The Sheffield Freethinkers, as I said a few pages back, almost adopted the young "Iconoclast" as their own. In him they found a bold, able, and untiring advocate of the opinions they cherished; in them he, in return, found full appreciation of his efforts, kind friends and enthusiastic co-workers. This union had not existed long before it resolved itself into a practical form--the promulgation of the _National Reformer_. The initiation of the idea came from Mr Bradlaugh, who naturally sighed after his lost _Investigator_; but as neither he nor any one of these Yorkshire friends was sufficiently wealthy to take the sole risk of starting and running a newspaper, a committee of Sheffield, Bradford, and Halifax men formed a Company and issued a prospectus, which was inserted in the _Reasoner_ of February 12, 1860.[34] This original Prospectus is very interesting, and a perusal of it will show how closely, except on one or two matters of detail which have necessarily altered with the times, the programme of the latter day _National Reformer_ adhered to that issued thirty-four years ago. A careful comparison of the policy embodied in this Prospectus with the policy of the paper up to January 1891 will entirely disprove the various assertions of modifications airily made by many persons; by some carelessly, these never having troubled to make themselves acquainted with the facts; by others wilfully, regardless of the truth within their knowledge. [Footnote 34: The Prospectus of the _Reformer_, as it appeared in the _Reasoner_, was as follows:--