"It is not in mortals--least of all, in mortals mean as these--to command success. I make no doubt that the man who has the courage to defy them will at least do more--deserve it." So wrote "Caractacus" before this nominal trial came on, and assuredly whatever measure of success there was in it was surely on my father's side. Mr Bradlaugh did not "pray a tales," because by so doing he would have forfeited certain rights; but by not praying a tales, and by not asking for fines to be imposed upon the absent jurymen, the law officers of the Crown most clearly showed their eagerness to seize upon any excuse to abandon the proceedings upon which they had so rashly embarked. To do the Government justice, I think they had been rather driven into the matter by their bigoted followers. As far back as 1866 we find the English Church Union urging the prosecution of an "infidel newspaper, reputed to possess a considerable circulation." The matter had actually been brought before the Attorney-General, with a view to legal proceedings, and he, "whilst suggesting the necessity of mature consideration as to the desirability of procuring prominence for a comparatively obscure publication by means of a public prosecution, promised that the question should be very carefully considered." In 1867 the _Saturday Review_ tried week by week to inflame the mind of the public against the _National Reformer_ and Mr Bradlaugh, and other Tory journals followed the example so worthily set them. Judging from all this, one can hardly be assuming too much in supposing the action of the Government was not altogether spontaneous. At the meeting of members of Parliament and others interested in the matter to which I have already referred, Messrs Ayrton, M.P., Milner Gibson, M.P., J. S. Mill, M.P., R. Moore, C. D. Collet, E. Truelove, and A. Holyoake were present, and after some talk it was decided to raise the question the next evening (June 12) in the House on going into Supply. Accordingly, on the following evening Mr Ayrton, in a speech of considerable length, called attention to the state of the law regarding registration and security in respect of certain publications, but the Attorney-General politely characterised his statements as "utterly at variance with the facts." Mr Milner Gibson, in an able speech, demonstrated some of the absurdities of the press laws. John Stuart Mill asked for the repeal of the Act, and pending that the suspension of all prosecutions under it, and Mr Crawford "pleaded in tones of eloquence and fire for a free and untaxed literature for the working classes."