The _Cheltenham Chronicle_ reported that' George Jacob Holyoake, who was described as a Socialist lecturer, and as the editor of the _Oracle of Reason_, was charged with delivering atheistical and blasphemous sentiments at the Mechanics' Institution, on the evening of the 24th of May. The prisoner had been apprehended last night, after delivering another lecture at the same place. The affair appeared to have caused great sensation, and several persons attended at the office anxious to hear the examination. Amongst the number were some individuals who, without the blush of shame mantling their cheeks, acknowledged themselves friends of the accused.' Mr. Bubb, a local solicitor, a particularly gross and furious man, then said--'I attend to prefer the charge of blasphemy, and I shall take my stand on the common unwritten law of the land. There have been a variety of statutes passed for punishing blasphemy, but these statutes in no way interfere with the common unwritten law. (Mr. Capper nodded assent.)* Any person who denies the existence or providence of God is guilty of blasphemy, and the law has annexed to that offence imprisonment, corporal punishment, and fine. I shall give evidence of the facts, and I shall ask that he be committed for trial, or required to find bail for his appearance. The offence is much aggravated by his having put forth a placard, announcing a lecture on a subject completely innocent, and having got together a number of persons, has given utterance to those sentiments which are an insult to God and man.' * Mr. Bubb took his stand on the common law because his object was to make it a _sessions_ case, and to take it out of the statuary law, which (9 & 10 Will. 3, c. 32) would have required that information of the words spoken should be laid before a justice of the peace within four days from their utterance, and would likewise have implied a trial at the _assizes_. The assertion that I had employed duplicity in choosing my subject was quite gratuitous. Addressing the Bench, I asked whether it was legal in these cases to apprehend persons without the authority of a warrant? Mr. Capper replied, 'Any person in the meeting would be justified in taking you up without the authority of a warrant,' which showed that the Bench were better read in Bigotry than in Blackstone. I said it was customary in other towns, where bigotry existed to a greater degree even than it did there, for information to be laid and a regular notice served. Mr. Capper said, 'We refuse to hold an argument with a man professing the abominable principle of denying the existence of a supreme Being,' This was not a very legal way of getting rid of my objections, but it answered in Cheltenham.