To none of these reasons, however, did their lordships vouchsafe a reply or extend a consideration. Baron Huddleston simply held the Christmas Number of the _Freethinker_ up in Court, and declared that no sane man could deny that it was a blasphemous libel--a contumelious reproach on our Blessed Savior. But that was not the point at issue. Whether the prosecuted publication was a blasphemous libel or not, was a question for the jury at the proper time and in the proper place. All Baron Huddleston was concerned with was whether a fairer trial might be obtained in a higher Court than in a lower one, and before a special jury than before a common one. That question he never touched, and the one he did touch he was bound by legal and moral rules not to deal with at all. Justice North briefly concurred with his learned brother, and refrained from adding anything because he would probably have to try the case at the Old Bailey himself. What a pity he did not reflect on the injustice of publicly branding as blasphemous the very men he was going to try for blasphemy within forty-eight hours! The next morning, February 29, Mr. Ramsey, Mr. Kemp and I duly appeared at the Old Bailey. Before the regular business commenced, I asked his lordship (it was indeed Justice North) to postpone our trial until the next sessions, on the ground that, as my application for a _certiorari_ was only decided the day before, there had been no time to prepare an adequate defence. His lordship refused to grant us an hour for that absurd purpose. Directly I sat down Mr. Poland arose, and begged that our trial might be deferred until the morrow, as his leader, Sir Hardinge Giffard, was obliged to attend elsewhere. This request was granted with a gracious smile and a bland, "Of course, Mr. Poland." What a spectacle! An English judge refusing a fellow-citizen a single hour for the defence of his liberty and perhaps his life, and granting a delay of twenty-four hours to enable a brother lawyer to earn his fee!