Читать книгу Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 2 (of 2) - Bonner Hypatia Bradlaugh - Страница 9

There are other fables told about my father which have enjoyed a popularity almost equal to that of the famous watch episode. There is the allegation – referred to elsewhere – that he compared God with a monkey with three tails. This was started by the Saturday Review in 1867, and was for years continually reappearing in all sorts of unexpected quarters. Indeed, it was repeated as late as 1893 in a book published by Messrs Macmillan.36 Perhaps next in order should come two, which have seen considerable service as arguments in favour of Christianity. One, which I will call the "cob of coal" story, appeared for the first time, as far as I am aware, in a Leeds paper in 1870 in the following form: —

"Some time ago I heard an amusing story about Mr Bradlaugh and one of his audience at Wigan. After concluding his lecture, Mr Bradlaugh called upon any of them to reply to any of his arguments. Lancashire produces a rare crop of shrewd, intelligent working men, and one of these, a collier, rose and spoke somewhat as follows: 'Maister Bradlaugh, me and my mate Jim were both Methodys till one of these infidel chaps cam' this way. Jim turned infidel, and used to badger me about attending class-meetings and prayer-meetings, but one day in the pit a large cob of coal came down on Jim's 'yead.' Jim thought he was killed, and ah! man, but he did holler.' Then turning to Mr Bradlaugh, with a very whimsical, knowing look, he said, 'Young man, there's nowt like cobs of coal for knocking infidelity out of a man.' We need hardly say that the collier carried the audience with him."

This was copied into some London papers, and in the course of a couple of years found its way to Belfast; but the scene of action had now become changed from Wigan to Manchester. Two years later still it appeared at Hereford, under the auspices of the Rev. J. W. Bardsley. The "some time ago" of 1870 had contracted to "recently" by 1874, and there were other small alterations of detail. By 1882, my father said he had contradicted this anecdote fifty times at least. It never had the slightest foundation in fact; it is unadulterated fiction from beginning to end; it is absurdly improbable; and yet there are people so credulous that it has been repeated year after year, and even since my father's death. Indeed, the more childish this class of story, the better it has seemed to satisfy those to whom it was addressed – at least, if we may judge of its success by the number of its repetitions.

The next is the "old woman" anecdote, which I find first in the Christian Age for November 1871, put in this way: —

"The other day Mr Bradlaugh was lecturing in a village in the north of England, and at the close he challenged discussion. Who should accept the challenge but an old, bent woman, in most antiquated attire, who went up to the lecturer and said, 'Sir, I have a question to put to you.' 'Well, my good woman, what is it?' 'Ten years ago,' she said, 'I was left a widow with eight children utterly unprovided for, and nothing to call my own but this Bible. By its direction, and looking to God for strength, I have been enabled to feed myself and family. I am now tottering to the grave; but I am perfectly happy, because I look forward to a life of immortality with Jesus in heaven. That's what my religion has done for me: what has your way of thinking done for you?' 'Well, my good lady,' rejoined the lecturer, 'I don't want to disturb your comfort, but – ' 'Oh! that's not the question,' interrupted the woman, 'keep to the point, sir; what has your way of thinking done for you?'

"The infidel endeavoured to shirk the matter again; the feeling of the meeting gave vent to uproarious applause, and Mr Bradlaugh had to go away discomfited by an old woman."

This pious fiction is said to have originated with the Rev. Mr Bradbury, of Openshaw, in the early part of 1871; but then it was Mr Charles Watts who was the "discomfited infidel," and not Mr Bradlaugh. From the Christian Age the story was passed on, evidently without the slightest examination or care for its accuracy. In 1872 it was repeated in large type by the Methodist Visitor, word for word, "the other day" included. Mr Bradlaugh contradicted this idiotic story again and again; no such incident ever occurred at any of his lectures. In spite of all contradiction, however, the "old woman" remained as lively as ever, and my father was confronted with her year after year, until I almost wonder he had patience left to write a civil denial of her existence.

An anecdote, reported37 to have been told by the Rev. H. W. Webb-Peploe at a meeting of the Bible Society at Stroud in 1875, has at least the merit of being amusing, and certainly came as news to no one more than to the persons chiefly concerned. It was said that Spurgeon "went to Bradlaugh's Hall to reply to the Infidel," and to that end "read two or three texts from the Scriptures… This seems to have astonished Bradlaugh, for he arose, and as he went out of the room, he said, 'What the devil is to be done with that man? he is in earnest.'" If the Rev. Charles Spurgeon ever, by any chance, did go to "Bradlaugh's Hall," he carefully concealed his visit from "Bradlaugh."

Fictions concerning my father's treatment of various members of his family have been very common. By a painful coincidence, my little brother had only been a few days in his grave when my father was asked to contradict a statement that he had "about twelve months ago deserted his wife and children." Six months after, the story ran that he had "caused his mother to die of a broken heart," had been "drummed out of the army," and was "a man whose morality is of no higher stamp than to suffer himself to be the father of an illegitimate child." It is an interesting point in the study of the evolution of slanders, that this most persistent one of Mr Bradlaugh having caused his mother to die of a broken heart should have been started during his mother's lifetime.38 The allegation of deserting his children, and throwing them upon the parish, was published by Mr Edmund Yates in the World in 1875. A little later Mr Yates announced that Mr Bradlaugh had written him contradicting this, and suggesting that if on inquiry Mr Yates found his allegation untrue, he should contribute £5 to the Masonic Boys' School. The editor of the World formally expressed his regret, "unreservedly" withdrew his accusation, and contributed the £5. The suggestion was really the result of the intervention of a mutual friend, as Mr Yates himself acknowledged in 1891, at the same time admitting that the paragraph complained of would have afforded Mr Bradlaugh "ample grounds for appealing to the law, with the likelihood of recovering a large amount in damages."

