It is not as defendant that I plead to you to-day--not simply as defending myself do I stand here--but I speak as counsel for hundreds of the poor, and it is they for whom I defend this case. My clients are scattered up and down through the length and breadth of the land; I find them amongst the poor, amongst whom I have been so much; I find my clients amongst the fathers, who see their wage ever reducing, and prices ever rising; I find my clients amongst the mothers worn out with over-frequent child-bearing, and with two or three little ones around too young to guard themselves, while they have no time to guard them. It is enough for a woman at home to have the care, the clothing, the training of a large family of young children to look to; but it is a harder task when oftentimes the mother, who should be at home with her little ones, has to go out and work in the fields for wage to feed them when her presence is needed in the house. I find my clients among the little children. Gentlemen, do you know the fate of so many of these children?--the little ones half-starved because there is food enough for two but not enough for twelve; half-clothed because the mother, no matter what her skill and care, cannot clothe them with the money brought home by the breadwinner of the family; brought up in ignorance, and ignorance means pauperism and crime--gentlemen, your happier circumstances have raised you above this suffering, but on you also this question presses; for these over-large families mean also increased poor-rates, which are growing heavier year by year. These poor are my clients, and if I weary you by length of speech, as I fear I may, I do so because I must think of them more even than I think of your time or trouble. With righteous indignation Mrs. Besant repelled the accusation that The Fruits of Philosophy was an "obscene" publication. She showed by a quotation from Lord Campbell's Act (upon which the prosecution was based) that the statutory definition of obscenity could not possibly be applied to a book containing "dry physiological details put forward in dry, technical language." She next proceeded to urge that the right of free discussion upon matters of public welfare was really attacked by the prosecution: