ng; the
passages are divided here and there with similar strong iron gates, only
some of which are grated. The rules of the place of course divided the
sexes, so Mr. Bradlaugh and myself were not allowed to occupy the same
cell; the gaoler, however, did the best he could for us, by allowing me
to remain in a section of the passage which separated the men's from the
women's cells, and by putting Mr. Bradlaugh into the first of the men's.
Then, by opening a little window in the thick wall, a grating was
discovered, through which we could dimly see each other. Mr. Bradlaugh's
face, as seen from my side, scored all over with the little oblong holes
in the grating reflected by the dull glimmer of the gas in the passage,
was curious rather than handsome; mine was, probably, not more
attractive. In this charming place we passed two hours-and-a-half, and it
was very dull and very cold. We solaced ourselves, at first, by reading
the _Secular Review_, Mr. Bradlaugh tearing it into pages, and passing
them one by one through the grating. By pushing on his side and pulling
on mine, we managed to get them through the narrow holes. Our position
when we read them was a strange satire on one article (which I read with
great pain), which expressed the writer's opinion that the book was so
altered as not to be worth prosecuting. Neither the police nor the
magistrate recognised any difference between the two editions. As I knew
the second edition, taken from Mr. Watts', was almost ready for delivery
as I read, I could not help smiling at the idea that no one 'had the
courage' to reprint it.

"Mr. Bradlaugh paced up and down his limited kingdom, and after I had
finished correcting an _N.R._, I sometimes walked and sometimes sat, and
we chatted over future proceedings, and growled at our long detention,
and listened to names of prisoners being called, until we were at last
summoned to 'go up higher', and we joyfully obeyed. It was a strange sort
of place to stand in, the dock of a police-court the position struck one
as really funny, and everyone who looked at us seemed to feel the same
incongruity: officials, chief clerk, magistrate, all were equally polite,
and Mr. Bradlaugh seemed to get his own way from the dock as much as
everywhere else. The sitting magistrate was Alderman Figgins, a nice,
kindly old gentleman, robed in marvellous, but not uncomely, garments of
black velvet, purple, and dark fur. Below the magistrate, on either hand,
s