But the slander thus floated by the World could not be effaced from the public mind, even by Mr Yates' "unreserved withdrawal," and later in the same year it turned up in full vigour at Oxford. A Mr Bendall went to the shop of a grocer and town councillor named Laker to make some purchases, and in the course of conversation he mentioned that he was going to London. Mr Laker asked if he was going to hear Moody and Sankey, but Mr Bendall said that he was not; he was going to hear Mr Bradlaugh. The man Laker then said, "Bradlaugh! he was had up for neglecting his family, and leaving them chargeable to the Union. I read it in the Daily Telegraph." Mr Bendall denied this, and bet Laker £50 to 5s. that it was not true. Laker took the bet, and Mr Bendall then wrote out the statement, which they both signed. The paper was sent to Mr Bradlaugh, who eventually brought an action against Mr Laker.39

The defendant pleaded "Not guilty," but did not attempt to justify his statement or to offer any apology, although Mr Bradlaugh said that, if during the course of the trial an apology had been offered, he should have been quite content.

Mr Grantham, the counsel for the defence, was very coarse in his remarks. He scouted the idea that "Bradlaugh" could be injured by any slander, and told the jury that, if they did give him a verdict, a farthing damages would be "far too much" at which to estimate the damage "Bradlaugh" had sustained. As usual, an endeavour was made to play upon the religious feelings of the jury, and when Mr Bendall was in the witness-box he was questioned as to his belief in Christianity, the Bible, and Jesus Christ, until Mr Justice Field, who heard the case, interfered and reproved the counsel for importing these questions into the case. Mr Grantham suggested the whole thing was a "plant," but this accusation, the judge later on pointed out, might rightfully increase the damages awarded.

Mr Justice Field, in summing up, complimented Mr Bradlaugh on the temperate manner in which he had stated his case, and warned the jury not to allow their judgments to be warped by topics of prejudice which had been introduced into the defendant's case. The jury returned a verdict for Mr Bradlaugh, with £40 damages, which my father at once handed over to a charity.

But even this did not quite kill the slander, and a few years later it began again to show signs of life.

There was no limit of any kind to the fictions circulated about my father, nothing was too vile, nothing too absurd, and nothing too wildly impossible to say about him. As an example of the last, I think it would be difficult to find anything to compare with one written by the London correspondent of the New York Herald, during the illness of the Prince of Wales from typhoid fever. I discovered an allusion to this story in looking over a file of the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle for 1872; reference was made to the Pall Mall Gazette, from which I learned that the London correspondent of the New York Herald professed that he had been informed by a mysterious person "well posted" as to the doing of the different European Secret Societies, that "a certain leader of the English Revolutionists whom he designated 'The English Delescluze,' has over and over again declared from public platforms that the Prince should never sit on the throne, and that lately, when Queen Victoria was seriously ill, the same man had said in an interview with the reporter for a London paper, that although the event of the Sovereign's death occurring just then would without any doubt find the Society not quite prepared to act, yet that they could never lose such an opportunity to advance their cause." "This," commented the Pall Mall Gazette, "is, of course, an atrocious libel on Mr Bradlaugh." "The poison," continued the informant to his gaping listener, the Herald's London correspondent, "was a new and most subtle one. How the Prince was actually dosed he did not pretend to know. The emissary of the International charged with the execution of the sentence of death was left to himself, and was simply bidden to take as few innocent lives in carrying it out as possible; but it was suggested to him to mix the poison with the contents of the Prince's pocket flask, and this it was probable he had succeeded in doing." This marvellous story was received in England with the condemnation and ridicule it deserved, and I only give it here now to show to what lengths prejudice and a disordered imagination will lead a man.

I suppose it is only in the natural course of things that an Irish paper40 should have the funniest story, and one too that seems really original. This journal discovered that in the summer, when Republican agitation was slack, Mr Bradlaugh took up "the more useful – if less profitable – occupation of a bagman." Presumably this was intended to be severely sarcastic; it was only ridiculous and untrue.

At intervals throughout my father's career he has, of course, been constantly accused of being in the pay of some one or other. This kind of accusation is common to most public men, so it was not likely that he would escape. In 1872, when it was asserted that "Bradlaugh and Odger" were sold to "Gladstone and Morley," the Saturday Review thought it no shame to suggest that "perhaps after all there is some truth in the story."41 A few months before, said my father, it was "Bradlaugh was sold to the Tories, now it is the Whigs who have made the purchase;" and he mockingly regretted "that neither party have even paid a deposit." At other times he was charged with being in the pay of the Prince Napoleon, of the Commune, of Sir Charles Dilke, of the Carlists, and, last of all, in that of the Maharajah of Cashmere. This was so much believed in, that a gentleman belonging to a prominent Liberal Club actually told me that it was a good thing my father died poor and in debt, as it, at least, discredited that rumour.

I do not profess to have by any means exhausted the list of fables associated with Mr Bradlaugh's name. I have merely taken a few of the more persistent or more remarkable as examples of the whole.

To expose the misstatements and the travesties of Mr Bradlaugh's opinions would require a whole volume. What he thought and what he taught on theological, political, and social questions will be found in his own writings, and his own words must necessarily be the most effective contradiction or confirmation of the "hearsays" of prejudice.