On the following Tuesday Mr Bradlaugh had to appear before the Huddersfield magistrates. Though there were five upon the Bench--only two, G. Armitage, Esq., and S.W. Haigh, Esq.--heard the case. Naturally enough, the Court was densely crowded, and many were unable to obtain admission. Mr Nehemiah Learoyd prosecuted. This attorney was defined as "a gentleman according to Act of Parliament," though it does not appear that he had any other claim to the title. In the case against Mr Bradlaugh he conducted himself with such effrontery and coarseness as to make it more than ever evident that Acts of Parliament have their limitations. My father was charged with doing damage to the door of the Huddersfield Theatre to the amount of twenty-four shillings: after this charge was read another charge of committing a breach of the peace was brought forward. Mr Bradlaugh suggested that each charge should be gone into separately: Mr Learoyd would have them taken together, and the magistrates decided in his favour. The case for the prosecution was opened and witnesses called. Mr Bradlaugh raised an objection to the jurisdiction of the Court, and after some argument and some further examination of witnesses, the magistrates retired to consider the point. After an interval of ten minutes they returned, having decided in Mr Bradlaugh's favour that they had no jurisdiction. Mr Learoyd then, with unblushing effrontery, wished to proceed with the second charge--the breach of the peace; but he had elected at the outset to take both charges together, and by that he was compelled to abide. The decision of the magistrates was greeted with instant applause, which was of course rebuked by the Court. The case was reported at length by the _Huddersfield Examiner_ and the _Huddersfield Chronicle_, and gained for Mr Bradlaugh many friends in Huddersfield and the surrounding districts. And thus for once was bigotry frustrated. On the following Sunday Mr Bradlaugh was lecturing at Newcastle, and many people, women as well as men, came in distances of fifteen and twenty miles to hear him. One man told how he had come thirty-eight miles "to get a grip" of my father's hand. Two days after this he was at Northampton, where he found himself becoming quite "respectable," and, "to the horror of the saints and my own surprise," he said, he was permitted the use of the Mechanics' Institute for his discourses. A week or so later he was lecturing in the great Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on behalf of the widow and family of his late colleague, John Watts. He gave himself no rest in body or mind, nor did he seem to relax the strain for a moment. The old year closed, and 1867 opened with a course of lectures at the City Road Hall, at one of which, by the by, it is interesting to note that Mr Bradlaugh defended Mr Gladstone from an attack made upon his sincerity of purpose, "believing him to be the most able and honest statesman whom the people have on their side."