The learned Attorney-General, Sir Robert Collier, in the course of his opening speech, read the statute of the 60 Geo. III. chap. 9, sec. 8, which laid down regulations as to the publication of any paper, etc., which "shall not exceed two sheets, or which shall be published at a less price than sixpence." In reading this statute, Sir Robert Collier remarked that the provision as to pamphlets had been repealed. When it came to Mr Bradlaugh's turn to speak in his defence, he pointed out the error of this. The Attorney-General "has read to you the statute of the 60 Geo. III. chap. 9, and he himself, the representative of the Crown here to-day, knows so little of the statute that he ... states that the part as to pamphlets is a part which has been repealed. The fact is that the whole of this Act of Parliament is a living Act." Having put the Attorney-General right in the matter of law, it was now Mr Bradlaugh's turn to inform the officials at Somerset House of what went on in their own department. At the trial Mr Edward Tilsley, a clerk in the office of the Solicitor of Inland Revenue, had sworn, accurately sworn, under the cross-examination of the defendant, that the _Sporting Times_ was not registered. On the 4th of February all the morning papers contained a letter from Mr Tilsley announcing that he had made a search, and that the _Sporting Times_ was registered, and he asked for publicity of this fact "in justice to the proprietors of that paper." The proprietors must have been considerably astonished. Mr Bradlaugh was; and to such an extent did his amazement carry him, that he immediately went to Somerset House, where he also searched the register. The result of his search appeared in the following letter, published in the papers of the 5th:-- "SIR--With reference to Mr Tilsley's letter in your issue of to-day, permit me to state that I have this morning searched the registers at Somerset House in the presence of that gentleman, and that his evidence in court seems to have been more correct than his correction. The _Sporting Times_ is not registered. Mr Tilsley's error, when writing to you, arose from the fact that another paper with the same name was once registered, but this was before the popular journal of Dr Shorthouse came into existence. I believe Dr Shorthouse would contend, as I contended at the trial, that his publication does not come under the statutory definition of a newspaper."