnesses to confirm. Superintendent Dunlap says
I was doing everything in my power to repress violence.
At 2-30 the witnesses who heard me speak point out
clearly that I tried to stop damage, and even at 4 o’clock,
when the procession left the square, I exhorted the men
not to damage public property, but to behave themselves
as men while they proceeded through the West End.
I contend, my lord, they have not adduced a single bit
of evidence upon which to build up the tenth count of
this indictment for seditious conspiracy. How could it
be a conspiracy ? At the Holborn Town Hall, when I
addressed 3,000 men there, I asked their opinion as to
the course to be pursued upon the subsequent occasion.
How could that be conspiracy when 3,000, including
detectives and inspectors of police, are taken into your
confidence ? If this is conspiracy the English language
to me has lost its import and effect. They simply call
four persons who testify to things done along the route
from Trafalgar Square. They have not brought a single
witness to prove that between Trafalgar Square and
the holding of the meeting our object was to cause a
breach of the peace on that occasion. And I am in
clined to think the gentlemen of the jury will not do
other than say we are not guilty, because, unless the
prosecution say we had a sinister motive, we most
certainly have the right to ventilate our opinions, unless
the right of free speech is interfered with in this case.
If the Government are anxious to get rid of what they
think to be dangerous and very competent critics, if
they want to strike a blow at our agitation, they will
not do it by putting the defendants in prison.
I am prepared to stand by what I said on that day.
�22
If I go to prison (as I think very doubtful) I shall serve
my cause, as Mr. Champion said, as well inside a prison
as out. The word prison has no particular terror for
me. Through the present system of Society life has
lost all its charm, and a hungry man said truly (as Isaiah
said in the Holy Book) that there was a time in the
history of our lives when it was better to die in prison
or better to die fighting than to die starving. As the
holy man said of old, so millions of men are thinking at
at the present moment; and if the governing classes
want to bring on a revolution of force, such as has been
mentioned by the counsel for the prosecution,
they will find it will come more speedily, and with
more violence, and with more saddening consequences
if they deny to the poor men of England (who are too
poor to pay for halls) the right to express their grievances,
and opinions in public meetings in the open air. Have
we not shown in Hyde Park, at the Holborn Town
Hall, and, since the riots, at Manchester and Glasgow
before 50,000 men, that we are able to control our
meetings ? The meeting in Trafalgar Square was not
convened by us. If it had been, no windows would have
been broken or any damage done. It is true that
damage was done, but it was a surprise to me that no
more windows were broken and no more damage done
through the streets, considering the angry derisive
jeering from the Carlton Club. The wonder is that
there was not more destruction of property, and that
no life was lost. If we had given the word not a single
inmate of the Carlton Club would have been alive
to-day.
We had no desire to excite tumult and
riot then ; we repressed the crowd as well as we could,
and with the control we exercised over a large crowd of
�23
40,000 or 50,000 people you may have some conception
of what might have taken place if our influence had
not been used to control those angry feelings. As the
learned counsel admits, no damage was done until we
reached the Carlton Club, because the incentive did not
exist till the crowd came there. That is the view I
have taken.
I have no more to say than that I thank your lord
ship and the jury for the courtesy and the respectful
attention that you have given us, placed as we are in
this singular position. But before I conclude, I should
like to say that the reporters of the Daily Telegraph are
in themselves unreliable because one of their staff has
given to a speech, which would have occupied more
than three columns in length, fifteen or sixteen lines.
How is it possible for a brief descriptive summary to be
given in fifteen or sixteen lines, when according to the
evidence of the more accomplished journalist of the
Times it should have occupied three columns ? Therefore
it seems that phrases have been picked out and twisted
and contorted to suit the ends of the Government in
their prosecution. They have given no qualifying sen
tences. They have contorted the context, and their
object has been to put before the jury five or six phrases
of a condemning character, without giving the whole
of the speech. In fact they have thought the jurymen
were placed in that box simply to prove that we were
guilty irrespective of evidence to the contrary. They
have successfully distorted that which they might have
taken intact.
What we have done has been to confine our agitation
within legitimate channels. We have used what in
fluence we had over our fellows to prevent any breaking
�of the law, any causing of disorder, and for that we are
indicted for seditious conspiracy. I say there is no
evidence to substantiate either of the two clauses, and
I would ask the jury, as they are for the moment the
guardians of the right of free speech, as they have in
the present instance an opportunity of laying down
either a good or bad precedent, I ask them in the
interests of justice,particularly in the interests of the
great mass of poverty-stricken men and women in this
country, not to allow this opportunity to pass without
stigmatising by their verdict as absurd, stupid, and
frivolous the prosecution that has been brought against
us by Her Majesty’s Government.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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Speech for the defence by John Burns : in the trial of the four Social-Democrats for Seditious Conspiracy : heard from 5th to 10th of April,1886, at the Central Criminal Sessions at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Cave
Creator
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Burns, John [1858-1943]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 24 p. : ill. (port.) ; 19 cm.
Notes: "From the verbatim notes of the official shorthand reporter." John Elliot Burns was an English trade unionist and politician, particularly associated with London politics. He was a socialist and then a Liberal Member of Parliament and Minister. [Source: Wikipedia 3/2018]. Date of publication from KVK.
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[Modern Press?]
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[1885?]
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T402
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Socialism
Trials
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Speech for the defence by John Burns : in the trial of the four Social-Democrats for Seditious Conspiracy : heard from 5th to 10th of April,1886, at the Central Criminal Sessions at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Cave), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Social conflict
Socialism
Trials (Conspiracy)
-
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61f4f5cb51ef1eb732f43d067eae76af
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY (
/(J
UV
Price One Penny.
.
.
TWENTY-FOUR PROOFS
.
THAT THE
BIBLE is NOT the WORD of GOD.
By a CAMBRIDGE GRADUATE.
«.
■
----------- ♦-----------
The 'popular doctrine concerning the Bible, taught by the
Church of England and other bodies of Christians, is that
it is a direct communication from an omniscient and all
wise God to his creature, man, inspired or breathed into the
minds of certain holy men of old. From this it follows, as
a logical necessity, that every syllable, from the first verse
in Genesis to the last in the Revelation of John, must be
absolutely true; that the morality and philosophy of the
Bible must be the most sublime imaginable; its history
perfect in accuracy ; and that its prophecies have been, or
will be, fulfilled in every detail. If this be not the case,
then we must conclude that it is purely human in its origin,
for we cannot suppose that it is partly inspired and partly
false, since God has given us no means of distinguishing
the inspired from the uninspired, and we should have tojudge for ourselves of its value—that is, use reason to the * . "
exclusion of faith, and treat it as we do any other book.
1. The Bible is clearly proved to be historically inaccurate, ’
since it contains contradictions in different accounts of the
same event. For example, we will take the story of the
resurrection of Christ. Matthew tells us that Mary Mag
dalene and the other Mary came to the sepulchre ; there
was an earthquake ; the angel of the Lord descended and
rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it; and
finally “ they did run to bring his disciples word ” (Matt,
xxviii., 1-8). Mark tells us that Mary Magdalene, J^Iary the
mother of James, and Salome, came to the sepulchre, found'the
stone already rolled away (no earthquake or angel this Time), .
and entering in they saw a young man sitting on the -right
side (evidently meant for the angel mentioned in Matthew,
since he gives the same message) ; and finally “ they
trembled and were amazed, neither said they anything to any
man” (Mark xvi., 1-8). Thus on the last .point Mark
flatly contradicts the other three evangelists. Luke tells
�2
us that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of
James, and other women that were with them, came to the
sepulchre, found the stone rolled away, and entering in,
“ behold two men stood by them in shining garments ” ; and
“ they told these things unto the apostles. And their words
seemed unto them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
Then arose Peter and ran unto the sepulchre ” (Luke xxiv.,
1-12). Lastly, John tells us that Mary Magdalene went to
the sepulchre (apparently alone this time), and seeing the
stone taken away, ran and told Peter and the other disciple
whom Jesus loved that they had taken away the Lord. The
two disciples went into the sepulchre, and not seeing Jesus,
went away again unto their own home. Mary stood with
out, and saw the two- angels sitting, “ one at the head and
the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain,”
and she came and told the disciples (John xx., 1-18). It
certainly requires a considerable exercise of faith (self
deception ?) to persuade ourselves that these four accounts
agree with each other in every detail; yet on their truth
hangs the central doctrine of Christianity—namely, the
resurrection of Christ; for “ If Christ be not risen, then is
our faith vain.”
2. The genealogies of Christ given in Matt, i., 1-17, and
Luke iii., 23-38, are different and contradictory to one
another. Not only are the names different, but while
Matthew gives twenty-seven generations from David to
Jesus, Luke gives forty-two 1
3. We are told by John that “ no man hath seen God at
any time ” (1 John iv., 12), and yet Jacob said at Peniel:
“ I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved ”
(Gen. xxxii., 30). Again, we find (in Exodus xxxiii., 11)
that “ the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man
speaketh unto his friend ” ; and in the 20th verse of the
same chapter we are informed that he said to Moses : “ Thou
Sanst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and
live ” ; and so he put Moses in a clift of the rock, and put
his hand over him, and took it away, and showed him his
back parts as he passed by. We are also told that there
“ went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and
seventy of the elders of Israel: and they saw the God
.of Israel : and there was under his feet as it were
a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were
the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the
�3
nobles of the children of Israel he laid^not his hand: also
they saw God, and did eat and drink ” (Exodus xxiv., 9-11).
After this it may be thought hardly worth mentioning that
Isaiah puts in a claim to having seen the Lord in a vision :
“ I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted
up, and his train filled the temple ” (Isaiah vi., 1).
4. The Laws in the Old Testament, which are said to
have been given to Moses by God himself, prove on exami
nation not to be calculated to refine, elevate, and humanise
the race to whom they were given, educating and leading
them to nobler things—“ a schoolmaster to bring them unto
Christ”—such as would come from an all-wise and bene
volent being, “ whose mercy is everlasting ”; but a code
infamously unjust and cruel, brutalising and degrading, in
its tendencies, showing the grossest superstition in the mind
of the lawgiver, and altogether what we should expect to
find coming from a barbarous and primitive people. One
example of the injustice of these laws will be sufficient:
“ If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and
he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Not
withstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be
punished : for he is his money ” (Exodus xxi., 20, 21).
5. Not only has the Mosaic code of laws cursed the race
to whom it was given, but even now it exercises a baneful
influence over the world ; those laws sanctioning and regu
lating slavery proving most formidable obstacles to the
abolition of the slave trade in the Colonies and Southern
States of America, where large meetings of ministers were
held declaring slavery to be enjoined by God; and in every
session of Parliament at the present time are they brought
up by the opponents of the Bill for legalising marriage with
a deceased wife’s sister.
6. The laws in the Old Testament on witchcraft (Lev.
xix., 31 ; xx., 6, 27, etc.) have caused tens of thousands of
innocent men, women and children to be burnt alive in the
middle ages, and now the world has discovered it to be a
purely imaginary crime 1 Is it possible that God, fore
knowing all this, would have inspired such laws ?
7. Polygamy is nowhere condemned in the whole Bible,
and is distinctly allowed in the Old Testament; the chief
saints, as Abraham, David and Solomon, being all poly
gamists.
8. We are taught that “ God is love ” and yet that he is
�4
going to burn the vast majority of mankind for all eternity
in hell; for “ strait is the gate and narrow is the way,
and few there be that find it ” ; “ many are called, but few
chosen ” ; “he that believeth not shall be damned.” Surely
no one will contend that the majority believe.
9. Paul teaches that God will torture us in hell, not for
resisting his will, but because he makes us sin without our
being able to resist. “ He saith to Moses, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I will have oompassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth
mercy. For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for
this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show
my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on
whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault ?
For who hath resisted his will? Nay, but, 0 man, who
art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed
say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus ?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same
lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto
dishonor ? What if God, willing to show his wrath,
and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.”—Rom.
ix., 15-22. So Paul teaches us to believe, not in a merciful,
all-loving Father, “ unwilling that any should perish,” but in
an omnipotent Devil, who amuses himself by roasting us in
hell for committing sins which he himself forces us to
commit.
10. The Bible does not solve the difficulty of the origin of
evil, but on the contrary states expressly that God is the
author of evil. “ I form the light, and create darkness : I
make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
—Isaiah xlv., 7.
11. There are many other passages which prove that the
God of the Bible, whom we are taught to love and reverence,
is malignant in character, and are wholly incompatible with
those passages attributing to him mercy and goodness. For
example, Paul says, speaking of certain persons, “ God shall
send them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
that they all might be damned” (2 Thess. ii., 11, 12).
Noble motive truly I
�12. In the Old Testament especially, God is represented
as approving of the most horrible atrocities ; among otherstoo numerous to mention, slaughtering all the Midianitesb
men, women and children (Numbers xxxi., 1-18}.
13. God is even represented as accepting a human sacri
fice, as in the case of Jephthah’s daughter, who was offered
up “ for a burnt offering ” (Judges xi., 30-39).
14. We submit that the basis of morality held up through
out the Bible is purely selfish ; not doing right because it is.
right, but rather for hope of reward in heaven, and from
fear of hell; trying to curry favor with God, no matter at
what expense to our fellowmen.
15. In some of the Psalms (read every Sunday in the
churches) we find sentiments simply diabolical in theirmalignity. David prays concerning his enemies, “ Let their
table become a snare before them: and that which should
have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their
eyes be darkened that they see not; and make their loins,
continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon
them, and let thy wrathful aDger take hold upon them..........
Add iniquity unto their iniquity : and let them not come
into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book
of the living, and not be written with the righteous ” (Psalms,
lxix., 22-28). Just fancy praying that your enemies may
not repent, lest they should get saved and not be burnt for
ever in hell! And this is implied in the above passage.
We can only compare this prayer, inspired by the Holy
Ghost into the mind of David, the man after God’s own
heart, for true charity and nobility of thought, with the
following passage of the Christian father Tertullian, who is.
so highly esteemed by the Church : “ Expect the last and
eternal judgment of the universe. How I shall admire, how
laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many
proud monarchs and fancied gods, groaning in the lowest,
abyss of darkness ; so many magistrates, who persecuted the
name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever
kindled against the Christians ; so many sage philosophers
blushing in red-hot flames with their deluded scholars ; somany celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not of
Minos, but of Christ; so many tragedians more tuneful in
the expression of their own sufferings ; so many dancers,” etc.
(De Spectaculis, cap. 30).
16. Again we find in another Psalm—“ Set thou a.
�6
wicked man over him, and let Satan stand at his right
hand. When he shall be judged let him be condemned,
and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few, and
let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually
•vagabonds and beg : let them seek their bread also out of
desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath,
and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to
extend mercy unto him ; neither let there be any to favor
his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off, and in
the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let
the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord,
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out ” (Psalm
cix., 6-14). In our churches and Sunday-schools to-day it
is taught that this is the inspiration of hi a who said, “Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you
and persecute you” (Matt, v., 44).
17. Jesus Christ prophesied that “ the son of man shall
come in the glory of his father with his' angels, and then he
shall reward every man according to his works. Verily, I
say unto you, there be some standing here which shall no
taste of death till they see the son of man coming m his
kingdom ” (Matt, xvi., 27-28). He said also, after referring
to the destruction of Jerusalem, “ Immediately after the
tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the
moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from
heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.
And then shall appear the sign of the son of man m heaven:
and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
shall see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels
with a great sound of a trumpet . . . Verily, I saij unto
you, this generation shall not pass till all these things ie ful
filled” (Matt, xxiv., 29-34). It is evident that these pro
phecies, which have been shown to be false by time were
understood by the apostles to be on the eve of fulfilment
when they wrote their epistles, for Peter and Paul apologise
for the end of the world not coming so soon as might be
expected (see 2 Peter iii., 3-12 ; 2 Thess. n.1-6) Peter
also says: “The end of all things is at hand (l Petei
iv , 7)/ Paul says: “ The Lord is at hand (Phil. iv., o),
and tells the Hebrews not to forsake their assemblies, and
�7
to exhort one another “so much the more as ye see the_
day approaching” (Heb. x., 25). James says: “Be ye
also patient; stablish your hearts, for the coming of the
Lord draweth nigh” (James v., 8). Jude says: “There
are certain men crept in unawares,” and after denouncing
them, reminds his readers of the words of Christ—“ How
that they told you there should be mockers in the last time ”
(Jude, v. 18). Lastly, John informs us that “the time is
at hand ” (Rev. i, 3). And all these things (and more, which
we have not room to notice) were written about the time
that “ that generation ” who heard Jesus was passing away.
