ls of justice." His whole manner was changed. He was polite,
insinuating, and deferential. His attitude towards the judges was
admirably calculated to conciliate their favor. I do not mean that _he_
calculated. He had quite a superstitious veneration for judges. It was
perfectly sincere and it never wavered. He would not hear a word against
them. When he pleaded before them his personal sentiments ran in a line
with his best interests; for although judges are above most temptations,
their vanity is often sensitive, and Mr. Bradlaugh's manner was
intensely flattering.

Had he followed the legal profession, Mr. Bradlaugh would have easily
mounted to the top and earned a tremendous income. I have heard some of
the cleverest counsel of our time, but I never heard one to be
compared with him in grasp, subtlety and agility. He could examine and
cross-examine with consummate dexterity. In arguing points of law he had
the tenacity of a bull-dog and the keenness of a sleuth-hound. He always
fortified himself with a plethora of "cases." The table in front of him
groaned with a weight of law. Here as elsewhere he was "thorough." An
eminent jurisprudist once remarked to me, "there is little gleaning to
be done after Bradlaugh."

As a pleader before juries, however, I doubt whether he would have
achieved a great success. He was too much of a born orator. He began
well, but he soon forgot the limited audience of twelve, and spoke to
a wider circle. This is not the way to humor juries. They like to
feel their own importance, and he succeeds best who plays upon their
weakness. "Remember," their looks say, "you are talking to _us_; the
other gentlemen listen accidentally; _we_ make you or damn you."

My first recollection of Mr. Bradlaugh in the law courts is twenty-two
years old. How many survivors are there of the friends who filled that
dingy old court at Westminster where he argued before a full bench of
judges in 1869? He was prosecuted for note giving sureties in the sum of
L400 against the appearance of blasphemy or sedition in his paper. The
law was resuscitated in his single case to crush him; but he fought, as
he said he would, to the bitter end, and the Gladstone Government was
glad to repeal the obsolete enactments. The Crown retired from the
suit with a _stet processus_, and Mr. Bradlaugh was left with the
laurels--and his costs.

I obtained an hour or two's leave from my employment, and heard a
portion of Mr. Bradlaugh