Bradlaugh had his own corner in the Park where he spoke on Sunday mornings, when the weather was pleasant. At this meeting he invited replies, so the proceeding usually took the form of a debate. And he had a way of enlivening in a similar manner the service of his friends the enemy. Often the audience, for pure love of mischief, would start pushing, and two hundred hoodlums would overrun the meeting. There was no special violence about it--it is very English, you know. Occasionally it happens yet in Hyde Park, and the true London Bobby, who never sees anything he does not want to see, allows the beefeaters to crowd, jostle, and push themselves tired. It was really all very funny unless you were caught in the pushing crowd, then all you could do was to keep on your feet and go with the merry mass. But the attendance at Hyde Park meetings was increasing, and in the rough- house, at times, some one would fall and be trampled upon. So an order was issued from Scotland Yard that all public speaking in the parks should cease between ten o'clock in the morning and two in the afternoon. This was during church hours, for church attendance had begun to fall off very perceptibly. Bradlaugh thought the order was without due process of law--that the parks belonged to the people, and that public speaking in the open was not an abuse of the people's rights. More people than ever flocked to Hyde Park on the Sunday set for the fray. Bradlaugh arranged that a dozen or more of his colleagues should begin to speak at the same time in different parts of the park. The police began to charge and the crowds began to push. Then the police used their truncheons. Two policemen seized Bradlaugh. He politely asked them to keep their hands off, and when they did not he showed them his quality by wresting their truncheons from them, and flinging them to the cheering crowd. He then bumped the heads of the officers together, inciting riot, so ran the records. This all sounds rather tragic, and I am sorry to believe that Bradlaugh rather enjoyed it. No one man physically was a match for him, and all men fall easy victims to their facility. The police did not succeed on this occasion in arresting him; and it seems that there was a sentiment abroad that made the Government hesitate about arresting him on a bench warrant. A few years before, and Bradlaugh would have been hanged, and there would 'a been an end on't. However, several friends of the "Cause" were locked up, and the next day Bradlaugh appeared in court to defend them. A truce was declared, without renouncing the rights of free speech, and Bradlaugh agreed, for the present, to cease holding public meetings.