Have not these predictions one and all been proved utterly
false by time, that trier of truth ?
18. The prophecies in the Old Testament, said by the
evangelists to refer to Christ, on examination will be found
wholly inapplicable. For example, Matthew (ii., 6) applies
to Christ the prophecy of Micah—“ And thou Bethlehem,
in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of
Juda : for out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule
my people Israel.” On turning to Micah, however, we find
that this “ ruler in Israel,” who he says shall rise up, is a
general, coming to defend them against the Assyrians ; for
he goes on to say: “ This man shall be the peace, when
the Assyrian shall come into our land : and wh< n he shall
tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven
shepherds and eight principal men. And they shall waste the
land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod
in the entrances thereof ; thus shall he deliver us from the
Assyrian when he cometh into our land, and when he
treadeth within our borders” (Micah v., 5-6). It is some
what difficult to see how this can apply to Christ; yet if
it cannot the Holy Ghost must have made a mistake in
making Matthew quote part of this prophecy as being ful
filled in Christ.
19. Again Matthew tells us that the words of Hosea,
“ Out of Egypt have I called my son,” were fulfilled in
Christ (Matt, ii., 15). On turning to the prophet we find
him chiding Israel for national ingratitude. “ When Israel
was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of
Egypt. As +hey called them, so they went from them : they
sacrificed umo Baalim, and burned incense to graven
images ” (Hosea xi., 1, 2). We will merely remark on this
that we have not sufficient faith to enable ourselves to
�8
believe that this is not simply an historical reference to the
Israelites coming from Egypt under Moses, much less are
we able to see in it an overwhelming proof of prophetical
power in Hosea.
20. None of the prophecies said to refer to Christ will
bear the slightest examination. For example: “He shall
judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people :
and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their
spears into pruning-hooks : nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”
(Isaiah ii., 4). Yet when the Prince of Peace did come, he
said: “ Think not that I come to send peace on earth: I
come not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to
set a man at variance against his father and the daughter
against her mother and the daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law” (Matt, x., 34, 35).
21. Science has clearly demonstrated that it is false that
“ in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day ”
(Exodus xx., 11).
22. Science has clearly proved that the grass and herbs
and trees were not created before the sun and moon and
stars, as stated in Gen. i., 11-18.
23. Science clearly teaches the utter absurdity of such
astronomical ideas as that “ God said, Let there be a firma
ment in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters
from the waters. And God made the firmament, and
divided the waters which were under the firmament from
the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven” (Gen. i., 6-8)
St. Augustine, in explaining this, informs us that the firma
ment was‘stretched across the sky like a skin. We suppose
this is what Peter refers to when he says “ the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise ” (2 Peter iii., 10).
24. If by any sophistry it were possible to reconcile
science and the Bible, it must still be admitted that in the
past God was unable to convey his true meaning on these
points, and not only has his revelation given rise to false
scientific ideas, but has hindered the development of science
at every tufti, and brought untold bitterness and persecution
in the last few centuries on scientific men, in addition to
wrecking the faith of many truthseekers at the present day.
Printed and Published by Ramsey and Foote at 28 Stonecutter Street, E.O.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Twenty-four proofs that the Bible is not the word of God
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cambridge Graduate
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Tentative date publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Ramsey and Foote
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1885?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N114
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
Rights
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Bible
God
NSS
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Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The new Book of Kings
Creator
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Davidson, John Morrison [1843-1916]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 123, [5] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: List of reviews of the book in four unnumbered pages at the end. Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
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The Modern Press
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1885?]
Identifier
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T399
Subject
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Republicanism
Monarchy
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The new Book of Kings), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
Language
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English
History
Monarchy
Republicanism
Socialism
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d50665091f5b7b4de90cf53fb8d649b7
PDF Text
Text
Price One Penny.
T4O/
POLITICS for the PEOPLE.—No. I.
MINING RENTS
— AND —
ROYALTIES.
By J. MORRISON
DAVIDSON,
BARRISTER-AT-LAW.
Author of “Eminent Radicals,” “The New Book of Kings," “Book of
Lords,” “ Useless, Dangerous,
and
Ought
to be
I
I For Special Prices for quantities to distribute in
to the Publishers.
I
Abolished,” &c., &c.
Mining Districts apply
LONDON :
I
THE MODERN PRESS, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C.
agAgent for U.S.A, W. L. Rosenberg, 261, East Tenth Street, New \ ork City.
�The Co-operative Commonwealth:
Exposition of Modern Socialism.
Gronlund, of Philadelphia.
paper, price is.
an
By Laurence
Demy 8-vo., cheaper edition,
“ The book, while just as readable and captivating as Henry George’s
Progress and Poverty, is far more logical and thoughtful: at the same time,
it is in a masterly manner adapted to the Anglo-Saxon public.”—New York
Volkszeitung (one of the largest Socialist papers in America).
“ The best account of German or State Socialism in English.”—New
York Sun (the largest capitalist newspaper in the States).
“The grandest and highest minded statement of Socialism I have ever
seen.”—H. D. Wright, Chief of Massachussetts Bureau of Labour Statistics.
The Emigration Fraud Exposed.
By
H. M. Hyndman. With a portrait of the Author.
Reprinted by permission from the Nineteenth Century for
February, 1885. Crown 8-vo., price id.
The Socialist Catechism.
By J. L. Joynes.
Reprinted with additions from Justice.
price id. Fifteenth thousand.
Socialism and the Worker.
Sorge.
Price id.
Royal 8-vo.,
By F. A.
An explanation in the simplest language of the main idea of Socialism.
The Appeal to the Young.
By
Prince
Peter Kropotkin.
Translated from the French by
H. M. Hyndman and reprinted from Justice. Royal 8-vo.,
16-pp. Price one penny. Tenth thousand.
The most eloquent and noble appeal to the generous emotions ever pen
ned by a scientific man. Its author has just suffered five years imprison
ment at the hands of the French Republic for advocating the cause of the
workers.
Are You a Social-Democrat ?
tinted paper.
"Why
4-pp., on fine
Price 5s. per 1,000, post free.
am a Social-Democrat.
I
4-pp., on
fine tinted paper. Price 5s. per 1,000, post free.
The above with announcement of Lectures, meetings, &c.,
printed on last page, 8s. per 1,000, 28s. for 5,000.
The Modern Press, 13, Paternoster Row, E.C.
And YNL L. ROSENBERG, 261, East Tenth Street, New
York City.
�MINING RENTS AND ROYALTIES.
F there be one thing in this world more astonishing
than that individuals should claim private property
in the surface of this planet, and have their claims
allowed by the Legislature of a free country, it
assuredly is that they should pretend to have a right
to the contents of its interior. A coal-hewer descends
into the bowels of the cold earth, and with infinite
toil and danger raises a ton of fuel for tenpence or
even eightpence. Another man, calling himself a
landlord, who is meanwhile, perchance, gambling at
Monaco or bear-hunting in the Rocky Mountains,
successfully exacts a toll of thirteen or fourteen pence
per ton on the entire output of a mine, or, it may be,
a score of mines ! Could there be a more startlinganomaly ? “ O Lord what fools these mortals be ! ”
is all the comment that any rational being can, in the
circumstances, make.
I
�4
Yet this was the kernel of the case which the
influential deputation of Members of Parliament, who,
in April, 1886, brought the question of mining royal
ties before the Liberal Home Secretary, had to sub
mit. True, Mr. Childers’ mind was a taint la 1 asa
as regards mining royalties, and not one of the
deputation ventured to suggest their nationalisation
—the only true remedy for the serious evils com
plained of. Still much good was effected by the
bare recital of the atrocious exactions which the land
lords habitually make both on mine lessees and
miners.
Mr. Stephen Mason, representing one of the
divisions of Lanarkshire, where trade depression is
peculiarly severe, instanced the case of a ducal high
wayman who preys on the mining industry of the
district to the extent of ^114,000 per annum. His
method of blackmail is this :—He benignly grants
leases for twenty-one years at fixed “ rents,” varying
from Z500 to ,£5,000. These are payable whether
the mine is worked or not. If worked, the moment
a certain output is attained “ royalties ” come into
play. These vary from çd. to is. 6d. per ton. No
mediaeval Rhine robber ever devised a more effectual
system of brigandage. Indeed, the landlord is the
undisputed master of the situation, and it is a marvel
that he has not succeeded long ere now in completely
�5
destroying the industrial supremacy of the country.
