be elected as the sole conductor. If this course should be adopted, he says, he would offer himself as a candidate for the office.
An extraordinary meeting of the shareholders was called for August 26th (1861), and Mr. Bradlaugh was elected as editor, with a salary of £5 per week, by 41 votes against 18 for Mr. Barker, and with the next number this gentleman's connection with the paper came to an end.
Before dismissing Mr. Barker's name altogether from these pages, I am anxious to record a little discovery that I have made since I have been at work upon this biography. If those who own a copy of the "Biography of Charles Bradlaugh," by A. S. Headingley, which for the most part gives a very fair account of the life of Mr. Bradlaugh up to 1880, will turn to pages 78 to 82, they will find a story given there of rioting at Dumfries and Burnley during Mr. Bradlaugh's visits to those towns. At Dumfries, so the story goes, there was so much violence exhibited that "Bradlaugh," whom the mob had threatened to kill, thought he had better wait until the excitement was over; he waited until midnight, when some one took him down into a cellar and so out into the street; once outside he feared to go to his hotel, but waited in the shadow by the river-side. At length he ventured to move a little, but was recognised by some persons, who rushed off to raise the hue and cry. "Bradlaugh then turned down a dark side street and got back to the friendly river," where after a time he saw a policeman and then took courage "to walk by his side." He was soon met by friends, for the town was being scoured for him, and conducted to his hotel in safety. The story of what happened at Burnley is somewhat similar. I must confess that the account of these riots always annoyed and disappointed me. It was so unlike my father to wait about for fear of the mob, get out through the cellar and loiter by the river-side till he happened to meet a policeman under whose sheltering wing he at last ventured to go towards his lodgings. But Mr. Bradlaugh having seen the book, having caused it to be revised in one or two points, it never occurred to me to doubt the general accuracy of the statements made in it. Lately, in searching for some account of these riots, I find that Mr. Headingley is quite trustworthy, except on one point, and that is the name of the lecturer at Dumfries and Burnley. Those who own copies of this work are requested to substitute "Barker" for "Bradlaugh" wherever the latter name occurs on the pages specified, beginning with the paragraph at the bottom of page 78. No injustice will be done to Mr. Barker's memory, for his own account[36] has been faithfully followed by Mr. Headingley.
From the issue of September 7th (1861), then Mr. Bradlaugh was sole editor of the National Reformer, and in the following number he made a declaration of his policy and objects as advocate of the Secular Body. In concluding this statement of his views he says:—
"Our party is the 'party of action,' youthful, hopeful effort; we recognise no impassable barriers between ourselves and the right; we see no irremovable obstacles in our course to the true. We will strive for it, we will live for it, and, if it be necessary, die for it. And even then, in our death we should not recognise defeat, but rather see another step in the upward path of martyrdom … it is our most enduring hope that … we may find a grave which, in the yet far-off future, better men than ourselves may honour in their memories; forgetting our many faults, alone remembered now, and remembering our few useful deeds, at present by our hostile critics persistently overlooked."
A month later appears one of his earliest letters to the clergy, though not the earliest, for some five or six short letters, scattered over several months, had previously appeared; most of these were brief challenges based upon the public statements of some cleric, or repudiation of certain views attributed to Freethinkers, or condemnation of some intolerant utterance. The letter to the Rev. J. Clarke, of Cleckheaton, is, I think, about the first of those controversial letters of which he subsequently wrote so many, and which were so popular and effective. In November we find notification of another change to take place in the National Reformer. In future Mr. George Jacob Holyoake is to "rank as chief contributor," while Mr. John Watts is definitely charged with the duties of sub-editor. A week later, a letter signed "G. J. Holyoake," and headed "One Paper and One Party," informed "the Secularists of Great Britain" that Mr. Holyoake had arranged to become special contributor. With the beginning of the year 1862 he was to contribute three pages of matter either from his own pen or from the pens of others for whom he was responsible. The Reasoner, edited since 1842 by Mr. Holyoake, came to an end in the June of 1861; after that he was connected with the Counsellor, and was proposing to bring out a new paper called the Secular World. This latter title he liked so well that although he abandoned for the time the bringing out of his new paper in favour of special contributions to the National Reformer, he reserved to himself "a copyright in that idea." It will be remembered that the Company agreed to pay their editor £5 per week in full discharge of his duties. Of this Mr. Holyoake was to receive £2 per week, leaving £3 to my father to pay other contributors, his sub-editor, and himself. An effort was made to sell 10,000 copies of the first issue of the paper under the new arrangement; about 8000 were sold, and the sale would have exceeded the 10,000, if the orders had not arrived too late to supply them.
In consequence of the diversity of opinion which had been expressed in the columns of the National Reformer at various times, a correspondent wrote in February 1862 asking what were the political and religious views really advocated by this journal; and from the answer made to this gentleman by Mr. Bradlaugh, we can judge to what extent he went back upon the position of his earlier years, as it was for the last few years of his life the fashion to assert. He says:—
"Editorially the National Reformer, as to religious questions, is, and always has been, as far as we are concerned, the advocate of Atheism; it teaches that all the religions of the world are based upon error; that humanity is higher than theology; that knowledge is far preferable to faith; that action is more effective than prayer; and that the best worship men can offer is honest work, in order to make one another wiser and happier than heretofore. In politics, we are Radicals of a very extreme kind; we are advocates of manhood[37] suffrage; we desire shorter Parliaments; laws which will be more equal in their application to master and servant; protection from the present state of the laws which make pheasants more valuable than peasants; we desire the repeal of the laws against blasphemy, and the enactment of some measure which will make all persons competent as witnesses whatever may be their opinions on religion; we advocate the separation of Church and State, and join with the financial reformers in their efforts to reduce our enormous and extravagant national expenditure."
Those who have read the literature in connection with the Freethought movement for the five or six years prior to 1862 will be in no way unprepared to find that the journalistic union between Mr. Holyoake and Mr. Bradlaugh was very shortlived. In March my father, feeling unable to continue to work under existing arrangements, sent his resignation into the National Reformer Company; however, at the Special General Meeting held on the 23rd, it was decided not to elect any editor "in the place of Iconoclast." Mr. Bradlaugh therefore continued to act as editor, and Mr. Holyoake ceased to be special contributor to the paper. My father was anxious there should be no quarrel—there had been enough of that with Mr. Barker—and proposed to Mr. Holyoake that he should contribute two columns of original matter each week, for which he should receive the same amount as he had received before for the three pages. The Secular World was re-announced, and it had my father's best wishes. "We believe that its advent will benefit the Freethought party," he writes. However, the matter was not to be so soon or so easily settled. Mr. Holyoake claimed from my father the sum of £81, 18s., urging that the agreement to act as special contributor was for twelve months; although he had only filled the post for three months, he yet claimed his salary for the remaining nine. The matter was placed before legally appointed arbitrators—Mr. W. J. Linton, chosen by my father, and Mr. J. G. Crawford by Mr. Holyoake. These gentlemen did not agree, Mr. Linton being strongly in favour of Mr. Bradlaugh, and Mr. Crawford as strongly, I presume, on the other side. They therefore chose an umpire, Mr. Shaen—who, by the way, had, I gather, previously acted as solicitor to Mr. Holyoake, and who many years later showed a decided personal hostility towards Mr. Bradlaugh. After many delays Mr. Shaen at length made his award in August 1863 in favour of Mr. Holyoake, and my father writing to a friend at the time says rather grimly:
