As Mr Bradlaugh made no sign of yielding when the time arrived, the assistance of the police was summoned, and the hall was guarded, inside and out, by a body of constabulary numbering about thirty men, under a superintendent. The directors evidently loved war better than peace. Mr Bradlaugh reached Mirfield at about a quarter past six on the evening of the 18th, but, fearing a disturbance, he went straight to the Town Hall, at once and alone, although the meeting was not summoned until eight o'clock. Upon reaching the hall he found it prepared for a siege; in addition to its garrison of police, it was barricaded with huge baulks of timber. He held some conversation with the Superintendent of the Police, who was sufficiently polite, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors, a gentleman particularly prominent in his opposition to Mr Bradlaugh, and now present to watch over the premises in person. During the conversation a crowd of about four hundred people collected, but at my father's request they remained perfectly quiet and took no part in the proceedings. Mr Bradlaugh then endeavoured to open the door, but in addition to being strongly barricaded the handle was held by Mr Johnson (the Chairman), and another man, the former of whom boasted that he would spend a large sum to keep Bradlaugh out of Mirfield. Finding the force against him too great, my father, after a little struggle, gave up the attempt to enter. He at once commenced an action against the Town Hall Company, but owing to various delays the suit was not tried until the summer of 1871. It then came on at the Leeds Assizes on August 7th, before Mr Justice Mellor and a special jury. Mr Bradlaugh conducted his own case, while Mr Digby Seymour, Q.C., and Mr Mellor appeared for the Hall Company. Mr Bradlaugh opened in "a very temperate speech" of "great clearness," and then called his witness, Mr Stead, to prove the hire of the hall. Mr Stead had to go through a preliminary confusing examination as to his fitness to make affirmation, although Mr Justice Mellor was as considerate as the obnoxious wording of the Evidence Amendment Act would allow. Objection being taken to certain questions Mr Bradlaugh wished to put to his witness, my father was obliged to go into the witness-box himself to prove the points. Of course Mr Digby Seymour could not forget the lesson in tactics learned a few months before from Mr O'Malley, and like his opponent in the _Razor_ case--though happily with less coarseness--seized the opportunity thus offered to rouse the religious prejudices of the jury, although the sole question in dispute was the validity of a contract made by the servant of a Company on its behalf.