Mr. Mason told of an instance where a company
spent ^50,000 to get at a seam of coal.
They
reached it, but found that rent and royalty would
together absorb every penny of profit.
The land
lord would, nevertheless, have his entire pound of
flesh. Consequently the machinery has been stand
ing idle for four years !
But it is when leases come to be renewed that the
landlords’ harvest is really ripe.
Mr. Conybeare,
who represents a mining division of Cornwall,
revealed a state of things in his neighbourhood of a
singularly aggravated kind. When the lease of the
Dolcoath mine was renewed a fine of ,£2 5,000 was
exacted, The Duke of Bedford, in the case of the
Devon Great Consols Mine, levied a £20,000 fine.
As for the unfortunate lessees they might like it or
lump it. If they lumped it their engine-houses and
all their improvements went to the landlord without
compensation.
The landlord, moreover, on the
ground-rent monopoly principle, charged from five to
ten times agricultural value for the surface.
As to the amount ofannual tribute paid by the nation
on its mineral wealth to the landlords, no exact figures
can be given. But it is has been estimated that in the
year 1883 they pocketed on coal and iron ore alone
the vast sum of eight millions sterling. This enor
�mous drain in the face of falling and stagnant mar
kets, it is not too much to say accounts for half the
privations which working men are now suffering from
low wages and no wages. Our two staple industries
are admittedly iron and coal. They are controlling
elements in rails, ships, and manufactures of every
description. Every private toll levied on them is a
blight on every related form of employment.
Mr. Mason gave an instructive example of the
effect of a comparatively low royalty.
In Scotland
the minimum royalty on pig-iron is 6s. Some
of the Cleveland royalties on the other hand do
not exceed 3s. 3d. per ton. What is the con
sequence ? Scotland, where all the other conditions
of production are rather more than equal, is invaded
weekly by Cleveland iron to the extent of from 6,000
to 7,000 tons.
Nor is this the worst.
Differential home dues
might be endured, but to handicap the British iron
trade in its strenuous grapple with foreign competition
is a much more serious affair.
In most parts of
Germany the royalty on pig iron is 6d. per ton ; in
France it is 8d., and in both these countries royalties
are national dues, and not, as with us, private black
mail.
In Belgium the ordinary State royalty is
is. 3d. per ton, and even that handicap not
improbably accounts in no small degree for the pre
valent turbulence in that country of miners.
�7
I quote the following weighty sentences from an
admirable address by Mr. William Forsyth, the
eloquent President of the Scottish Land Restoration
League:—“Out of the eighty blast furnaces in
Cumberland forty are at this moment standing idle,
and the others are but partially employed.
There
are many causes which might have the effect of
keeping these forty blast furnaces idle. They might
be idle for want of capital; they might be idle for
want of men willing to work. Well, gentlemen, the
Cumberland furnaces are put out not because of any
lack of capital, for only within the last week or two
a company of employers there were willing to sink
£20,000 in raising iron-ore, and were only prevented
from doing so by the landlord’s ultimatum that he
would not reduce his royalty of 2s. 6d. per ton on
the ore which might be raised. The company found
thatwith this charge they could not raise ore as cheaply
as it could be imported from Spain, and they, therefore, abandoned their project.
Neither can it be
that there are not men able and willing to work, for
an ironmaster in Cumberland writes saying that
there are thousands of men unemployed who would
be glad to find work of any kind in order to save
their wives and children from starvation.”
“ I am informed that the girders of the St. Enoch
Railway Station, in our city, were imported from
j
�8
Belgium, and we know that the Barnsley Railway
Station was built of imported iron. ’ The Midland
Railway Company is at present importing large
quantities of iron and steel sleepers from Belgium.
The streets of London, Liverpool, Dublin, and
Belfast are being laid with tramway rails of foreign
manufacture.
Our Glasgow Municipal Buildings
are at this moment being built with iron girders
brought from Belgium, and paid for from the taxes
collected from the people of Glasgow. On looking
up at these girders we see in prominent letters the
name “ Maclellan,” and in our innocence we think
that if the cost of these buildings is great at any
rate the work is done by our own people.
But this
is not so. The ironmaster to whom I have referred
is himself the owner of eight furnaces specially
adapted to the manufacture of pig-iron and steel rails.
Four of these furnaces are idle, and yet he is actually
importing thousands of tons of iron and steel from
Belgium and Germany.”
Talk of high wages and short hours of labour
“ driving trade out of the country ! ” Why, if these
royalty footpads are not speedily got rid of there will
soon be neither trade nor wages left in it.
One
blast furnace produces in a week six hundred tons of
pig-iron. On that quantity the landlord’s royalties
amount to ^202 ; while the wages of the employes
�9
—managers, engineers, chemists, workmen all told—
average less than one half, or ^95.
The royalties
on British steel rails paid to the landlords amount
to 9s. 6d. per ton ; in Belgium they average is. 9d.
Is it any wonder that the Indian Department of
Government is monthly sending out to India thou
sands of tons of imported iron and steel rails and
sleepers ? Is it any wonder if in most cases it costs
about three times as much to construct a mile of
British railway as any other ?
A Cunard liner making the double or return jour
ney across the Atlantic consumes four thousand one
hundred and twenty-five tons of coal. This means a
royalty to the landlord of ^206 5s., or more than
the wages of the entire crew from captain to cabin
boy. Ina word, the owners of steamers pay to the
lords of land a tribute of ,£274,100 per annum. Of
course passengers and the producers of exports and
the consumers of imports are the ultimate victims.
What, then, is the remedy for this ruinous system
of exploitation ? Is it to be cured, as the deputation
suggested, and as Mr. Conybeare’s Mining Rates
Bill weakly proposes, by establishing a sliding scale
as between landlords and mine-lessees ? Certainly
not, unless the State is to step into the landlord’s
shoes. Every scheme to enable landlords to rob in
moderation is bad.
�IO
We are not without examples of the true solution
of the royalty problem in other lands.
In Germany, speaking generally, the Prussian law
of 1865 prevails. It vests all mineral royalties in
the State. No freeholder can raise minerals on his
freehold without a concession from the Government.
He dare not even, after due notice, prevent private
persons irom entering on his land to bore for the
discovery of minerals. The concessionaire of a mine
is entirely independent of the lord of the surface.
Concessions are made to any qualified person or
persons by a district oberbergamt, or office, on certain
conditions.
Concessionaires must (1) pay to the
State in royalty and inspection dues 2 per cent, per
annum on net produce ; and (2) form a- Benefit
Society, or Knappschajt Verein, for their workmen,
they contributing one-half the funds, the “ hands ”
the other. The Knappschaft Verein supports and
doctors invalid and injured miners, pensions widows,
and educates children free of expense.
In France private royalties were abolished at the
Revolution and made national property. The pre
sent law bears date 1810. It is the same in principle
as the German law. The concessionaire pays 5 per
cent, net produce to the State plus 10 centimes per
franc additional to form an Accidents Relief Fund.
A strictly limited rent is also payable to the lords of
the surface.
�11
The Belgian law (1810) is in the main similar to
the French law', but concessions made under the law
of 1837 are of a less favourable character, and
in some cases the dues mount up to 4s. in the
pound.
But we need not go beyond the limits of our own
Islands for a sound model of mining legislation. An
admirable Act of the Scottish Parliament (1592) still
in force, but audaciously set at defiance by the land
lords of Scotland since the union with England,
appoints a “ Master of the Metals,” with full State
control of all mines and minerals in the realm. He
is to secure 10 per cent, to the State, and is allowed
5 per cent, for inspection dues, &c. “ And by reason
that the said miners are in daily hazard of their lives
by the bad air of the mines and the danger of falling
in the same, and other infinite miseries which daily
occur in the said work, therefore our Sovereign Lord
(James VI.) exempts said miners from all taxa
tion whatever, both in peace and war, and takes
them all, their families and goods, in his special
protection,” &c.
This is the sort of thing that is wanted, and not
sliding scales to. give perpetuity to a system of pal
pable robbery, by which the State is defrauded of
some ten millions sterling per annum. And the
robbers !
