In 1861 was formed the Malthusian League, designed to influence public opinion and overcome the prevailing misconception of Malthusianism, and in 1876 a Bristol bookseller brought out an English edition of _Fruits of Philosophy_. He was promptly arrested on the charge of publishing an obscene book, and sentence was suspended on his plea of guilty. The brilliant rationalist and freethinker, Charles Bradlaugh, a redoubtable personality, together with Annie Besant, later the renowned Theosophist but then a young rebel, started a printing partnership and sold the pamphlet. Although not approving it in all its details they determined to contest the right to publish it and to prove that prevention of conception was not obscene. Extraordinary interest was aroused in their trial before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn and a special jury. The Solicitor General himself appeared as chief counsel for the prosecution. Taking a copy of _Fruits of Philosophy_ in his hands he opened it solemnly and said, “It is really extremely painful to me,” then hesitating, “very painful to me to have to read this.” But he did so. Bradlaugh and Besant conducted their own defense. The latter with eloquence and astonishing poise held the admiring attention of the court for two days. Nevertheless, both were convicted of defaming the morals of the public, sentenced to six months in jail and a thousand-dollar fine, and required to put up guarantees of twenty-five hundred dollars for good behavior during the next two years. The case was immediately appealed. Fortunately the upper court dismissed it on a technicality, because specific evidence of obscenity was not included; if the words were polluting they had to appear in the record. This decision settled for all time in England that contraception was not to be classed among the obscenities. As a result, new life was injected into the Malthusian League and its name was changed to the Neo-Malthusian Society. In the first issue of its monthly journal it set forth a modest claim: “We have the ONLY REMEDY that the disease of society can be cured by.” Instead of the impractical advice of Malthus to marry late, the Neo-Malthusians advised early marriage, the use of contraceptive methods, and children born according to the earning capacity of the father; a man’s station in life should determine the number of his children. Furthermore, they intended one by one to “prick the flimsy bubbles of emigration, lessened production, and home colonization, which are from time to time put forward.” The emphasis was still placed on the social and economic aspects rather than the personal tragedies of women.