Bradlaugh's seat was now vacant in law; and he at once stood for re-election. All along the great majority of his constituents had stood by him cordially and courageously. A series of crowded public meetings, some addressed by himself and Mr Labouchere, some by leading local politicians, protested against the injustice done to member and constituency at each new stage of the process of exclusion, and now that the constituency was called upon to express its feeling at the polls it effectively responded. A certain number, of course, were detached from Bradlaugh by the storm of obloquy which beat upon him, and this the more readily because they had accepted the joint candidature with reluctance; but the great majority stood staunch, despite desperate efforts to turn them. As Bradlaugh told at the time, the constituency was flooded with pamphlets containing "not only what I have said and what I have written, taken out of its context and distorted, but containing things I have never said and have never written, and never dreamt of saying or writing. Books that I have neither written nor published, but which were supposed to be obnoxious, have had extracts taken out from their medical parts and circulated, and the physiological part of the Knowlton pamphlet, for which I was indicted, was taken separately and sent by post to each of the electors. The vilest things have been said. Some of my foes have been more foul than even I had thought possible." The dirty work was largely done by a person named Varley, known as "a tradesman of Notting Hill." Further, a notice was served on the electors assuring them that Bradlaugh had vacated his seat "as if he were dead"; and on the comedy side of the contest the Conservative candidate, whose name figured on his bills in the alliteration "Corbett and Christianity," fortified his position in his electoral address by the appeal: "I am intimately connected with a family in your own county (that of Sir Charles Isham), which is well known to you, and members of which have at former periods had the honour of representing their native county in Parliament."