�12
What are they ? The drones of the community !
They feed on the mechanic’s labour ;
The starved hind for them compels the stubborn glebe
To yield its unshared harvest.
And yon squalid form, leaner than fleshless misery,
Drags out his life in darkness in the unwholesome mine
To glad their grandeur.
Many faint with toil
That few may know the cares and woes of sloth.
r
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mining rents and royalties
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Davidson, John Morrison [1843-1916]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 12, [4] p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Politics for the People
Series number: No. 1
Notes: Publisher's advertisement p. 2. List of reviews of 'The New Book of Kings', by the author, on four unnumbered pages at the end. Tentative date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
The Modern Press
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1885?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
T401
Subject
The topic of the resource
Working conditions
Socialism
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Mining rents and royalties), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Mining
Royalties
Social conditions
Socialism
Working Classes
-
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dec8b8b413e3a359d4f26cf6435cd109
PDF Text
Text
PRICE QNE PENNY.]
[SEVENTIETH THOUSAND.
WHAT SHALL I DO
WITH MY VOTE?
A Few Plain Words to the New Voters.
BY
ERNEST PARKE.
■4-
The Right Hon. JOHN BRIGHT writes: “I have read your pamphlet, which
■contains much that is good. It is not easy to write as briefly and as simply as
is needed for the instruction of a large portion of the new voters ; but they will
understand much that you have written for them.”
Mr JOSEPH ARCH writes t “I have read your pamphlet very carefully. It
contains some very good advice to the new electors. Any one contesting a
county division would do well to widely circulate your pamphlet.”
-------- ♦--------
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made.
But a bold pe santry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
The Deserted Village
--------- *--------
London
W. Reeves, 185 Fleet St., E.C.; The Cobden Club ; or, The Author.
Birmingham: The National Liberal Federation, Colmore Row.
Manchester: The National Reform Union, 46, Brown Street.
Liverpool: The Financial Reform Association, 18, Hackins Hey.
All Booksellers in town and country.
�JRead these Facts
-------- ~0--------------
There are about 520 members of the House of Lords.
490 of them are Landowners, owning 15,213,000 acres, and
the rental is at least .£12,750,000.
They draw out of the national moneys for salaries, pensions,
etc., over £600,000 a year, of which the Royal princes take
£104,642, the Bishops £165,771, and other peers the rest.
Since 1850, the peers and their relations have had over
£100,000,000 out of the taxes.
If you want to know what they have done for it, look at
page 8.
The annual income of the bishops and parsons of the Church
of England is about £6,000,000.
The greater part of this belongs to the whole nation, and
might go to pay for the schooling of the children.
In about 120 years over 8,000,000 acres of common lands
have been enclosed.
Taxes on food and other goods brought into a country arepaid, not by the foreigner who sends them, but by the people
who buy them, because taxes make the goods dearer. It is
not the Chinaman, but the Englishman who pays the tax on
our tea.
If a tax were put on corn, every man who bought a loaf
would help to pay it and the benefit would go into the land
lords’ pockets.
If Tories deny this, read to them what Sir Stafford Northcote,
their leader, lately wrote, (see page 12).
�A TALK ON THE QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.
THE VOTE.
At last, after many years of waiting and hoping, you have the
vote, and you will be able to use it most likely this autumn. Up
till now you have been of very little account in politics. No one
cared what you thought because you had no power. But that is
all changed, and as your class is now very powerful, many people
will be telling you not only what to do, but what to think. But
you will be wise to think for yourselves, and not take your
opinions second-hand from anybody.
IT IS SECRET.
The first thing you should remember about the vote is that it
is quite secret, and no one can know how you have voted unless
you tell him. If any persons say that they can find out, it is not
true, and they are merely trying to make you vote for somebody
whom they think you dare not vote against. If you don’t say
how you vote, no one else can. This way of voting secretly, or
by Ballot, was made law by the Liberals in 1872, though the
House of Lords did all they could to prevent it. They were
afraid that the farmers would vote against their landlords some
times instead of voting for them. Many of you, I dare say, know
cases where, years ago, farmers have been turned out of their
farms for voting against the landlord or his friends; but that
cannot happen now, unless the farmer tells somebody how he
voted. Some years past the Marquis of Exeter, a great Tory
landowner, since dead, ordered all his tenants who were widows
to get married again or else leave their farms. . The women had
no votes, and he wanted only men as tenants, so that he could
make them vote as he liked. The Ballot has put a stop to doings
of that sort, and that is the chief reason why the House of Lords
opposed it so long.
WHOM WILL YOU VOTE FOR?
Feeling now quite sure that the vote is secret, the next thing
is, to whom will you give it ? It seems natural that you should
support that party which has for so many years tried to get you
the franchise. You know that the men who have struggled to
fet you your rights are Liberals. They have worked for you in
'arliament and out of Parliament. They have shown themselves
to be your friends before you had any power, and they are still
more likely to keep friends now you have got it The Tories,
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till a very few months back, always said you were not fit to have
the franchise because you were not educated. Then the Liberals
passed the Education Act in 1870, which gives every child in the
land an education, and soon we hope to make the schools free,
because it is for the good of all that every child should be educated’
The Tories thus lost this excuse, and then they took to saying
that you did not care anything about the vote, and would n®t
know what to do with it when you had got it. Last of all,
when they found it was of no use trying to keep it from you, they
said they had been in favour of your having it all along. They
became afraid you would vote against them, and so they are now
trying to make you believe they have always been your friends.
I don’t think you will be deceived so easily. You will most
likely agree with me that these facts form very good reasons why
you should trust your votes to the Liberals. But there are very
many other reasons.
ARE YOU CONTENTED?
A short time ago Sir Stafford Northcote, the leading Con
servative in the House of Commons, said he was afraid people
would be going about telling you that you had wrongs to be
righted and ends to gain, and that you were as good as your
betters. It is plain that he does not think so. He seems to
believe that you are quite happy and contented. If you are, it
will be of no use any one telling you otherwise. But if you are
not, if you think the laws, as they concern you, want altering,
then Liberals and Radicals mean, if you will help them, to get
the laws altered so that they may be just towards you and favour
you as much as others. Your vote will enable you to do this.
Up till now you have otly had to obey the laws ; now you can
help to make them as well as obey them.
THE LAND LAWS.
The Land Laws will have most interest for you, because they
affect your means of getting a living. If they are not good laws
as they stand now, farming must be bad, and you cannot get
better wages. Now, Liberals and Radicals believe that our
present Land Laws need altering, for they partly account for
there being so many millions of acres of land not being tilled
now. The result is that wages are low and thousands of labourers
have left the land, and either gone into the towns to try to get a
living, or else gone to America and other countries where men
are better paid for working on the soil. Mr. Chamberlain, M.P.,
says it is reckoned that there are about 800,000 fewer persons
living on the land in England now than fifteen years ago. Think
of that! It is the same as if two thousand villages, each with
400 people in, were all empty and the people gone away—God
knows where. I can tell you of a case in my native county
arwickshire—which will show you one way how this has
come about. A landlord there has about 3,000 acres, and besides
that he is a rich man. When times got bad, about 1875, his
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tenants asked him to reduce their rent. He refused, and they
left their farms. He had plenty of money, and it did not matter
to him if the farms were not taken. But what became of the
labourers on this estate ? They had to work or starve, and as
there was no work for them there, they had to go wherever they
could get it. I dare say most of you can call to mind cases like
this one. This landlord, who never lifted his finger to work,
had the power under the present law to send scores of hard
working farmers and labourers out of their homes, and
besides that the land produced no food, and the other rate
payers in the parish had to pay the rates that this land should
have paid. This is one way in which the law wants altering. If
the land will produce enough for the farmer and the labourer—
the men who really work—it ought to be farmed to grow food
for the nation. The landlord—the man who does not work—
can take his share out of the land after the other two have got
their living, but he should not be allowed to let the land lie idle
and starve the labourer because he cannot get as much rent as
he wants. He cannot be allowed to act like a dog in a manger,
who won’t eat the bait of corn himself, or let the horse eat it.
When a ship is in a storm, the passengers don’t throw the captain
and the crew overboard, but they pitch the useless lumber out.
