Street, announcing the suspension, of the sale, were taken down; from that day forward all orders received have been punctually attended to, and the sale has been both rapid and steady.  There is, however, one difference between the sale of Knowlton and that of our other literature:  Knowlton is not sold across the counter at Stonecutter Street.  When we were arrested in April 1877, we stopped the sale across counter, and we do not, at present, intend to recommence it.  Our reason is very simple.  The sale across counter does not, in any fashion, cause us any additional risk; the danger of it falls entirely on Mr. Ramsey and on Mr. and Mrs. Norrish; we fail to see that there is any courage in running other people into danger, and we prefer, therefore, to take the risk on ourselves.  We do not intend to go down again and personally sell behind the counter; we thought it right to challenge a prosecution once, but, having done so, we intend now to go quietly on our ordinary way of business, and wait for any attack that may come.

“Meanwhile, we are not only selling the ‘Fruits of Philosophy’, but we also are striving to gain the legal right to do so.  In the appeal from Mr. Vaughan’s decision Mr. Bradlaugh again raises all the disputed questions, and that appeal will be argued as persistently as was the one just decided in our favor.  We are also making efforts to obtain an alteration of the law of libel, and we hope soon to be able to announce the exact terms of the proposed Bill.

“My own pamphlet, on ‘The Law of Population’, is another effort in the same direction.  At our trial the Lord Chief Justice said, that it was the advocacy of the preventive checks which was the assailable part of Knowlton; that advocacy is strongly and clearly to be found in the new pamphlet, together with facts useful to mothers, as to the physical injury caused by over-rapid child-bearing, which Knowlton did not give.  The pamphlet has the advantage of being written fifty years later than the ‘Fruits of Philosophy’, and is more suitable, therefore, for circulation at the present day.  We hope that it may gradually replace Knowlton as a manual for the poor.  While we shall continue to print and sell Knowlton as long as any attempt is made to suppress it, we hope that the more modern pamphlet may gradually supersede the old one.

“If another prosecution should be instituted against us, our prosecutors would have a far harder task before them than they had last time.  In the first place, they would be compelled to state, clearly and definitely, what it is to which they object; and we should, therefore, be able to bring our whole strength to bear on the assailed point.  In the second place, they would have to find a jury who would be ready to convict, and after the full discussion of the question which has taken place the finding of such a jury would be by no means an easy thing to do.  Lastly, they must be quite sure not to make any legal blunders, for they may be sure that such sins will find them out.  Perhaps, on the whole, they had better leave us alone.