Never during the whole of our childhood did my father once raise his hand against us, never once did he speak a harsh word. We were whipped, for my mother held the old-fashioned, mistaken notion that to "spare the rod" was to "spoil the child;" but when scolding or whipping failed to bring obedience, the culprit was taken to that little study; there a grave look and a grave word brought instant submission. But it seldom went beyond the threat of being taken there, for we loved him so that we could not bear him even to know when we were naughty.
I feel that much of this may well seem very trivial to those who read my book, but my excuse for dwelling so long on such details is that even the most ordinary incidents in my father's history have been misstated and distorted. I take my opportunity whilst I may, for many lie cold in the grave, and mine is now almost the only hand which can nail down the wretched calumnies which strike at such small personal matters as these.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE "NATIONAL REFORMER."
Those who have travelled with me thus far will have noticed that the story of Mr. Bradlaugh's public work is carried down to 1860, just prior to the inauguration of the National Reformer. This I thought would be a good point at which to break off and look at what his private life and home surroundings had been during that time; and the account of this I have brought down to about the year 1870. I will now retrace my steps a little and go back to 1860 to take up again the narrative of my father's public work, and to tell of the starting, carrying on, and vicissitudes of the National Reformer, of the stormy lecturing times when Mr. Bradlaugh delivered twenty-three or more lectures in one month, travelling between Yarmouth and Dumfries to do it and home again with perhaps less money in his pocket than when he started. Italy, Ireland, the Lancashire Cotton Famine, the Reform League, the General Election of 1868, these and other matters of more or less importance will bring us again to the year 1870. That year brought with it such important events touching both the private and public life of Mr. Bradlaugh that it made, as it were, a break in his life, and marked a new era in his career.
The Sheffield Freethinkers, as I said a few pages back, almost adopted the young "Iconoclast" as their own. In him they found a bold, able, and untiring advocate of the opinions they cherished; in them he, in return, found full appreciation of his efforts, kind friends and enthusiastic co-workers. This union had not existed long before it resolved itself into a practical form—the promulgation of the National Reformer. The initiation of the idea came from Mr. Bradlaugh, who naturally sighed after his lost Investigator; but as neither he nor any one of these Yorkshire friends was sufficiently wealthy to take the sole risk of starting and running a newspaper, a committee of Sheffield, Bradford, and Halifax men formed a Company and issued a prospectus, which was inserted in the Reasoner of February 12, 1860.[34] This original Prospectus is very interesting, and a perusal of it will show how closely, except on one or two matters of detail which have necessarily altered with the times, the programme of the latter day National Reformer adhered to that issued thirty-four years ago. A careful comparison of the policy embodied in this Prospectus with the policy of the paper up to January 1891 will entirely disprove the various assertions of modifications airily made by many persons; by some carelessly, these never having troubled to make themselves acquainted with the facts; by others wilfully, regardless of the truth within their knowledge.
The arrangements for the paper were completed, and announcements concerning it made, when Mr. Joseph Barker returned to England from America. His coming was heralded by a flourish of trumpets—literary trumpets, that is—receptions were arranged to welcome him, and there was evidently a widespread notion that Joseph Barker was a very great man indeed. It is difficult for us to-day, having before us his whole public career, with its kaleidoscopic changes of front, to realise the enthusiasm which his name provoked in 1860. But be that as it may, it is quite evident that at that time his reputation stood high amongst English Freethinkers; and, in an evil hour, Mr. Bradlaugh, thinking that the co-operation of such a man would be of great advantage to the cause he had at heart, suggested to the Sheffield committee that Mr. Barker should be invited to become co-editor with himself. The suggestion was readily adopted, and all future announcements concerning the National Reformer contained the two names, Joseph Barker and "Iconoclast," as "editors for the first six months."
The issue of the first number was promised for April 8th (1860), but apparently there was some little difficulty in getting it under way, and it was not until the following Saturday,[35] April 14th, that the new venture was fairly launched. According to the arrangements made between the committee of management and the editors, Mr. Joseph Barker edited the first half (four pages), "Iconoclast" the second; and in this last half were put all the parliamentary, co-operative, and society reports, announcement of lectures, and advertisements. I conclude that after a few numbers, Mr. Bradlaugh found all these reports greatly curtailed the space available for original articles by himself or his contributors, for very soon the Parliamentary reports were abandoned, and criticism of measures before the Legislature, written either by himself or by "Caractacus," were substituted. The "original" poetry, I remark, was mainly confined to Mr. Barker's side (I use the word "original" because it appeared in the Prospectus); and even there the poetic seed seems to have taken some time to germinate, for until the tenth number only two or three stray shoots appeared; with "No. 10," however, it suddenly blossomed into upwards of a column of verses. These verses are from the pens of Charles Mackay, John G. Saxe, Longfellow, and Richard Howitt, and it is a heavy demand upon us to believe that they made their first appearance under the auspices of Mr. Barker in the National Reformer. After this number there was seldom an issue without some verse—"original" or otherwise. There is one small matter which has amused me immensely in connection with the National Reformer (and also with the Reasoner), that is, the enthusiastic advocacy of the Turkish Bath. A casual observer, say a Hindu or a Confucian, coming to these papers with an entirely unbiased mind, might well imagine that the Turkish Bath was a mainstay of Secularism, such is the ardour with which its merits are put forward. At each town visited by the different editors, wherever there was a Turkish Bath, the bath is also visited, reported upon, and if possible, commended in their respective papers. Thus, in the first number of the National Reformer, Mr. Barker winds up an account of "My lecturing tour" by a detailed description of the bath at Keighley, and refers more briefly to those he revelled in at Sheffield, Huddersfield, Rochdale, Stockport, and Bradford. He seems to have been a new convert, and on that ground perhaps may be excused the eagerness which carried him to such flights in his description as to record the momentous fact that the drying sheet was "fringed with red." While Mr. Barker thus describes in his half of the paper, "Iconoclast" in the four pages under his charge devotes two-thirds of a column to an article on "Cleanliness," in which he also extols the Turkish Bath, but with the calmness and matter-of-fact manner of an old frequenter. Mr. Jagger of Rochdale and Mr. Maxfield of Huddersfield are especially and discriminatingly praised for the comfort and cleanliness of their arrangements. We are all tolerably familiar with the proverb "Cleanliness comes next to Godliness," but any one reading the Freethought papers of thirty odd years ago would be compelled to admit that it took a very front place in the principles of Secularism then.
As a matter of course, Mr. Bradlaugh addressed some "First words" to his readers; from this I will detach two sentences, and two only; and these because they embody, in forcible language, truths as sound to-day as at the moment when they were written. Let us unite against the clergy, he urges upon his Freethinking readers, for "the Bible is the great cord with which the people are bound; cut this, and the mass will be more free to appreciate facts instead of faiths." Then in praising the efforts at Co-operation at Rochdale, he adds: "I would say to the men of other towns, do not strike against your masters, ye who are servants, but combine to serve one another in co-operative associations, which will enable you to employ and elevate yourselves, and in time