So, when farming is bad, either through bad laws, bad seasons, or
bad prices, the farmer and the labourer should justly be the last
to suffer, and the rich, do-nothing landlord should feel the pinch
first. One good way to effect this is that suggested by Joseph
Arch—make landlords let their farms by compelling them to
pay rates, whether, empty or not. They would be glad to let
them then, if only to get rent enough for the rates.
THE DEAD MAN'S CLUTCH.
Other laws which must be done away with are the laws which
permit settlement and entail. These allow a landowner to tie
up his land for three generations, so that his son and his son’s
son do not own the land to do what they like with, but only
receive the rents as long as they live. The result of these laws
is that the landlord is not ©ften willing to spend any money
to improve the land, because all he cares about is to get as
much rent as he can as long as he lives, and if the farmer
makes the soil bear better, the landlord will only raise the
rent. Consequently the land is not tilled nearly so well as it
should be, and it does not find work for so many labourers as
it ought to. These laws the Liberals and Radicals will try to
do away with, and if you help them, they will certainly do it.
THE GAME LAWS.
In the same way, we must do away with the game laws. The
game feeds on the farmer’s crops, and as he keeps the game,
it ought to belong to him—if it belongs to anybody. I wonder
how many thousand English labourers have been sent to prison
for disturbing the sleep of those sacred rabbits and hares ! Land
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lords and parsons sit on the bench and try the cases, and they
order men to pay heavy fines or to go to prison, without ever
thinking of how great a temptation it is to a poor man to kill a
rabbit for his children’s dinner. But the game has been preserved
long enough. We must now make some laws to preserve the
labourers.
ABOUT ALLOTMENTS.
The law as to allotments is the one in which you will, perhaps,
feel most interest. In many parishes there have been allotments
for years which have been let out to a favored few, often at rents
much higher than were paid by the farmer on the other side of
the hedge, and when one of the labourers offended the parson or
the squire, the allotment was taken from him. In 1882, however,
as you may know, the Allotments Extension Act was passsed by
Parliament. Mr. Howard Evans, who has for many years worked
hard for the labourer’s rights, and whose name is well-known to
every reader of the Labourer's Chronicle, collected the facts and
figures for this Act of Parliament; and Mr. Jesse Collings, M.P.,
whose political life has also been mainly given up to the good of
the labourer, got it passed into law. By this Act it is ordered
that all land left for charity shall be let to labourers in allotments
if they ask for it, at the same rent as the farmers round about
pay. As Mr. Collings made the Bill, if a labourer could not get
the charity land, he was to apply to the judge of the nearest
County Court, who would inquire into the reason why he was
not allowed to have it, and the matter would soon have been put
right. But when the House of Lords examined the Bill, they
ordered that the labourers had to apply to the Charity Commis
sioners in London, instead of the County Court, which meant in
most cases they could not get the land at all if any difficulty arose.
To help labourers who were in this trouble, Mr. Collings started a
society for which a lot of Liberal gentlemen find the money, and
now any labourer who cannot get the people who manage the
Charity lands to let it out in allotments, should write to the
Secretary, Allotments Extension Association, Birmingham, and
he will advise and help him. But this is another law which must
be altered so that all Charity land shall be let out to labourers
who requre it If you show that you mean to have this done,
the law will be changed very soon. Mr. Collings is trying to get
another bill passed, called the Yeomen’s and Small Holdings Bill,
which will make it much easier for labourers to get allotments
•md plots of their own. But if you want good laws like this to
be passed, ask the men who come to you to be sent to Parliament
whether they will vote for such bills, and then you will know
what to do when you hear their answer. The Liberals and
"Radicals mean to get the people back on the land again, and that
the labourer shall have a bit of land to farm for himself, so that
he will have something to look forward to in his old age besides
the workhouse.
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TAKING THE PEOPLE'S COMMONS.
They alfeo mean to stop landlords putting fences round com
mon lands, which do not belong to them, but which belong to
the people of the parish. Landlords are very fond of enclosing
land like this, and often say they do it so that the land may
grow something instead of lying idle. But that is no reason why
they should farm it for their own good. Why not let it out in
allotments to labourers, and let the rent go to the good of the
parish instead of into the pockets of the landlords ? Mr. Jesse
Collings is going to try to pass a Bill making landlords who have
fenced in land that does not belong to them in the last fifty years
give it up again. In the last 120 years about eight millions of
acres, or land equal to one-third part of all the workable land in
England, have been enclosed by landlords. Parliament was, and
is now, full of landlords ; and they can pass Acts which favour
their own class very easily. For instance, when a fstrmer becomes
bankrupt, the landlord can send the bailiffs and seize his cattle
and goods for rent, but other people to whom he owes money
have to take their chance of getting paid, and often lose their
money because the landlord has taken all the farmer has got.
Why should not the farmer’s goods be sold and the money divided
fairly amongst those to whom he owes debts ?
LAWS MADE BY LANDLORDS FOR LANDLORDS.
But there are many ways besides this in which the lords and
landlords in Parliament have made laws to suit themselves. When
a man dies and leaves a lot of money, the people who come into
it have to pay a heavy tax. But, if a landlord leaves a lot of
land instead of money, those who come after him hardly pay
anything for tax. Do you think this is fair ? Then, again, the great
squires and lords often do not pay as much for rates as they
ought to. The reason of this is because they are so rich and
powerful that the people who charge them dare not charge them
their full share. I could name six or more of our noblemen, all
of them with over £50,000 a year, who pay much less rates for
their parks than their tenants do for their farms, and they
pay nothing at all for their immense palaces. It would seem
fairer if these very rich landlords were to pay rather more
instead of less, than poorer folks. But there is a worse case
than all these of how they have put their taxes on to the
backs of the common people. About two hundred years ago,
in 1660, when that immoral and base king, Charles II., came
to the throne, the nobles stopped paying him the rents for their
lands which they had always paid to the Government, and instead
they imposed Excise and Customs duties. This meant that they
taxed beer and other things that the people used, and thus the
people paid to the Crown the taxes which the land had always
paid. Then, in 1692, as the taxes did not bring in enough money,
the nobles agreed to pay 4s. out of every pound they received as
rent, but when land got worth more and rents rose they did not
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pay any m6re taxes; and the result is that now, instead of the
landlords paying about thirty-four million pounds in taxes for
their land, they only pay a little more than one million. They
have made the poor pay the biggest part by taxing the things
that are used most—such as tea, tobacco, and beer. Here are
some of the taxes which the poor pay though most of them do
not know it. Out of every shilling they pay
For cocoa, l|d. is for tax;
For coffee, l|d. is for tax;
For currants and raisins, 2|d. is for tax;
For tea, 4|d. is for tax.
For every 8d. spent in tobacco 2|d. is for tax, and |d. for
tobacco. Taxes make a shillingsworth of spirits cost 4s. 4|d.
The tax on a shillingsworth of champagne (which poor men
don’t buy) is £cL
TAXING THE POOR.
I will give you an instance of how the poor were taxed. This
case was brought before Parliament in 1842. William Gladstone,
a labourer, earned 11s. a week, and spent 7s. 7d. on food, as
follows :— 1 ounce of tea, 2 ounces of coffee, 8 ounces of sugar,
8 ounces of meat, 8 pounds of flour, seven pints of ale, and a
quartern of brandy.
s. d.
The real cost of these was .................. 2 4^
The taxes on these were
.................. 5 2|
7 7
Thus out of the £28 a year that this poor man earned, £18
went in taxes. A man who had £10,000 a year ought, at the same
rate, to have paid about £4,700 a year in taxes. Instead of that
he paid not more than about £500—that is the poor man paid
nearly ten times as much as the rich man, according to his means.
Since that day the poor man’s taxes have been lightened—chiefly
by Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals—but there is still plenty of
room for change, for even now the poor man pays a good deal
more than the rich man, considering how little he has to pay
with. Liberals hope to reform this, and make the laws so that
rich and poor pay each according to their means.
THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
You will remember that last autumn, when meetings were
being held all over the country to get the Franchise Bill passed
so that you can have the vote, a great deal was said against the
House of Lords. They had refused to pass the Bill. Everybody
expected they would not pass it, because they have always de
layed or refused to pass every Bill of importance that the
Liberals in the House of Commons have brought in for the
good of the people. Before 1-832 the Lords usedto govern the
country how they liked, without taking much notice of what -+-he
people who paid the taxes wanted. Nobody but wealthy
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*u-rdt, could sit in Parliament, and the House of Lords really chosethe greater part of the House of Commons. But in 1832 the
Liberals passed the great Reform Bill, after nearly two years’'
struggling with the Lords and the King. The Peers agreed to it
at last, because there had been riots all over the country, and
they could see, if they did not, we should have civil war inEngland. They did not know whether the soldiers would fight
against the people, or side with them; so, in their fear, they
passed the Bill. By this Bill large towns like Manchester, Leeds
and Birmingham were allowed to send members to Parliament,
and little villages of a few hundred people, and, perhaps, with
only a dozen electors who were in the pay of some lord, stopped*
sending members. This was the beginning of that great reform
which has brought it about that now every man in the country
who has a house has a vote.
TKH4T THE LORDS HAVE DONE.
It is easy to see that the more power the people got, the less
was left to the lords, but they have struggled hard to keep their
wrongful power. They have always opposed bills to make elec
tions cheap and stop bribery, because they were rich and could
afford to bribe. They opposed the Ballot because it prevents
them knowing how a man votes, and so they cannot threaten to
turn him out of his farm or cottage if he does not vote as they
want. They refused to do away with cruel laws which punishedpeople severely because they were Roman Catholics or Jews, or
because they went to chapel instead of to church. They, of
course, opposed the first efforts that were made to give the poor
man’s child a cheap education, partly because they were afraid
of the poor knowing how the lords have treated them for hun
dreds of years, and partly because there would be many other
people to teach the children besides the church parson. Then
they opposed the Liberals taking the taxes off paper, because
they knew when paper was cheaper the poor would be able tobuy newspapers for a penny or a halfpenny, and these would
educate the workman and tell him of his rights and his power.
They did all they could to prevent people in the towns from,
having town councils to manage their affairs for them.
HOW THE LORDS HAVE RULED IRELAND.
In Ireland they have been far more powerful than they have
here, and the result is seen in the dreadful condition of that un
happy country. For years the Lords refused to pass every Bill
which the Liberals proposed for the good of the Irish people;
and, as the English did not care quite so much as when theLords refused English Bills, the reforms were much longer
delayed. The greater nrnnber of the farmers there only have small
plots of land. They build their own houses of mud, and make
all the fences and hovels on the land at their own expense, but
when they cannot pay the high rents to their landlords they are
turned out on to the roadside to beg or die. I could tell you of
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cases where as many as seven hundred men, women and
children—some of them sick and ill—have been turned out of
their homes in one day because the landlord wanted to knock
down their houses and turn the land into sheep-farms. This sort
of treatment has been going on for hundreds of years, and the
Lords refused to alter the laws which allowed it, although some
Irish landlords themselves said they were most unjust. It is no
wonder that landlords get shot, and Fenians come over here and
make disturbances. It is almost certain that if we had had no
House of Lords, we should have had no Fenians. The high rents
and bad laws in Ireland will also explain why Irishmen come over
for harvest time and do work which Englishmen might do.
Always remember that our House of Lords, by refusing to pass
better laws for Ireland, has made that country so that millions of
the people have left it and come here to live or gone to America.
Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals overcame the Lords in 1881, and
passed a Land Act in spite of them. Ireland is much quieter
now, and when we have given the Irish full justice it is to be
hoped that they will live at peace with us. We must let them
know it is not the English people but the English lords who
have refused them j'ustice. Our lords own immense estates over
there, but most of them spend the money in London and abroad
which their Irish tenants pay. This helps to make Irish trade
bad and the people more discontented.
HARSH AND CRUEL TO THE POOR.
Then, again, the Lords have always been in favor of punishing
the poor severely. How the squires send men to prison for
making a rabbit run away you already know. But that is mercy
itself to what the Lords allowed by the laws. In 1810 it was
lawful to hang a man for stealing half-a-crown’s worth of goods,
and the Lords refused to alter the law although the House of
Commons wanted to. Between 1810 and 1845 it was reckoned
that 1,400 people were hanged for doing what, if they did it now,
they would only be sent to prison for. But the Lords refused
for years to alter the law, although often asked to do so. These
noblemen were rich and well fed, and did not know, or care,
what a temptation it is to a poor and hungry man to steal a loaf.
I wonder how many poor people have been sent to prison for
months for stealing a turnip not worth a farthing ? Of course it
is wrong to steal a turnip, but often a man’s character has been
taken away for life because he took some such trifling thing.
When rich men do worse things (for only very poor people steal
turnips) they generally have a chance to get off by paying. For
instance, in January last (1885) a married clergyman in Lincoln
shire committed shocking assaults on two little girls. He was
only fined £20 and lost his situation. If a poor man had done
such a thing, he would certainly have had a long time in prison,
and most likely would have been sent to penal servitude for ten
or fifteen years, and his family would have gone to the work
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house. So, when a noble lord, not long since, assaulted a servant,
instead of being sent to prison and hard labour like any other
man, they arranged it so that he hardly suffered at all.
THE LORDS, THE LAND, AND THE LABOURERS.
But you will feel most interest in regard to what the Lords have
done about the land and the labourers. Every effort that has
been made to get justice for the farmer has always been opposed
by the Lords, although they pretend to be his friends. You
know that when tenants leave their farms, however mutch they
may have improved them, their landlords were not bound to give
them any money to pay them back what they had spent in making
the sheds better, or in manuring the land, or doing other things
that improve the farm for all time. The House of Lords have
always opposed any attempt to protect the property of the tenants
from greedy landlords. In just the same way they tried to defeat
the Bill giving the farmers the right to kill hares and rabbits.
How they have passed Bills enclosing immense quantities of
common land, and how they spoiled the Bill giving you the right
to have charity lands cut up into allotments, I have already told
you. In Ireland they refused to cottage allotments the same fair
treatment which the law gave to large farms. Then the workmen
in towns have suffered from the action of these noblemen just as
badly. They refused to women and children working in coal
mines the protection from hard masters and long hours, which
Liberals tried to get for them in 1842. Many of the lords are
owners of coal-pits, from which they get immense incomes, and
they did all they could to keep women and children at work in
them for long hours because their labour is cheaper than men’s.
They also tried to spoil the Employer’s Liability Act, which gives
a workman or his widow a claim against his employer if he is
hurt or killed through his master’s or the foreman’s carelessness.
In fact, the House of Lords has always opposed every Bill
intended to do good to the working classes or make them more
free. These noblemen sit in the House of Lords because they
are the eldest sons of their fathers, and not because the people
elected them. That may have been a very good reason many
years ago,
BUT IT WONT DO NOW.
No matter whether the Liberals or the Conservatives are in
power in the House of Commons, the House of Lords is always
Tory, and no one will say it is fair that the Liberals who have
been elected by the peeple to govern them should have all their
work delayed or spoiled by a lot of rich landlords who are elected
by nobody. Even if a peer goes to prison, as some do sometimes,
he can go back and make laws for us or spoil other men’s good
work. The People’s League, whose offices are at 14, Bucking
ham Street, Strand, London, has been formed to spread the truth
about the Lords amongst the voters, and you may be sure that
when their evil deeds are more generally known by the voters,
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the House of Lords will be either changed or done away with.
The People’s League, before it had been started three months,
had over 100,000 members, and it is still growing rapidly; so
you see very great numbers of your fellow workmen have made
11 p their minds that we can do better without the House of Lords
than with it, and I hope you will think so too.
WANTING TO TAX THE LOAF.
There is one change which a good many Tory landlords and
others want to make. They would like to put a tax on all corn
that comes into the country—that is, they want to tax the loaf.
But you will find that nearly all the people who want to do this
are landlords or their friends. They will tell you that if a small
tax is put on the corn you will have more work and more money.
It is not true, and I will tell you why. The landlord would get
a lot more rent, but will you be willing to pay more for your
bread that rich men may still be richer ? There used to be a tax
on bread. Between the years 1815 and 1846 bread was always
taxed, and what was the state of the people at that time ? Far
worse than it is now. Landlords were better off, but the working
men were starving. Farmers were ruined by thousands. The
workhouses were full; thousands of families had no food, no
clothing, nothing; there were riots in many places, women sold
their we'dding rings for bread, people boiled nettles for food and
ate bad flesh. At this time there were only half as many people
in G-reat Britain as there are now. Do you want these dreadful
sufferings over again ? They were the result of a tax on bread,
which benefits nobody but the landlords. Your wages are very
much higher even now than they were then. Joseph Arch has
written a book which shows up the shocking state of the country
at that time but folks who want to tax your bread don’t tell you
of these things. They say to you, “ What is the use of cheap
bread if you have no money to buy it with ?” They mean you
to understand that if bread was dearer you would have more
money. It is false. Bad as trade is now, it was far worse when
bread was taxed, and would be still worse if we were so foolish
as to allow it to be taxed again. The real change that wants to
be made i-s to alter the land laws so that the soil may be freely
tilled. There would be plenty of work then, and very much
more corn grown at home than there is now.
