I have not been able to get a report of the debate with Dr Mensor, and indeed I do not think one was ever printed. The discussion with the Rev. T. D. Matthias was for many years on sale with other Freethought publications, and has doubtless been read by many. The subject of the debate was "The Credibility and Morality of the Four Gospels," and it was continued for five successive nights – October 31st, November 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 1859. It grew, as we have already seen, out of lectures delivered in Halifax by Mr Bradlaugh, and was with one or two exceptions conducted with such calmness, courtesy, and good feeling, that at the conclusion each gentleman expressed his appreciation of the other. The Court debate was not held until 1860, and was a four nights' debate, terminating on March 20. The use of the City Hall was refused on the ground "that such meetings tend to riot and disorder," and the discussions were therefore held in the Trades' Hall, which on each evening was crowded to the door. The chair was taken by the late Alexander Campbell, whom Mr Bradlaugh speaks of as "a generous, kindly-hearted old Socialist missionary, who, at a time when others were hostile, spoke encouragingly to me, and afterwards worked with me for a long time on the National Reformer." Mr Campbell edited the Glasgow Sentinel, and in the issue of March 17, 1860, there is an allusion to the debate then being carried on between "Iconoclast" and Mr Court, of "The Protestant Layman's Association." Says the Sentinel, "Few Scottish clergymen are fit for the platform. The pulpit, indeed, unfits for logical debate, but the Protestant community ought to feel well pleased that in Mr Court … they have a skillful and redoubtable champion of Christianity." The Glasgow Daily Bulletin, giving a few words to the final night, says that "the speaking during the evening was excellent and occasionally excited, but the conduct of the audience was orderly in the extreme. Mr Bradlaugh was animated and forcible, and exhibited many of the traits of a great speaker. Mr Court's university career is evidently polishing and improving him." The audience passed a resolution of censure upon the authorities who refused the City Hall, regarding it as involving a slander upon the community of Glasgow. A friend, after much searching, came across and sent to me a fragment of the published debate; but as it contains only one complete speech from each disputant and parts of two others, one cannot say much about it. Mr Court seems to have been unusually smart, and the Daily Bulletin's reference to his "university career" accounts for the numerous literary quotations which adorned his speech.
The Paisley Journal gives a short notice of the debate with Mr John Smart of the Neilson Institute, which was held for two successive nights in the Paisley Exchange Rooms in March 1860. Speaking of the first night's audience, it says it "was the largest we ever saw in the Exchange Rooms, the whole area, gallery, and passages being crowded;" on the second night the audience was estimated at between 1100 and 1200. The discussion for the first night was upon the four Gospels; and the editor remarks: "Of course, there will be differences of opinion as to which of the debaters had the best of the argument; but those who could clear their minds of partisanship will perhaps be of opinion that Mr Bradlaugh's speeches displayed boldness and vigour, with great information on the subjects at issue; that Mr Smart showed himself as an accomplished scholar, with a mass of knowledge ever ready to bring up in illustration of his views; and that each had a foeman worthy of his steel." The subject for the second night was a consideration of the teachings of Christ. The Journal thought that "both speakers brought their best arguments and greatest powers of intellect into the subject." Mr Bradlaugh enforced his objections "in powerful voice and vigorous language, and with telling effect. In his own quiet scholarly way – closely, tersely, and clearly, Mr Smart took up most of the objections and discussed them seriatim." It will be seen that the Paisley Journal, at least, tried to clear its mind of "partisanship," and to hold the scales evenly.
CHAPTER X
HARD TIMES
The question will probably have presented itself to many minds, If Mr Bradlaugh was giving up so much time to public work, to lecturing, reform meetings, debating, etc., how was he living the while? what was his home life, and in what way was he earning his bread? It will be remembered that, after leaving the army in 1853, he was before the year was out in the employ of Mr Rogers, solicitor, of 70 Fenchurch Street, first as "errand boy" at 10s. a week, and then as clerk at a slowly increasing salary. After a few months at Warner Place, he and my mother went to live in a little four-roomed house at No. 4 West Street, Cambridge Heath, where my sister Alice was born. In the previous January my father had had a very troublesome piece of litigation to conduct for his firm at Manchester. Often and often has he told us the story of it, and he used to work us up into a state of excitement by his graphic account of his capture of two men at night from a common lodging house in one of the low parts of Manchester; of his interview at the Albion Hotel with Mr Holland, a surgeon implicated in the case, who, when my father rose to ring the bell for some lemonade, mistaking the intent, rose in alarm, and cried, "For God's sake, don't!" These and other episodes in the case remained clearly enough in my memory, but when I wished to retell the story in a connected form, I found myself altogether at a loss. First of all, I could not remember that my father ever mentioned the date of these legal adventures, and without the date I could do little in the way of searching for press reports. However, I found a clue to this in the following letter, which was amongst those papers of my mother's which, as I have said, I looked through quite recently for the first time: —
"Madam, – Mr Bradlaugh has been kind enough to send me, during the last few days, some Manchester newspapers containing reports relative to the case of suspected poisoning. Not knowing where to address him now, I take the liberty of writing to you. Will you be so kind as to convey to him my thanks for the papers, and my hearty congratulations on his having obtained the management of the prosecution; it is an opportunity of distinguished service. With his wonderful acuteness and energy (Mr Bradlaugh and myself are such old and close friends that we do not mince words in speaking of or to each other) he will surely distinguish himself, and thus, as I suppose and hope, begin a fair way for promotion, as we phrase it. Watching the case with great interest, I thought his cross-examination of Mr Holland, the surgeon, extremely good and well conducted; but as this is merely an unprofessional opinion, he will not care much for it, although so favourable.
"Trusting that yourself and the other members of the family are enjoying good health, I have the honour to be, Madam, yours most respectfully,
"Mrs C. Bradlaugh."
Apart from the subject, this letter has in itself a special interest to personal admirers of "B. V.": the handwriting – the earliest specimen in my possession – is singularly unlike Mr Thomson's writing of later years, so unlike that it was not until I had looked at the signature that I realised who was the writer, although I am so familiar with his writing that I should not have thought it possible that I could hesitate in recognising it.
The poisoning case must have aroused considerable attention in Manchester at the time. It arose in this way: – An insurance company called The Diadem Life Insurance Company had reason to believe that frauds were being practised upon them in Manchester through their agent, and consequently instructed their solicitor to investigate one case which they deemed unusually suspicious. The solicitor happened to be Mr Rogers, and he sent his clerk, Mr Bradlaugh, to Manchester to conduct the proceedings there. A man named John Monahan, a waterproof worker, had become insured in the Diadem Office for £300; and after paying the premiums he died, leaving a will securing the £300 to his son James Monahan. Certain facts had been kept back from the Insurance Company at the time of taking out the policy, and the man's age had also been wrongly given. Investigations led, first, to the belief that the will had not been written until three weeks after the testator's death – and this was subsequently sworn to by witnesses, one of whom wrote out the will – and finally, to the possibility that the old man, John Monahan, had been poisoned. Two men implicated in the matter Mr Bradlaugh himself captured and handed over to the police in the middle of the night, and, in consequence of the evidence sworn to, an order was made for the exhumation of the body of Monahan. As there was no record of the place