The most touching letters from the poor came to us from all parts of the kingdom.  One woman, who described herself as “very poor”, and who had had thirteen children and was expecting another, wrote saying, “if you want money we will manage to send you my husband’s pay one week”.  An army officer wrote thanking us, saying he had “a wife, seven children, and three servants to keep on 11s. 8d. a day; 5d. per head per diem keeps life in us.  The rest for education and raiment.”  A physician wrote of his hospital experience, saying that it taught him that “less dangerous preventive checks to large families [than over-lactation] should be taught to the lower classes”.  Many clergymen wrote of their experience among the poor, and their joy that some attempt was being made to teach them how to avoid over-large families, and letter after letter came to me from poor curates’ wives, thanking me for daring to publish information of such vital importance.  In many places the poor people taxed themselves so much a week for the cost of the defence, because they could not afford any large sum at once.

As soon as we were committed for trial, we resigned our posts on the Executive of the National Secular Society, feeling that we had no right to entangle the Society in a fight which it had not authorised us to carry on.  We stated that we did not desire to relinquish our positions, “but we do desire that the members of the Executive shall feel free to act as they think wisest for the interest of Freethought”.  The letter was sent to the branches of the Society, and of the thirty-three who answered all, except Burnley and Nottingham, refused to accept our resignation.  On the Executive a very clever attempt was made to place us in a difficult position by stating that the resignations were not accepted, but that, as we had resigned, and as the Council had no power to renew appointments made by the Conference, it could not invite us to resume our offices.  This ingenious proposal was made by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, who all through the trial did his best to injure us, apparently because he had himself sold the book long before we had done so, and was anxious to shield himself from condemnation by attacking us.  His resolution was carried by five votes to two.  Mr. Haines and Mr. Ramsey, detecting its maliciousness, voted against it.  The votes of the Branches, of course, decided the question overwhelmingly in our favor, but we declined to sit on the Executive with such a resolution standing, and it was then carried—­Mr. Holyoake and Mr. Watts only voting against—­that “This Council acknowledge the consideration shown by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant for the public repute of the National Secular Society by tendering their resignations, and whilst disclaiming all responsibility for the book, ‘Fruits of Philosophy’, decline to accept such resignations”.  So thoroughly did we agree that the Society ought not to be held responsible for our action, that we published the