Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2): With an Account of his Parliamentary Struggle, Politics and Teachings. Seventh EditionRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2): With an Account of his Parliamentary Struggle, Politics and Teachings. Seventh Edition
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Bradlaugh, Charles, 1833-1891
On the moving of an amendment approving
what had been done, Gladstone diffusely intimated that it would be
out of order for him to answer Mr Cowen's appeal. After much talk a
vote was taken, when 7 voted for Mr Labouchere's motion and 191 for
the amendment, a number of Radicals walking out to avoid voting. To
the amendment, put as a substantive resolution, Mr Ashton Dilke moved
a fresh amendment asserting the need for legislation, but this was
disallowed as irrelevant. Sir Wilfred Lawson tried another, which
fared no better. Mr Callan rose to explain that whereas Mr Bright had
described Bradlaugh as being reduced to a fainting condition, he had
put one of the officers in a far worse condition by his grip of that
officer's throat--a statement which, despite its source, was not wholly
untrue. Finally the resolution approving the course taken was allowed
to pass, whereupon Mr Labouchere gave notice that he would again raise
the main question on going into Committee of Supply.
§ 13.
Thus once more was the day of reckoning put off, the more decisively
because an early result of the scuffle for Bradlaugh was a dangerous
attack of erysipelas in the arm--the same arm which had suffered from
the Tory bludgeons in 1878. He was able, indeed, though sorely shaken,
to speak at the Hall of Science in the evening, when he appealed to
his followers to avoid all violence. He was able to attend the law
courts at Westminster on the 5th, when a House of Commons policeman,
seeing him, fled indoors to give warning. On the same day Bradlaugh
attended at the Westminster Police Court to apply to the magistrate,
Mr D'Eyncourt, for a summons against Inspector Denning for the assault
of the 3rd--not the ejection by the police, but the later formal
resistance to Bradlaugh's entrance. This was a purely formal action,
Bradlaugh having testified in his speech at the Hall of Science that Mr
Denning personally had managed his unpleasant task with all possible
consideration. The magistrate, laying significant stress on the action
of the Speaker and of the House, declined even to grant the summons.
One of his explanations was that "society has a right to protect itself
against intrusion," and his tone throughout showed sufficient animus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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