HOW TO MEET A TORY DODGE.
In the month of April (1885) Sir Stafford Northcote, the
Conservative leader in the House of Commons, wrote—“As
regards the future, I am distinctly of opinion that a return to a
protective duty on corn would be impossible, and that the idea
that a Conservative Government would attempt to impose one is
groundless.” Lord Salisbury a few days afterwards expressed the
same opinion. When a Tory comes to you trying to make you
believe that a tax on corn would raise your wages, show him this
sentence of Sir Stafford Northcote’s, and ask him why he is so
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dishonest as to recommend a plan that his own leaders will not
carry out and declare to be impossible.
THE CHURCH.
Now there is the question of the State Church. You know
that the Church of England, which does not include nearly half
the nation, uses for itself alone money which was meant just as
much for the poor as for the parsons. The Church is thus very
wealthy and powerful, and though the parsons are often good
and kind men, in many cases they use their power against the
poor who go to chapel, or who don’t send their children to the
church school, and they forget these poor people when the time
comes round for giving out blankets and coal. Sometimes
these parsons are magistrates and I have known some who have
been very severe in sending men to prison for poaching. When
they are on the Boards of Guardians, they often forget what
their Great Master told them about being kind and merciful.
Well, the Radicals are working to put an end to the special
power which the State gives to the Church of England, and they
wish to have the enormous wealth of the Church spent for the
good of all the people. For instance, it might be used in paying
for the schooling of the children. It was meant for all the
people years ago, and it ought to belong to all the people now,
instead of to only a part. These parsons are usually great friends
of the squires and the landlords. They taught you at school and
at Sunday school to be contented in that state of life into which
it shall please God to call you. You have learnt since that it is
a good thing for a man to better himself when he can. It is easy
to see why the parsons have taught you to be contented, for, as a
rule, they want the laws to stop as they are, instead of being
made better. The parsons and the bishops have always done
their best to prevent changes being made for the good of the
people. They often say the State church is the poor man’s
church, but if that is so, it is a strange thing the bishops and
most of the parsons always oppose laws meant to give poor men
their rights. The laws ought not to favour one church more
than another, and we must do away with the State church, so
that church and chapel will be on the same footing.
VOTE FOR PEACE AND AGAINST WAR.
Lastly, always vote for peace. No lasting good comes to
working men or anyone else from war, which wastes our taxes
and sheds the blood of our fellow men, and all for no real good.
Often wars are made by our rulers without the people being
asked, but the people have to find the money and the men,
although often they don’t agree with the objects for which war
is being made. War makes trade bad and wages low. Nothing
but misery and sorrow comes from it. It may be to the advan
tage of lords and gentlemen who are officers to fight and get
higher rank, but it can never be to the good of working men to
make war except to defend ourselves whaa attacked, and that
�14
we shall be always sure to do. It will help you to understand
what a curse war is when I tell you that out of every pound we
now pay in taxes 16s. 3^cL goes for war, war debt, or war prepa
rations and 3s. 8jd. for all other purposes of government.
WEIGH THESE CLOSING WORDS WELL.
. I have tried to show you some of the objects which you may
like to strive for. If you set your mind upon getting them, you
Can do it, for there are thousands and thousands of your brothers
and relations in the towns who are bent on getting the laws and
changes I have set before you. But how are you to do it ? By
acting together; and, if possible, through your Union. Taken
one at a time, your votes are worth very little : taken altogether,
there are no just and right things you cannot accomplish in timeby means of your votes. But you must not think these objects
can be gained without long and hard work. You must show the
men who want to be your Members of Parliament that you mean
to have these things, and tell them that if they won’t vote for
what you want, you won’t vote for them. We send men to Par
liament to do as we want, not to do as they like, and we must
make them understand it. The Liberals in town and country
everywhere will help you to improve your condition; they will
aid you in gaining whatever is rightly yours. Stand shoulder to
shoulder ; work steadily with your mates for the same just ends,
and there is no class in this country which is strong enough to
deny you your rights when right is on your side.
ERNEST PARKE.
103, Camberwell Grove, London, S.E.
�15
Bow the Lords and Bishops have Voted.
Some Samples oe Hereditary Legislation.
1807—Rejected Bill appointing a Committee of Council for Education.
1810—Rejected Bill abolishing Punishment of Death for stealing
goods value 5s. Seven bishops voted against the Bill. None for it.
More than 200 crimes then Capital.
1825—Rejected Catholic Relief Bill.
1829—Disfranchised 40s. Freeholders in Ireland.
1831— Rejected Reform Bill. 21 bishops assisted. Great riots.
1832— Mutilated Reform Bill in Committee. Renewed riots. Runon the Bank of England. Country on the brink of Revolution.
Refused to open Universities to Dissenters.
1833— Compelled withdrawal of Irish Education Bill.
1833- 57—Denied civil and political rights to Jews. 20 bishops
assisted. Rejected the Commons’ Bill seven times.
1834—Refused to allow more than 20 persons to meet for worship
in private house. Three times rejected Tithe Abatement Bill; also
Bill for legalising marriages in Dissenting chapels.
1836—Ordered banns of Dissenters’ marriages to be read before
Boards of Guardians. Mangled Municipal Reform Act.
1838—Refused to mothers the custody of infants during separation
caused by fault of father.
1839— Continued death penalty for sheep-stealing. RejectedNational Education Bill.
1842—Refused to give women and children working in mines the
full relief of the Commons’ Mines Regulation Bill. Prevented protec
tion of miners for 30 years.
1845—Refused compensation to the Irish tenants, and so for 25 years.
1858—Refused church rates abolition, and for next 11 years; 24
bishops in the majority.
1860—Rejected Bill taking tax off paper, which meant cheap press..
1868— Threw out Irish Church Disestablishment resolutions. Emas
culated Artisans’ Dwellings Bill.
1867-70—Thrice refused University Tests Abolition.
1869— Mutilated Irish Church Bill. Refused to allow Life Peerages.
1870—Mangled Irish Land Act.
1871—Rejected Army Purchase Bill. Threw out Ballot Bill and
next year made secrecy optional.
1873-6-7-9—Refused to amend Burial Laws.
1879 and since—Refused to legalise marriage with a deceased wife’s
sister.
1880—Rejected Compensation for Disturbance Bill. Ireland became
in a state of anarchy. Threw out Irish Registration of Voters Bill.
1882—Made Allotments Extension Act unworkable.
1883—Maintained Trap Pigeon Shooting. (No Bishops attended tovote.) Spoiled English Agricultural Holdings Bill, but retreated.
1884— « Hung up ” the County Franchise Bill.
After reading the above, do you net think that the House of
Commons was right when, in 1649, it resolved that the House of
Lords “ was useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished ?”
�ALL THE NEW VOTERS
Should Read
The English Labourers’
CHRONICLE.
THE
1
Organ of the National Agricultural
Labourers’ Union.
ORDER OF ANY NEWSAGENT.
SOLD IN EVERY COUNTY.
Full of Interest for Workers and Voters.
The CHRONICLE contains—
News and Political Articles,
by Well-known Writers,
AFFECTING THE
WELFARE AND WAGES
OF THE LABOURERS.
ONE PENNY WEEKLY
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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What shall I do with my vote? : a few plain words to the new voters
Creator
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Parke, Ernest
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from internal evidence (list of House of Lords votes ends with date of 1884, and text refers twice to 1885). Advertisement for the English Labourers' Chronicle on unnumbered page at the end.
Publisher
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W. Reeves
Date
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[1885?]
Identifier
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T469
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Socialism
Politics
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (What shall I do with my vote? : a few plain words to the new voters), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Great Britain-Parliament
Great Britain-Parliament-House of Lords
Great Britain-Politics and Government-1837-1901
Land tax
Politics-Britain
Socialism