t happened in our case. On
the contrary, Sir John Maule allowed our prosecution after Sir William
Harcourt had condemned it. The Public Prosecutor set himself above the
Home Secretary. Unfortunately the general press saw nothing anomalous
or dangerous in such a state of things; for an official like Sir John
Maule, while ready enough to sanction the prosecution of an unpopular
journal, which presumably has few friends, is naturally reluctant, as
events have shown, to allow proceedings against a powerful journal whose
friends may be numerous and influential. Fortunately, however, a Select
Committee of the House of Commons has taken a more sensible view of the
Public Prosecutor and the duties he has so muddled, and recommended
the abolition of his office. Should this step be taken, his duties will
probably be performed by the Solicitor-General, and the press will be
freed from a danger it had not the sense or the courage to avert. As for
Sir John Maule, he will of course retire with a big pension, and live in
fat ease for the rest of his sluggish life.

CHAPTER III. MR. BRADLAUGH INCLUDED.

Mr. Maloney obtained his summons against Mr. Bradlaugh, whose name was
included in a new document which was served on all of us. I have lost
our first Summons, but I am able to give a copy of the second. It ran
thus:

"TO WILLIAM JAMES RAMSEY, of 28 Stonecutter Street, in the City
of London, and 20 Brownlow Street, Dalston, in the county of
Middlesex; GEORGE WILLIAM FOOTE, of 9 South Crescent, Bedford
Square, in the county of Middlesex; EDWARD WILLIAM WHITTLE, of
170 Saint John Street, Clerkenwell, in the county of Middlesex;
and CHARLES BRADLAUGH, of 20 Circus Road, Saint John's Wood, in
the county of Middlesex, and 28 Stonecutter Street, in the City
of London.

"Whereas you have this day been charged before the under-signed,
the Lord Mayor of the City of London, being one of Her Majesty's
justices of the peace in and for the said City, and the liberties
thereof, by Sir Henry Tyler, of Dashwood House, 9 New Broad Street,
in the said City, for that you, in the said City, unlawfully did
publish, or cause and procure to be published, certain blasphemous
libels in a newspaper called the _Freethinker_, dated and published
on the days following--that is to say, on the 26th day of March,
1882, on the 9th, 23rd and 30th days of April, 1882, and o