The petition was unfortunately heard before the Master of the Rolls, Sir George Jessel, a man animated by the old spirit of Hebrew bigotry, and who had superadded to this the coarse time-serving morality of “a man of the world”, sceptical of all sincerity, and contemptuous of all self-devotion to a cause that did not pay, as of a weakness by which he was himself singularly unassailable.  The treatment I received at his hands on my first appearance in Court told me what I had to expect.  After my previous experience of the courtesy of English judges, I was startled to hear a harsh, loud voice exclaim, in answer to a statement from Mr. Ince.  Q.C., that I appeared in person: 

“Appear in person?  A lady appear in person?  Never heard of such a thing!  Does the lady really appear in person?”

After a variety of similar remarks, delivered in the most grating tones and with the roughest manner, Sir George Jessel tried to attain his object by browbeating me directly.

“Is this the lady?”

“I am the respondent to the petition, my lord—­Mrs. Besant.”  “Then I advise you, Mrs. Besant, to employ counsel to represent you, if you can afford it, and I suppose you can.”

“With all submission to your lordship, I am afraid I must claim my right of arguing my case in person.”

“You will do so if you please, of course, but I think you had much better appear by counsel.  I give you notice that, if you do not, you must not expect to be shown any consideration.  You will not be heard by me at any greater length than the case requires, nor allowed to go into irrelevant matter, as persons who argue their own cases generally do.”

“I trust I shall not do so, my lord; but in any case I shall be arguing under your lordship’s complete control.”

This encouraging beginning may be taken as a sample of the case.  Mr. Ince, the counsel on the other side, was constantly practising in the Rolls’ Court, knew all the judge’s peculiarities, how to flatter and humor him on the one hand, and how to irritate him against his opponent on the other.  Nor was Mr. Ince above using his influence with the Master of the Rolls to obtain an unfair advantage, knowing that whatever he said would be believed against any contradiction of mine:  thus he tried to obtain costs against me on the ground that the public helped me, whereas his client received no subscriptions in aid of his suit; yet as a matter of fact subscriptions had been collected for his client, and the Bishop of Lincoln, and many of the principal clergy and churchmen of the diocese had contributed liberally towards the persecution of the Atheist.