"He was of opinion that complainant had not shown that the maintenance of which he complained came within the meaning of the statute. Though the statutes of Richard II. and Henry VIII. did undoubtedly refer to crimes and imprisonment for maintenance, still it was most singular that no indictment could be found for violation of these statutes. It seemed to him that the proceeding was an obsolete one, and that the criminal law ought not to have been invoked for a purpose of this description, when it was open to Mr Bradlaugh ... to apply to the common law courts.... Old statutes had been searched out in order that proceedings--which he could not help thinking had been taken to gratify a very unfriendly feeling on Mr Bradlaugh's part--might be instituted in the hope that Mr Newdegate would be committed for trial." The licence of general criticism taken by our magistrates has seldom been more strikingly exemplified; and no one but a prejudiced magistrate, probably, would have had the assurance to condemn a litigant for "unfriendly feeling" towards a declared enemy who had wantonly and zealously sought to ruin him.[156] The deliberate setting aside of the statutes as obsolete, too, while a civil action was admitted to lie, was an act of lenity to Mr Newdegate, contrasting favourably with the attitude of other judges towards Bradlaugh. But the fact that a civil action remained open was sufficient for Bradlaugh's purposes; and already Newdegate had begun to repent somewhat of his zeal. His costs were accumulating, and still the hoped-for prey was out of his reach. A circular was accordingly issued on his behalf by Captain Bedford Pim, who felt "strongly that Mr Newdegate, M.P., should not be allowed to suffer for his spirited and patriotic action against Atheism, and that some steps should be taken to bear him harmless in the struggle upon which he has so nobly entered." [Footnote 156: Mr Vaughan had twice previously given decisions against Bradlaugh, and both had been upset on appeal.] § 12