Although the criminal law has in the main been fairly administered and equally enforced against rich and poor there are certain classes of laws which have often, no doubt from worthy motives, been used as engines of oppression against the poor. Of these the Blasphemy Laws are a standing example. Dr. Johnson tells us that: "Laws are formed by the manners and exigencies of particular times and it is but accidental that they last longer than their causes." This is not altogether true. The fact is we have no summary machinery for removing decayed and obsolete laws from the Statute book. We want a legal lethal chamber for these old die-hards, these laws against Sabbath Breaking and Blasphemy and other old world wickednesses. A rich man may break as many Sabbaths and blaspheme at his will but he is never prosecuted for it. In the days of that great and good reformer, Charles Bradlaugh, the Blasphemy Laws were made use of to stifle the poor in the expression of their opinions in a very shameless way. Only last year a man was imprisoned under them in circumstances which gave rise to a good deal of uneasiness. He was no doubt an ill-mannered and unpleasant person, but ill manners and unpleasantness are not crimes, and to make use of these old Blasphemy Laws, to lock up the poor blasphemer only, is one of those things that does extensive harm by giving the blasphemer new fuel for his blasphemy, not only against the sacred things he does not appreciate, but also against the law which he finds ready to do injustice for the protection of these holy mysteries.