ore, confined in Newgate from
Thursday to Monday, and we were only allowed to see them through iron
bars and lattice, as they exercised in the prison yard between 8:30
and 9:30 a.m. Brought up to trial again on Monday, they were
convicted, and Mr. Foote was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, Mr.
Ramsey to nine months, and Mr. Kemp to three months. Mr. Foote
especially behaved with great dignity and courage in a most difficult
position, and heard his cruel sentence without wincing, and with the
calm words, "My Lord, I thank you; it is worthy your creed." A few of
us at once stepped in, to preserve to Mr. Ramsey his shop, and to Mr.
Foote his literary property; Dr. Aveling undertook the editing of the
_Freethinker_ and of Mr. Foote's magazine _Progress_; the immediate
necessities of their families were seen to; Mr. and Mrs. Forder took
charge of the shop, and within a few days all was in working order.
Disapproving as many of us did of the policy of the paper, there was
no time to think of that when a blasphemy prosecution had proved
successful, and we all closed up in the support of men imprisoned for
conscience' sake. I commenced a series of articles on "The Christian
Creed; what it is blasphemy to deny," showing what Christians must
believe under peril of prosecution. Everywhere a tremendous impulse
was given to the Freethought movement, as men awakened to the
knowledge that blasphemy laws were not obsolete.

From over the sea came a word of sympathy from the pen of H.P.
Blavatsky in the _Theosophist_. "We prefer Mr. Foote's actual position
to that of his severe judge. Aye, and were we in his guilty skin, we
would feel more proud, even in the poor editor's present position,
than we would under the wig of Mr. Justice North."

In April, 1883, the long legal struggles of Mr. Bradlaugh against Mr.
Newdegate and his common informer, that had lasted from July 2, 1880,
till April 9, 1883, ended in his complete victory by the judgment of
the House of Lords in his favour. "Court after Court decided against
me," he wrote; "and Whig and Tory journals alike mocked at me for my
persistent resistance. Even some good friends thought that my fight
was hopeless, and that the bigots held me fast in their toils. I have,
however, at last shaken myself free of Mr. Newdegate and his common
informer. The judgment of the House of Lords in my favour is final and
conclusive, and the boasts of the Tories that I should be made
bankrupt for the