onage. He was then chairman of the Board of Directors of
the Brush Light Company; and according to Henry Labouchere's statements
in _Truth_, he was a "notorious guinea-pig." He was certainly an adept
in the profitable transfer of shares: so much so, indeed, that at length
the shareholders revolted against their pious chairman, and appointed a
committee to investigate his proceedings. Whereupon this modern Knight
of the Holy Ghost levanted, preferring to resign rather than face the
inquiry. This is the man who asked in the House of Commons whether Mr.
Bradlaugh's daughters could not be deprived of their hard-earned
grants for their pupils who successfully passed the South Kensington
examinations! This is the man who posed as the amateur champion of
omnipotence! Surely if deity wanted a champion, Sir Henry Tyler is about
the last person who would receive an application. Yet it is men of
this stamp who have usually set the Blasphemy Laws in operation. These
infamous laws are allowed to slumber for years, until some contemptible
wretch, to gratify his private malice or a baser passion, rouses them
into vicious activity, and fastens their fangs on men whose characters
are far superior to his own. With this fact before them, it is strange
that Christians should continue to regard these detestable laws as a
bulwark of their faith, or in any way calculated to defend it against
the inroads of "infidelity."

Sir Henry Tyler may after all have been a tool in the hands of others,
for the _St. Stephen's Review_ has admitted that the object of this
prosecution was to cripple Mr. Bradlaugh in his parliamentary struggle,
and we expected a prosecution long before it came, in consequence of
some conversation on the subject overheard in the Tea Room of the House
of Commons. But this, if true, while it heightens his insignificance, in
no wise lessens his infamy; and it certainly does not impair, but rather
increases, the force of my strictures on the Blasphemy Laws.

Lord Coleridge, in the Court of Queen's Bench, on the occasion of Mr.
Bradlaugh's trial, sarcastically alluded to Sir Henry Tyler as "a person
entirely unknown to me"--a very polite way of saying, "What does such
an obscure person mean by assuming the _role_ of Defender of the Faith?"
His lordship must also have had that individual in his mind when, on the
occasion of my own trial with Mr. Ramsey in the same Court on April
25, 1883, he delivered himself of these sentiments in