The History of the Last Trial by Jury for Atheism in England: A Fragment of Autobiography Submitted for the Perusal of Her Majesty's Attorney-General and the British ClergyHolyoake, George Jacob
Philosophy
The History of the Last Trial by Jury for Atheism in England: A Fragment of Autobiography Submitted for the Perusal of Her Majesty's Attorney-General and the British Clergy
Holyoake, George Jacob
Atheism -- England; Holyoake, George Jacob, 1817-1906 -- Trials, litigation, etc.; Trials (Blasphemy) -- England
My arrest caused a demand for atheistical publications in Cheltenham,
which Mr. George Adams, partly as a friend to the free publication of
opinion and partly from personal friendship to me, undertook to supply.
In this he was joined by his wife, Harriet Adams, a very interesting
and courageous woman. On Monday evening, June 13th, at a public meeting
called to consider the grounds of my own apprehension, Mr. George Adams
was arrested for selling No. 25 of the _Oracle_, and forthwith conveyed
to the station-house. As soon as a knowledge of the arrest came to the
ears of Mrs. Adams, she went to the station-house to see her husband,
when she, likewise, was served with a warrant for selling No. 4. Mrs.
Adams says, (the account cannot be better rendered than in her own
words) 'I went to see my husband at the station-house, when I was
detained; a policeman was sent home with me to fetch my infant, and
I had to leave four at home in bed. The man that went with me to the
station was a rude fellow; he was quite abusive to me, telling me I
should be locked up from my husband; saying, it was quite time such
things were put a stop to. When we arrived at the station-house he would
have locked me in a cell with drunken women, had I not sat down in the
yard and insisted on seeing the superintendent, who then allowed me to
sit up in a kitchen, where policemen were coming in and out all night.
My husband was much troubled on my account.' The four children were left
locked up in the house alone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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