[Footnote 165: If further samples are needed of the general untruthfulness, they can be given by the dozen. Even men of good standing spoke with a disregard of scruple which put them outside courteous correction. Bradlaugh was driven to characterise Sir Edward Watkin as "an exceedingly and wantonly untruthful person." In November 1882 he represented to his Folkestone constituents that he would not have stood in the way of Bradlaugh either swearing or affirming, but that he resisted when Bradlaugh "distinctly outraged all that they held sacred." This presumably referred to the self-administered oath of 1882. But Sir E. Watkin had voted against Bradlaugh being allowed to swear on 27th April 1881. The Hon. Mr Stansfeld, speaking at Halifax in October 1882, actually represented that the oath was "on the true faith of a Christian;" and repeated the untruth that Bradlaugh had "said that the oath had no binding effect on his conscience." The Rev. Canon Gascoigne Weldon, of Rothesay, asserted in writing that Bradlaugh "boasted publicly that he sought entrance into the House of Commons to insult its members and all its past glorious history, and level it, if possible, with its sister House, to the ground."] [Footnote 166: Mr Samuel Morley, speaking at Bristol in November 1882, admitted to his constituents that "while Mr Bradlaugh was in the House of Commons, nothing could exceed the propriety of his conduct;" but declared he would oppose his re-entrance because Bradlaugh continued "his system of violent, offensive, and disgusting attacks on the faith which he (Mr Morley) in common with the great bulk of the English people, held." To men like Mr Morley, all rationalist propaganda was "violent, offensive, and disgusting;" but they had no scruples about violent, offensive, and disgusting attacks on rationalists. Soon afterwards Mr Morley grossly misrepresented Bradlaugh's action, and on being challenged admitted the fact and made a correction. Soon again, however, Mr Morley spoke of Bradlaugh as writing in the _Freethinker_, and on being challenged, made neither admission nor correction. The champions of the oath, generally speaking, exhibited a constitutional incapacity for accuracy.] [Footnote 167: In the summer of 1882 the total of petitions had mounted to over 100, and the signatures numbered over 250,000.]