he author of the book----

Mr. Justice North: What is the name of the book?

Mr. Foote: The book is the 'Autobiography of John Stuart Mill.'

Mr. Justice North: What are you going to refer to it for?

Mr. Foote: I am going to refer to one page of it, my lord.

Mr. Justice North: What for?

Mr. Foote: To show that identical views to those expressed in the
cheap paper before the court are expressed in expensive volumes.

Mr. Justice North: I shall not hear anything of that sort. I am
not trying the question, nor are the jury, whether the views
expressed by other persons are sound or right. The question is
whether you are guilty of a blasphemous libel. I shall direct
them that it will be for them to say whether the facts are proved
in this case.

Mr. Foote: I will call your attention, my lord, to the remarks
of Lord Justice Cockburn in a similar case.

Mr. Justice North: I will hear anything relevant to the subject.
My reason for asking you was to find out whether you were going
to quote a law book.

Mr. Foote: I will quote a verbatim report.

Mr. Justice North: I can hear that.

Mr. Foote: It is the case against Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant.

Mr. Justice North: By whom is your report published?

Mr. Foote: It is a verbatim report published by the Freethought
Publishing Company--the shorthand notes of the full proceedings,
with the cross-examination and the judgment of the court.

Mr. Justice North: There is no evidence of that. Did you hear it?

Mr. Foote: I did not personally hear it, but my co-defendants did.

Mr. Justice North: I will hear you state anything you suggest as
being said by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn.

Mr. Foote: Mrs. Besant was about to read a passage from
'Tristram Shandy'----

Mr. Justice North: You have not proved the publication.

Mr. Foote: Quite so, my lord; but although this is not formal
evidence, and only the report of a case, I thought your lordship
would not object to hear it.

[Mr. Foote here handed in a copy of the report to the judge,
and pointed out that the Lord Chief Justice had said he could
not prevent Mrs. Besant from committing a passage to memory,
or from reading books as if reciting from memory].

Mr. Justice North: I will allow you to go on, either q