Dickens' paper, and I have no doubt we shall all feel gratified at your allowing it room in your paper."
The article was, of course, unsigned, but it did not take Mr. Bradlaugh very long to discover who was the author of this "Appendix:" surely one of the most dastardly libels to which a professed "gentleman" ever put his pen. The immediate steps taken by Mr. Bradlaugh to show his appreciation of the Rev. Mr. M'Sorley's attentions resulted in the appearance of apologies from both editor and contributor in the issue of the Herald for the following week, May 5th. Having given the text of the libel, I now give the retracting words, which are as strong and complete as the falsehoods which preceded them.
"Our Suburban Residence and its 'Appendix.'
"Mr. and Mrs. Bradlaugh.
No. 1.
"The Editor and Proprietor of this newspaper desires to express his extreme pain that the columns of a journal which has never before been made the vehicle for reflections on private character, should, partly by inadvertence, and partly by a too unhesitating reliance on the authority and good faith of its contributor, have contained last week, in the form of an 'Appendix' to a recent article from All the Year Bound, a mischievous and unfounded libel upon Mr. Charles Bradlaugh.
"That Mr. Bradlaugh holds, and fearlessly expounds, theological opinions entirely opposed to those of the editor and the majority of our readers, is undoubtedly true, and Mr. Bradlaugh cannot and does not complain that his name is associated with Colenso, Holyoake, or Paine; but that he has offensively intruded those opinions in our lecture hall is NOT TRUE. That his ordinary language on the platform is 'balderdash and blasphemy' is NOT TRUE. That he makes a practice of openly desecrating the Sunday is NOT TRUE. That he is known by the names of 'Moses Scoffer,' or 'Swear 'em Charley,' is NOT TRUE. Nor is there any foundation for the sneer as to his 'City practice,' or for the insinuations made against his conduct or character as a scholar and a gentleman.
"While making this atonement to Mr. Bradlaugh, the Editor must express his unfeigned sorrow that the name of Mrs. Bradlaugh should have been introduced into the article in question, accompanied by a suggestion calculated to wound her in the most vital part, conveying as it does a reflection upon her honour and fair fame as a lady and a wife. Mrs. Bradlaugh is too well known and too much respected to suffer by such a calumny; but for the pain so heedlessly given to a sensitive and delicate nature the Editor offers this expression of his profound and sincere regret.
"No. 2.
"The author of the 'Appendix' complained of, who is NOT the Editor or Proprietor, or in any way connected with the Tottenham Herald, unreservedly adopts the foregoing apology, and desires to incorporate it with his own.
"It is for him bitterly to lament that, stung by allusions in the article from All the Year Round, which he erroneously attributed to the pen of Mr. Bradlaugh, he allowed his better judgment to give way, and wrote of that gentleman in language which he cannot at all justify, and which he now entirely retracts.
"To Mrs. Bradlaugh he respectfully tenders such an apology as becomes a gentleman to offer to a lady he has so greatly wronged. He trusts that the exquisite pain she must have suffered from a harsh allusion will be somewhat mitigated by the public avowal of its absolute injustice. As a wife united to her husband in holy wedlock by the solemn forms of the Church, as a mother of a young family, to whom she sets the proper example of an English lady, she is entitled to reparation from one whose only excuse is that he wrote of her in ignorance and haste, while writing of her husband under irritation and excitement.
"The writer of the libel has only to add that he has addressed to Mr. Bradlaugh a private letter bearing his proper signature, and avowing, while he laments, the authorship of the offending article; and he begs to offer his thanks to Mr. Bradlaugh for the generous forbearance which declines to exact the publication of the writer's name, from considerations which will be patent to most of the readers of this journal."
These apologies were accepted in a few generous words by Mr. Bradlaugh:—
"On my own behalf, and that of my wife, I am content with these apologies. To have accepted less would have shown my disregard of her honour and my own. To have required more would have been to punish with too great severity those whose own frank avowals show that they acted rather with precipitancy than with 'malice prepense.'
"(Signed) Charles Bradlaugh."
If I could believe that Mr. M'Sorley had frankly—to repeat Mr. Bradlaugh's word—repented in fact, as well as in appearance, I should pass this libel now with but slight allusion, and have considered myself bound by my father's promise not to make the writer's name public.[30] In the immediate locality it was impossible that the authorship of such an astounding concoction should long remain secret, and for long afterwards Mr. M'Sorley's name was bandied about with small jests amongst the irreverent youngsters of the neighbourhood. The apology was made under considerable pressure: members of the congregation threatened to leave the Church, a lawsuit loomed in the distance, and a horsewhipping in the near future.[31] "This fellow," said Mr. Bradlaugh,[32] speaking thirteen years later, and still withholding the name, "I compelled to retract every word he had uttered, and to pay £100, which, after deducting costs, was divided amongst various charitable institutions. The reverend libeller wrote me an abject letter begging me not to ruin his prospects in the Church by publishing his name. I consented, and he has since repaid my mercy by losing no opportunity of being offensive. He is a prominent contributor to the Rock, and a fierce ultra-Protestant."
So much for the bitter lament and frank avowal of an ordained minister of the Church of England!
It is an open question which was the worse of the two—the Rev. John Graham Packer or the Rev. Hugh M'Sorley. I am inclined to think that the latter carried off the palm, although his malignancy recoiled upon himself, whilst Mr. Packer's took such terrible effect. In any case a perusal of Mr. M'Sorley's "Appendix" will convince the reader, if indeed any need convincing, that Mr. Packer was not—as has lately been the fashion to assume—the only clergyman who has striven to injure my father's character.
CHAPTER XII.
TOTTENHAM.
Our house at Sunderland Villa was what I suppose would be called an eight-roomed house. It comprised four bedrooms, two sitting-rooms, and a little room built out over the kitchen, which was Mr. Bradlaugh's "den" or study. There was a garden in the rear communicating by a private way with "The Grove," a road running at right angles to Northumberland Park, in which our house was situated; and at the bottom of this garden, when things looked very prosperous indeed, some stables were built. There was to be stalled the longed-for horse which was to take my father to the City every day; but before the stables were quite completed Black Friday came, and with it vanished all these entrancing dreams. The building indeed remained, but merely as a playhouse for us children, or to afford an occasional lodging for a friend (the coachman's quarters being well and snugly built), and also, I fear, as a "good joke" to the neighbourhood.
We usually had one or more dogs, belonging to the various members of the family, for we were all fond of animals, and any big ones were kept in the paved forecourt of the stables. At one time there were three dwellers in the court, but these ultimately thinned down to one, the dog Bruin, my father's special favourite. Bruin was part retriever and part St. Bernard, a fine dog to look at, and wonderfully clever. Mr. Bradlaugh was never weary of relating anecdotes of his intelligence and sagacity. From his kennel in the court Bruin's chain-range covered the garden gate, and with him there no bolt or lock was necessary, for while with friends he was the mildest and gentlest of dogs, with strangers
