s
on Mr. H. C. Cattell of 84 Fleet Street, who had so annoyed the bigots
by exposing the Christmas Number of the _Freethinker_ in his window.
Detectives also visited other newsagents and threatened them with
prosecution if they persisted in selling my paper. It was evident that
the City authorities were bent on utterly suppressing it. They tried
their utmost and they failed.

CHAPTER VI. PREPARING FOR TRIAL.

There were many reasons why I did not wish to be tried at the Old
Bailey. First, it is an ordinary criminal court, with all the vulgar
characteristics of such places: swarms of loud policemen, crowds of
chattering witnesses, prison-warders bent on recognising old offenders,
ushers who look soured by long familiarity with crime, clerks who gabble
over indictments with the voice and manner of a town-crier, barristers
in and out of work, some caressing a brief and some awaiting one; and
a large sprinkling of idle persons, curious after a fresh sensation
and eager to gratify a morbid appetite for the horrible. How could the
greatest orator hope to overcome the difficulties presented by such
surroundings? The most magnificent speech would be shorn of its
splendor, the most powerful robbed of more than half its due effect.
In the next place, I should have to appear in the dock, and address the
jury from a position which seems to require an apology in itself. And,
further, that jury would be a common one, consisting almost entirely of
small tradesmen, the very worst class to try such an indictment.

For these and other reasons I resolved to obtain, if possible, a
_certiorari_ to remove our Indictment to the Court of Queen's Bench; and
as the first Indictment had been so removed, I did not anticipate any
serious difficulty. On Monday, February 19, after travelling by the
night train from Plymouth, where I had delivered three lectures the day
before, I applied before Justices Manisty and Matthew, who granted me
a rule _nisi_. But on the Saturday Sir Hardinge Giffard moved that the
rule should be taken out of its order in the Crown Paper, and argued on
the following Tuesday. Seeing that the Court was determined to assist
him, I acquiesced in the motion rather than waste my time in futile
obstruction. On Tuesday, February 27, Sir Hardinge Giffard duly
appeared, supported by two junior counsel, Mr. Poland and Mr. F. Lewis.
The judges, as on the previous Saturday, were Baron Huddleston and Mr.
Justice North. The fo