a jury of “gentlemen” than from one composed
of workers. This attempt was circumvented by
Mr. Truelove’s legal advisers, who let a
procedendo
go which sent back the trial to the Old Bailey.
The second trial was held on May 16th at the Central
Criminal Court before Baron Pollock and a common jury,
Professor Hunter and Mr. J.M. Davidson appearing
for the defence. The jury convicted, and the brave
old man, sixty-eight years of age, was condemned to
four months’ imprisonment and L50 fine for selling
a pamphlet which had been sold unchallenged, during
a period of forty-five years, by James Watson, George
Jacob Holyoake, Austin Holyoake, and Charles Watts.
Mr. Grain, the counsel employed by the Vice Society,
most unfairly used against Mr. Truelove my “Law
of Population”, a pamphlet which contained,
Baron Pollock said, “the head and front of the
offence in the other [the Knowlton] case”.
I find an indignant protest against this odious unfairness
in the
National Reformer for May 19th:
“‘My Law of Population’ was used
against Mr. Truelove as an aggravation of his offence;
passing over the utter meanness—worthy
only of Collette—of using against a prisoner
a book whose author has never been attacked for writing
it—does Mr. Collette, or do the authorities,
imagine that the severity shown to Mr. Truelove will
in any fashion deter me from continuing the Malthusian
propaganda? Let me here assure them, one and
all, that it will do nothing of the kind; I shall
continue to sell the ‘Law of Population’
and to advocate scientific checks to population, just
as though Mr. Collette and his Vice Society were all
dead and buried. In commonest justice they are
bound to prosecute me, and if they get, and keep,
a verdict against me, and succeed in sending me to
prison, they will only make people more anxious to
read my book, and make me more personally powerful
as a teacher of the views which they attack.”
A persistent attempt was made to obtain a writ of
error in Mr. Truelove’s case, but the Tory Attorney-General,
Sir John Holker, refused it, although the ground on
which it was asked was one of the grounds on which
a similar writ had been granted to Mr. Bradlaugh and
myself. Mr. Truelove was therefore compelled
to suffer his sentence, but memorials, signed by 11,000
persons, asking for his release, were sent to the Home
Secretary from every part of the country, and a crowded
meeting in St. James’ Hall, London, demanded
his liberation with only six dissentients. The
whole agitation did not shorten Mr. Truelove’s
sentence by a single day, and he was not released
from Coldbath Fields’ Prison until September
5th. On the 12th of the same month the Hall of
Science was crowded with enthusiastic friends, who
assembled to do him honor, and he was presented with
a beautifully-illuminated address and a purse containing
L177 (subsequent subscriptions raised the amount to
L197 16s. 6d.).